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Thanksgiving Letter 2015

Loaves and Fishes
by Rita Corbin

We hoped for a response from our Christmas letter of appeal for approval for another year at Casa Juan Diego.

Our readers voted a resounding “yes.”

You responded positively and generously, getting us off to a good start in 2015.

Thanksgiving gets short shrift, not only in our acquisitive culture, but  in non-acquisitive Casa Juan Diego culture, where we no sooner survive one crisis before there is another so devastating that it inhibits giving thanks for resolving the first.

We allow ourselves to be held hostage by crises, acting as if we are the only people in Houston who can solve crises. Such is not the case.

We tend to be spiritual beggars, always seeking prayers for guidance of the Spirit, but not hanging around for “thanks,” joining the nine lepers who went away thankless with enough ingrates to form a baseball team, which takes nine players.

New Year’s Resolution

Our New Year’s resolution is cut out for us. Start each day by giving thanks for you and the help of the Holy Spirit. We must get over just asking, as prayer has three other purposes besides petition. We must overcome the spiritual “gimmies.”

Our distractions re so great that we forget to thank the poor who come to us for giving us the opportunity to live the Gospel.

So number one: Many thanks to the “good God” (as the Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney prayed) for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Many thanks to all of you who keep us going year after year, and for not getting tired of us mendicants.

Parishes, congregations, religious communities and some very special people like yourselves are owed a special thanks for allowing us to be generous with the poor of Casa Juan Diego and for allowing us to serve people on January 25, February 25, and March 25 also.

As an old friend says, “You heart is where your money is,” or as Peter Maurin said, “You only take with you what you hve given away Or as the saying in Spanish goes, “Lo que no se da, se pierde.”

DEO GRATIAS

Gratefully,

Mark and Louise and all at Casa Juan Diego

Houston Catholic Worker, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, January-February 2015.