The coming weeks are filled with traditions that bind us together as a family, friends, neighborhood and/ or people “walking each other home”. Many of these traditions, are created around the dinner table sharing memories, laughs and love while enjoying the fruits of many working hands.
When we sit down at these special meals it’s important to bow our heads with grateful hearts. But when it comes to prayer sometimes words escape us. Here are a few choices you can choose from to use for your Thanksgiving Celebration.
THANKSGIVING BLESSING: O Heavenly Father:
We thank Thee for food and remember the hungry.
We thank Thee for health and remember the sick.
We thank Thee for friends and remember the friendless.
We thank Thee for freedom and remember the enslaved.
May these remembrances stir us to service.
That Thy gifts to us may be used for others. Amen.- “Dear Abby”
A PRAYER FOR THANKS AND BLESSINGS PAST AND PRESENT: Lord God, we gather around this table to humbly thank You for all that You have given us this past year – not just what is on this table, but who is sitting around this table. Thank you for life and laughter, for health and happiness, for relationships and memories. Thank you too, for the lessons learned and the tears we’ve cried because of Your ability to grow us through them. Thank You for Your comfort and Your presence, in light of good days and bad. Thank You for what we have now, for what we had yesterday, and for what You will continue to give tomorrow. Let us never take that for granted, but to always be grateful for every good and perfect gift that comes from You. May we have hearts full of thanksgiving not only today but every day of our lives. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Your Son, Amen. – Cindy McMenamin
TRADITONAL BLESSING: Our Father in Heaven, We give thanks for the pleasure of gathering together for this occasion. We give thanks for this food prepared by loving hands. We give thanks for life, the freedom to enjoy it all ad all other blessings. As we partake of this food, we pray for health and strength to carry on and try to live as You would have us. This we ask in the name of Christ, our heavenly Father. – Harry Jewell
IN GRATITUDE: Thank you, Father, for having created us and given us to each other in the human family. Thank you for being with us in all our joys and sorrows, for your comfort in our sadness, your companionship in our loneliness. Thank you for yesterday, today, tomorrow and for the whole of our lives. Thank you for friends, for health and for grace. May we live this and every day conscious of all that has been given to us. – From The Catholic Prayer Book
Have a happy, healthy, and blessed Thanksgiving!
