CHURCH CHAT #4

 

 

A THANKSGIVING REFLECTION

MAKE EVERY DAY A DAY OF THANKSGIVING

All powerful and ever-living God, we do well always

and everywhere to give you thanks.

Mass Preface

If I am not mistaken, Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday has gained in popularity since I was a child. It is now a "big deal" with many more families, these days!  That, I believe, in the words of Martha Stewart, is a "good thing!" Sadly, though, Catholics have celebrated a "day of thanksgiving" every Sunday over that same period of time,  but it on the other hand is losing in popularity.  We call our weekly "day of thanksgiving" by its Greek name Eucharist, meaning thanksgiving. Just as our national holiday "brings our blood family together" in gratitude, our Eucharist brings our faith family together in gratitude.

Whether it is once a year or once a week, I don't believe that either is enough. I believe that our lives could be enriched deeply if gratitude would be practiced as a spiritual discipline every hour of every day. - "always and everywhere" as the prefaces at Mass put it.

Henry Ward Beecher, an old favorite, put it this way. "Let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds iron, so it will find in every hour, some heavenly blessings." This is the idea behind this whole reflection - running my spiritual metal detector over the world in front of me every day in search of someone to encourage and something for which to be thankful!

This idea of going through the day "panning for blessings" pays off. Ezra Taft Benson said it this way. "The more we express our gratitude to God for our blessings, the more he will bring to our minds other blessings. The more we are aware of to be grateful for, the happier we become. "

Not only do we become more happy when we cultivate gratitude within our own hearts, it also make us holy. William Law made this point. "Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world: it is not he who prays most or fasts most. It is not he who gives the most alms or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice; but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God's goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it."

The ability to be grateful and express thanks is something that must be taught to us, and practiced, as children. When it isn't, we run the possibility of growing up believing that we are entitled to all that we have and more.  Sir John Templeton captured this insight better than I can when he wrote: "How wonderful it would be if we could help our children and grandchildren to learn thanksgiving at an early age. Thanksgiving opens doors. It changes a child's personality. A child is either resentful and negative or thankful. Thankful children want to give, they radiate happiness, they draw people."       

AN AWESOME IDEA FOR YOUR THANKSGIVING/CHRISTMAS GIFT LIST

IF YOU ARE ABLE TO HELP, LET'S DO THIS

IT'S SO GOOD TO DO ON SO MANY LEVELS

This Christmas, instead of giving multiple gifts to people who already have too much, here is an invitation to share some of those gifts by helping give a life-changing education to some deserving kids who have much too little. 

You have the option of naming your gift in honor of one child, a group of children, a favorite teacher or any special person. You can share this story and the pictures on this blog post by printing it off and telling them what you are doing in their honor. For children, it can be a teaching opportunity! If you like what you see, you can recommend this project to others by forwarding this blog post to anyone who might be interested in adding it to their gift list.    

HELP BISHOP FILBERT MHASI FINISH HIS NEW SCHOOL

Why help people on the other side of the world? 

We help them, not just because some of them are Catholic, but because we are Catholic! 

 A CREATIVE APPROACH ADDRESSING THREE MAJOR PROBLEMS

(1) - lowering ongoing generational poverty through education

(2) - reducing Moslem-Christian conflicts through shared early education experiences

(3) - helping immigrants stay home and thrive in their own country through education

Below are some beautiful Tanzanian children, with Bishop Mhasi, eagerly waiting for a new school to be built.

Below is a recent Confirmation Class eagerly awaiting the opening of the new school.

A New "Cardinal Polycarp Grade School" Begins

It Is Over Half-Way Done - So Far, So Good!

$102,000.00     

Has Already Been Raised

Four classrooms, the administration block, clearing the property and a kitchen have been funded. 

WORK HAS STOPPED BECAUSE THE MONEY HAS RUN OUT

$82,000.00 

Is Still Needed To Finish 

Three classrooms, toilets, water tank, septic system and burning chamber still need funding.

This Christmas, You Are Invited To Help Close That Gap! 

