Thanksgiving Prayers

Thanksgiving Day

November 28, 2019

Click here for special Thanksgiving readings

Today, in Mercy, our Thanksgiving readings are so beautiful! Please take some time to read them. Let them bless you wherever you are in life’s journey.

Throughout this Thanksgiving week, I have prayed by letting your names flow through my mind with deep gratitude. Every life that touches us leaves some kind of blessing or challenge. I am thankful for the gift each one of you has given me.

I know that many of you carry some heaviness through these days – the loss or illness of loved ones, challenges with your own health, or some of the other sorrows life weaves into our joy.

May God reach through any burden you bear to convince you of his Presence in your life,  to assure you with the blessing of our first reading (which I have adapted slightly).

And now, bless the God of all,
who has done wondrous things on earth;
Who fosters our good from our mother’s womb,
and fashions us according to his mysterious plan for us!
May God grant us joy of heart
and may peace abide among us;
May God’s goodness toward us endure
to deliver us to joy
even through clouds of any passing sorrow.

May you and your loved ones be abundantly blessed on this Thanksgiving!

Music: I Thank My God

Thanksgiving Prayer

Blessed God, Great Spirit
Your Breath fills all creation.
It fills this country, making sacred
the land, the water, the sky.
It fills each of us,
making us all Your children,
sisters and brothers of many roots and colors,
who blessedly call ourselves “Americans.”

We give thanks to You today
for Your many gifts to us,
Your beauty and depth are mirrored to us
in the many faiths and cultures
that enrich us as a people.
Help us to reverence our diversity
as an expression of Your Divine Creativity.

We are a people with many names.
We thank You especially
for the names that have shaped us as Americans:
Washington, Lincoln, King –
Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth –
Geronimo, Joseph of the Nez Percé, Sacajawea.

We thank You for those whose names
have blended into the silence of history;
for the Native American who held this land
as a sacred trust;
for pilgrim, pioneer and patriot,
for suffragette, soldier, public servant, and saint…
for those in our own families
who first came – full of hope – to these shores,
and for the searching immigrants who come here now
to find the dream of peace.

We have many hopes and fears, dear God,
as a nation, as individuals, and as world citizens.
On this Thanksgiving Day, move us to bless and
reverence one another as sisters and brothers
and to renew ourselves ,
as your children, in the grace
of awareness, respect, justice and mercy.

Amen.