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Celebrate Thanksgiving and the Eucharist. Visit our Eucharist feature and Eucharist forum. Find thanksgiving prayers and and read stories on giving thanks, and send e-cards.

Seasonal Features
Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving Prayers
Share what you are thankful for during the Thanksgiving holiday with these special prayers: For Appreciation of Each Other, Prayer at Harvest, Thanksgiving Table Prayer, In GratitudeThanksgiving Prayer and Prayer of Thanksgiving.

Reflections on Gratitude
From AmericanCatholic Radio
Fr. Mark Thibodeaux talks about how Thanksgiving encourages us to reflect with gratitude on what is happening in our lives.



Click here to listen to Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk's reflections on gratitude.

Saints at the Dinner Table  
from St. Anthony Messenger magazine
Looking for saints who shared her love of cooking, this mother discovered several whom she would like to invite to her house.

What Are Your Blessings?
from St. Anthony Messenger magazine Here are some suggestions for ways in which we can remind ourselves that we are truly blessed.

Giving Thanks to God at Thanksgiving
Days observed and celebrated by secular society can be events to be used to make connection to important faith-related concepts for children and families. Jeanne Hunt, author of the St. Anthony Messenger Press Holy Bells and Wonderful Smells: Year-Round Activities for Classrooms and Families, suggests ways parents and teachers can make Thanksgiving come alive for children in faith-filled and fun experiences.


 


 



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Rose Philippine Duchesne: Born in Grenoble, France, of a family that was among the new rich, Philippine learned political skills from her father and a love of the poor from her mother. The dominant feature of her temperament was a strong and dauntless will, which became the material—and the battlefield—of her holiness. She entered the convent at 19 and remained despite their opposition. As the French Revolution broke, the convent was closed, and she began taking care of the poor and sick, opened a school for street urchins and risked her life helping priests in the underground.
<p>When the situation cooled, she personally rented her old convent, now a shambles, and tried to revive its religious life. The spirit was gone, and soon there were only four nuns left. They joined the infant Society of the Sacred Heart, whose young superior, St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, would be her lifelong friend. In a short time Philippine was a superior and supervisor of the novitiate and a school. But her ambition, since hearing tales of missionary work in Louisiana as a little girl, was to go to America and work among the Indians. At 49, she thought this would be her work. With four nuns, she spent 11 weeks at sea en route to New Orleans, and seven weeks more on the Mississippi to St. Louis. She then met one of the many disappointments of her life. The bishop had no place for them to live and work among Native Americans. Instead, he sent her to what she sadly called "the remotest village in the U.S.," St. Charles, Missouri. With characteristic drive and courage, she founded the first free school for girls west of the Mississippi.
</p><p>It was a mistake. Though she was as hardy as any of the pioneer women in the wagons rolling west, cold and hunger drove them out—to Florissant, Missouri, where she founded the first Catholic Indian school, adding others in the territory. "In her first decade in America, Mother Duchesne suffered practically every hardship the frontier had to offer, except the threat of Indian massacre—poor lodging, shortages of food, drinking water, fuel and money, forest fires and blazing chimneys, the vagaries of the Missouri climate, cramped living quarters and the privation of all privacy, and the crude manners of children reared in rough surroundings and with only the slightest training in courtesy" (Louise Callan, R.S.C.J., <i>Philippine Duchesne</i>).
</p><p>Finally, at 72, in poor health and retired, she got her lifelong wish. A mission was founded at Sugar Creek, Kansas, among the Potawatomi. She was taken along. Though she could not learn their language, they soon named her "Woman-Who-Prays-Always." While others taught, she prayed. Legend has it that Native American children sneaked behind her as she knelt and sprinkled bits of paper on her habit, and came back hours later to find them undisturbed. She died in 1852 at the age of 83.</p> What should I do about my son’s Jewish wedding? O Wisdom of our God Most High, guiding creation with power and love: Come to teach us the path of knowledge!

 
PICK OF THE DAY
DVD! The World of St. Francis
The World of St. Francis: Past, Present and Future includes three programs on the life, times and influence of St. Francis.

 
CATHOLIC GREETINGS
Thanksgiving
In America, Thanksgiving is one of the rare times when religion and civics intersect. Let us always give thanks and praise ...



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