Day: November 28, 2024

November 28, 2024
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Sirach 50:22-24
Psalm 145:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Luke 17:11-19

Amidst the violence and destruction of the American Civil War in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation establishing Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday. He wrote, “No human counsel hath devised nor any mortal hand worked out these great blessings. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged with one heart and voice by the whole American People … that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to God for singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation.”