Let's Finish This School As Soon As Possible! 

The Kids Are Eager To Get Started!

"I believe deeply in this project! I am certainly planning to do my part!"

Father Knott

The Catholic DIOCESE OF TUNDURU-MASASI, in a majority Muslim area of Tanzania, faces a critical shortage of accessible and quality education facilities. Many children of school-going age travel long distances to attend government schools leading to high absenteeism and dropout rates. Existing schools are overcrowded, with limited classrooms, inadequate teaching resources, and strained teacher-to-pupil ratios. As a result, children are deprived of a strong educational foundation and formation, which negatively affects literacy and numeracy. 

Establishing a Catholic school in Tunduru is therefore essential to provide equitable access to education, reduce dropouts, foster long-term social and economic growth, and build a strong bond between Christians and Muslims from a very early age. Moreover, access to primary education is a foundational human right and critical for long-term community development. Tunduru's largely rural, low income, population is disproportionately affected by educational gaps and perpetuating cycles of poverty.  Establishing a new primary school would help promote equitable access, improve learning conditions, and support onward transitions to secondary education. 

Bishop Filbert Mhasi has a lot on his plate. He has 22 parishes and 140 outstations (mission churches) and lots of distance between each one. I remember clearly how much energy, focus and fund-raising it took for me as a young priest assigned to just 2 mission churches down along the Tennessee border as a young priest.  Since I have "been there and done that" on a much smaller scale, I am honored to help him in whatever way I can!

 

Father Ronald Knott and Bishop Filbert Mhasi

on a visit to Louisville last summer

"We both believe in miracles!"

FOR AN OFFICIAL TAX-DEDUCTION "THANK YOU" LETTER, MAKE YOUR  CHECK OUT TO:

Father John Judie Ministries, Inc

Mention "School Project in Tanzania" in memo line. 

THEN SEND YOUR CHECK TO ME FOR DEPOSIT INTO HIS ACCOUNT

If it is more helpful for your tax purposes, you can date your check January 1, 2026 and we will hold it for deposit until then. 

Rev. Ronald Knott

1271 Parkway Gardens Court

#106

Louisville, KY 40217

CHRIST THE KING: FOR SOME, IT WAS ONE BIG JOKE

 

Above him was an inscription that read, “This is the King of the Jews.” The rulers

sneered at him. The soldiers jeered at him. One of the criminals reviled him.

Luke 23:35-43

 

Surely, you have heard the expression “God’s ways are not our ways!” It means that God thinks differently from the way we human beings think and God does things differently from the way human beings do them.  We see the most dramatic example of just how differently God thinks in today’s feast of Christ the King.  Christ our King is presented to us, stripped and naked on a cross, dying in agony between two common criminals, spit running down his face, a sarcastic note nailed above his head, a “crown” of thorns mockingly hammered into the blood-matted hair of his head for all passers-by to laugh at!  Now that’s not exactly how we picture royalty! We are used to seeing kings powerful, pampered and pompous!  Our King is different, very different! “He bore our infirmities. He endured our sufferings.  He was pierced for our offenses. He was crushed for our sins. His chastisement made us whole. His stripes healed us.” Without doubt “God’s ways are not our ways!” God does not think the way we think!

 

However, this unusual “king” thing is only one example. God has always done this kind of stuff!  Centuries ago, when God began to prepare a people from whom he would send a savior, he chose Abraham and Sara, two childless senior citizens with one foot in the grave!  After choosing this people as "his" people, they end up enslaved in a foreign country.  Even when they are led out of slavery, God picks a man with a speech impediment to lead them. Even his messengers, the prophets, were, more often than not, hesitant, even whiny, sometimes. One had a dirty mouth. One tried to beg off as being too young and inexperienced. Another tried to run and had to be swallowed and spit out on the beach near Nineveh. Their most famous and beloved king, David, was a murderous bigamist!  Even when the birth of the Savior of the world came, he was born not from among the rich and educated, not at a state-of-the-arts birthing center with the best of doctors, but in a barn, to a teen-ager, pregnant before marriage, away from home, after riding for miles on donkey back! It just keeps going and going!  Even before his birth, Mary predicted that God’s ways would not be our ways. “The rich are pulled from their thrones and the poor are lifted up from their manure heaps.” 

