In anticipation of tomorrow’s holiday, we are offering a few prayers that you may find helpful in your celebration. The first prayer can be used if you are gathering with loved ones and another that can be used even if you are marking the occasion alone. No matter what the holiday looks like, God has given us abundant blessings! May you be able to focus on those gifts today and always.
Crowded With Gratitude
Lord God,
Our hearts are crowded with gratitude
as we celebrate the feast of Thanksgiving.
We have come to this our feasting table
with great joy and eagerness,
for we are truly grateful to you, our God,
for all that we have been given.
We pause now and, in silent prayer,
do thank you for the great generosity of Your gifts.
We also thank one another for gifts –
especially for the gifts of love and affection
that we have freely shared.
We are thankful
for all who are present at this our feast
as well as for all those who have labored in love
in order to bring this dinner to our table.
May You, our God, bless this Thanksgiving feast
and all of us who shall share it
in your holy name.
~ Hays, Edward, Prayers for the Domestic Church: A Handbook for Worship in the Home
Thank you, God
For the laughter of the children, for my own life breath,
for the abundance of food on this table, for the ones who prepared this sumptuous feast,
for the roof over our heads, the clothes on our backs, for our health, and our wealth of blessings,
for this opportunity to celebrate with family and friends,
for the freedom to pray these words without fear, in any language, in any faith, in this great country,
whose landscape is as vast and beautiful as her inhabitants.
Thank you, God, for giving us all these. Amen.
~ Rabbi Naomi Levy
Giving Thanks
For the expanding grandeur of creation, worlds known and unknown, galaxies beyond galaxies, filling us with awe and challenging our imaginations:
We give thanks this day.
For this fragile planet earth, its times and tides, its sunsets and seasons:
We give thanks this day.
For the joy of human life, its wonders and surprises, its hopes and achievements:
We give thanks this day.
For our human community, our common past and future hope, our oneness transcending all separation, our capacity to work for peace and justice in the midst of hostility and oppression:
We give thanks this day.
For high hopes and noble causes, for faith without fanaticism, for understanding of views not shared:
We give thanks this day.
For all who have labored and suffered for a fairer world, who have lived so that others might live in dignity and freedom:
We give thanks this day.
For human liberty and sacred rites; for opportunities to change and grow, to affirm and choose:
We give thanks this day.
We pray that we may live not by our fears but by our hopes, not by our words but by our deeds.
We give thanks this day.
~ O. Eugene Pickett
For this Earth, Our Home
O God, we thank you for this earth, our home;
For the wide sky and the blessed sun, for the salt sea and the running water,
for the everlasting hills and the never-resting winds, for trees and the common grass underfoot.
We thank you for our senses by which we hear the songs of birds, and see the splendor of the summer fields,
and taste of the autumn fruits, and rejoice in the feel of the snow, and smell the breath of the spring.
Grant us a heart wide open to all this beauty, and save our souls from being so blind
that we pass unseeing when even the common thornbush is aflame with your glory.
O God our creator, Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
~ Walter Rauschenbusch