Inside the Core

Inside the Core this week, we are thankful for a semester nearly completed in which we got to teach some of the most important texts in the world, from millennia in the past to the present. We are grateful to be able to explore the values and meaning expressed in these texts, as we consider how they apply to today’s very troubled world.

Pope Francis wrote this beautiful expression of the origin of thanksgiving – not legends about the start of the holiday in America, but a spiritual understanding of the act of thanksgiving itself. The Holy Father says, "The prayer of thanksgiving always begins here: to recognize that grace precedes us. We were thought of before we learned how to think; we were loved before we learned how to love; we were desired before our hearts conceived a desire. If we view life like this, then "thank you" becomes the driving force of our day."

Also, as November is Indigenous People’s month, here follows a beautiful prayer, taken from the Jesuitresource.org, offering prayers from native American peoples:

Only For a Short While
Oh, only for so short a while you
have loaned us to each other,
because we take form in your act of drawing us,
and we take life in your painting us,
and we breathe in your singing us.

But only for so short a while
have you loaned us to each other.
Because even a drawing cut in obsidian fades,
and the green feathers, the crown feathers,
of the Quetzal bird lose their color,
and even the sounds of the waterfall
die out in the dry season.

So, we too, because only for a short while
have you loaned us to each other.

- Aztec Prayer

In light of all these words, we in the Core wish everyone a blessed, relaxing, and peaceful Thanksgiving.

Categories: Faith and Service