Fr. Stan Kolasa, ss.cc., Director of Development

Every day is a day for which we may be grateful. However, at this time of year, we take time to celebrate “Thanksgiving”. It is not just a good holiday, but an invitation for “thanks-giving”.  So often in prayer, surrounded by hundreds of Haitian people who had so little, the words of thanksgiving sounded so clear and loud; so consistent and true. “Thank you God for all that we have.”  But often, I reflected, they didn’t HAVE much. Yet, for what they had they were truly thankful. We never had to worry about one family or one person going without food, because what they had they shared. One fish can make a lot of soup and one part of a pig, properly prepared, can feed a very large crowd. And so they did.  Thanks in giving.

 We at Sacred Hearts Missions, each of us no matter what our work, support those who are on the line offering hope that often looks like rice or flour or canned food or medicine or education or even song.  Naturally, we spread the Word and its gift of unconditional love; but along with that we make it…, well, not necessarily flesh, but tangible. We make it medicine and health care in our clinic in India; we make it places of worship and gathering in Mexico; we make it words of faith and hope in our retreat house; we make it flesh in the ways we, as Sacred Hearts Missions, minister in our parishes in New England, in Texas, in Washington and in New Mexico. Where we are, hands reach out to those in need so that they may never feel as if our backs are turned to them as we speak the Word but do not make it flesh. Help us make it flesh, even if that flesh is not flesh, but bread, or hope, or healing.

 In our missions in the Bahamas, where people often think simply of palm trees and cool drinks, we offer rice and grits, sardines and oil - things that may not be a celebration for our holiday tables but are a celebration of life on theirs. Yet, with all we do, we can do more and better. Naturally we need help to do these things. We need prayerful support. We need more vocations, both lay and religious, and we need financial support of all kinds. And, everyone can help somehow. Nothing is too small, and nothing is too big. We are all missionaries together, each of us receiving an invitation to do what we can do – as well as we are able to do it. Too many feel as if they are left out in the cold.  To those, we must offer warmth and hope. (By the way, some of the notes you have written to me have been “bread”. Some of the prayers you have requested have given me and Fr. Gabriel wonderful opportunities to join our hearts with yours, and yes, we read them ALL). That is the message that we try so hard to give the world from the Heart of Christ. The Lord says to each of our hearts, “I read them all.” As part of our mission, I mean our mission together, yours and mine, we try in as many ways as possible to help people hear this message of unconditional love from our God in Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit.  So, at this time of thanksgiving, give thanks in as many ways as you can and as you are able; help us to help others to be thankful that, in this world of so much, their basket is not left empty. Even if we can’t fill all the baskets of peoples’ needs, together we can do so much more than we could ever do alone.  I thank God for you. We at Sacred Hearts Missions thank God for you, and wish for you a Thanksgiving where your hearts are filled because you too are in mission with us…missionaries, together.