This past summer I tested the wisdom of having a “news break”, and canceled our newspaper subscriptions. Summer for my wife and I centered on the cottage, our 3 adult children and their partners, 5 grandchildren, and 2 big dogs. Everyone seemed to enjoy cottage life. Thankfully they were not all there at the same time.

After summer, the gloomies resumed.  We renewed our newspapers and began watching TV news. One journalist summed up my thoughts.

“It’s hard not to feel surrounded right now. There’s the pandemic we’re immersed in, of course, but also the climate emergency engulfing us. Authoritarianism rears its ugly head all around, while our own democratic institutions struggle to keep the trolls away.”

However, 2 days after the Canadian federal elections, these words of the Entrance Antiphon of September 22 rejuvenated my spirit:

“I am the salvation of the people, says the Lord. Should they cry to me in any distress, I will hear them, and I will be their Lord for ever.”

Now as we celebrates Thanksgiving, I become more grateful. People are becoming double vaccinated. A major drug maker, has created a new pill, not an injection or IV, that can be taken to fight COVID 19 at home

Also, the long jailing of 2 Canadian men, a Chinese woman, and the USA government has finally ended.

And at the end of September, via the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, huge numbers of Canadians learned of the injustices suffered by generations of Indigenous people.

n conclusion, Jesus gave us this simple Thanksgiving prayer of gratitude:

“Love the Lord…and your neighbour as yourself.”