I always try to be grateful for all of the blessings that I and my family enjoy. A few months ago, a visiting priest took it to the next level. After his homily about the three scriptural readings, he told everybody to stand up.
“Okay everybody, say ‘Thank you, Jesus,'” he instructed. Which, of course, was followed by a mass muttering from the congregation.
“”Let’s try that again,” he challenged, “Thank you, Jesus!” This time, since people had a better idea as to what to expect, the response was louder and more in synch.
“You know,” he continued, “saying that only takes about a second and a half to two seconds. I know, because I timed it. I keep a stopwatch by my chair for timing commercials, and I decided to time that. One and a half to two seconds.”
Since then, I have found myself thanking Jesus on a fairly regular basis and it seems natural. I am thankful for all my blessings.
However, the other day I thought about a few more things. Blessings are the antithesis of sin, but there are some common traits. For example, with sin, we speak of sins of commission (I stole that candy bar) and sins of omission (I didn’t treat that homeless person with respect).
I believe the same is true of blessings. There are blessings of commission (Thank you God for letting me pass that Trigonometry test), but there are also blessings of omission. We won’t know about these in this life–if ever. There are disasters we never faced and never knew that we almost faced them. There are temptations we would have succumbed to, but we were kept from being aware of them. There are diseases and heartbreak that we never had to face. God shields us from many things and we don’t even realize it.
Thank you, Jesus.
sfnowak 