 

Again, in his ministry, we see that God’s ways are not our ways. Jesus was a layman, not a clergyman. He was kicked out of the synagogue, rejected and hounded by the religious establishment. His closest companions were a personnel department’s nightmare: a hated tax collector, a liar, two mama’s babies, an agnostic, a former terrorist, and a petty thief, to name a few!  His closest friends were a motley collection of the marginal type: prostitutes, lepers, the un-churched, women and children, and the dirt poor of every kind.  The gossip about him was that he “welcomed sinners and ate with them,” helping him earn the reputation of being a “glutton and drunkard.”  That’s certainly not what most people expect of God! But, “God’s ways are not our ways.”  Even his final “big entry” into Jerusalem was not in a gleaming chariot with white horses or on a golden throne carried by slaves. No, he enters on the back of a jackass as people chanted, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.”  

 

No wonder most people missed this king. They were looking in the wrong direction. They thought they knew how God would act. They thought he would act as they would act.  As one preacher put it years ago, “In the beginning, God created us in his own image and likeness and ever since we have been trying to create God in our image and likeness!” Instead of thinking as God thinks, we try to make God think the way we think. No wonder we experience God as absent, more than present, in our lives! We keep trying to make God reasonable, we keep looking for God among the rich, the beautiful, the self-righteous and the powerful!  No wonder Christianity is dead in countries where power, prestige and money are prized, but alive and well and growing in countries where the poor, the powerless and the suffering live. The latter understand how God thinks!  The former is still trying to get God to think as they think! The rich and powerful and beautiful and so-called smart people think they can do without God. The poor and powerless know that they need God!

 

One the most common ways we do not think as God thinks is when we think that God is absent when things go wrong and present only when things go right.  Looking back over my own life, I can say with confidence that it was during those times that God seemed most absent is when God was actually most active! I could not see it at the time, but it is crystal clear from hindsight! (1) As I look back over my life, especially over a very painful childhood lived out in an atmosphere of psychological abuse at home and in minor seminary, I remember the pain of it and I would not want to go through it again. However, I have come to realize that God was certainly using it to prepare me for helping hundreds of others as a priest. I can say with certainty that going through those experiences, and the triumph over them, has helped my effectiveness as a priest more than any other thing! (2) When I was sent to the home missions right after ordination, I certainly felt at the time that God seemed to have abandoned me. In reality, looking back, God was extremely active at that time in my life. God was preparing me for my life’s work as a preacher, as a "revitalizer" of parishes and as a person sensitive to religious prejudice. Looking back, I have realized over and over again, that that period of my life was preparing me for what I have been doing ever since!

 

On this Feast of Christ the King, a feast in honor of the king that is the reverse of how we think of kings, we are challenged to think differently about God. Its message is simple: God’s ways are not our ways, it is precisely when we feel God most absent, is when God is most present! So, I say to all of you who have things going on in your life that you don’t like, things that make you feel that God is absent, just wait! Trust God! I believe that you will someday realize that, even in times of loss and tragedy, God is very active.  Scriptures tell the story in a million ways: God’s ways are not our ways! Contrary to popular opinion, breakdown is a sure sign of a breakthrough, there is a crown on the other side of every cross, resurrection on the other side of death!   That heart attack may just wake you up to what’s really important! That relationship breakup may be the best thing that ever happened to you! That firing may just take you to the best job you ever had! That unexpected death may bring you closer to others!  Ugly ducklings today may just turn out to be swans tomorrow! Getting what you want may turn out to be your worst nightmare! That child that disappointed you most may just turn out to be the child that makes you most proud! That feeling of God being absent, may be the beginning of feeling closer to God than ever! Never underestimate the value of a so-called tragedy!  God’s ways are not our ways!