From Gratitude to Hopeful Waiting: Thanksgiving Blessings and the First Week of Advent

Baskets of Food and Joy for Thanksgiving

Each year on this day before Thanksgiving, I am blessed to be the principal celebrant of a Mass at Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro, during which the school’s annual Thanksgiving Food Drive comes to its conclusion. During the Mass, students present overflowing Thanksgiving baskets (and multiple grocery gift cards to go with them) for me to bless, and these are then distributed to those in need in the Greater Attleboro area. It is so moving each year to see the overwhelming generosity displayed by the sight of all the baskets being brought forward and presented by the students.

Giving Thanks for all of God’s Blessings

As we enter this week of gratitude, I want to share a special Thanksgiving message with all of you. No matter the language we speak or the traditions we cherish, this season reminds us of God’s enduring goodness and the many blessings we share as one family of faith. Below, you will find brief Thanksgiving reflections in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. (Please click on the buttons under the photo.) May they strengthen your spirit and bring peace to your lives as we give thanks for all of God’s blessings. 

The Season of Hopeful Waiting Begins. Advent.

As you may recall from last week’s blog, I have invited the five Deans of the Diocese to offer reflections for the Feast of Christ the King and the Sundays of Advent. Last week, Father Riley Williams offered a reflection on Christ the King. This week, Father Thomas Washburn, Dean of the Cape & Islands, offers a reflection on the first Sunday of Advent and the start of a new Liturgical year for the Church. The beginning of Advent invites us into a season of hopeful waiting, calling us to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ and to embrace the light that breaks into our world with His birth.

A Wake-Up Call

In everyday life, we use the phrase “wake-up call” to describe a moment that jolts us into awareness—something that shakes us out of complacency and forces us to pay attention. It might be a doctor’s report that reminds us to take our health seriously, a near-miss accident that makes us slow down, or a painful conflict that reminds us not to take relationships for granted. A wake-up call interrupts life as usual and whispers urgently: “Open your eyes. Don’t sleep through what’s important.”

That is exactly how the Church begins Advent. As we begin our journey, Jesus gives us a spiritual wake-up call: “Stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.” (Matthew 24:42) It’s striking that as we step into a season so associated with lights, music, decorations, and the warm glow of approaching Christmas, the Gospel begins with urgency – an invitation to clear away the fog that settles over our spiritual vision. Advent is not a sentimental countdown. It is a season of awakening.

St. Paul echoes the alarm: “It is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.” (Romans 13:11-12)

Spiritual sleep doesn’t mean sinning horribly. It means drifting. It means going through the motions. It means becoming numb, distracted, too busy to notice the hidden ways God is present in our days. It’s the kind of sleep that happens slowly, quietly—until suddenly we realize we are not fully alive.

Jesus warns that the people in Noah’s time were doing nothing wrong. They were eating, drinking, marrying; living ordinary life. The problem wasn’t what they were doing; it was what they were not doing: they were not paying attention. God was acting, and they missed it. Advent asks the question: Are we awake? Awake to grace? Awake to the needs of others? Awake to the presence of Christ in our daily lives?

The season invites us to prepare—not by adding more chaos, but by making more room.

Readiness looks like silence, prayer, forgiveness, patience, generosity, slowing down enough so that God can speak and we can hear. 

This Advent, may we refuse to sleepwalk through these sacred days. May we hear the wake-up call plainly and respond with open hearts. The night is nearly over. The dawn is breaking. So, wake up!

Come, Lord Jesus.

May this holy season inspire each of us to slow down, listen deeply, and embrace the grace-filled opportunities Advent offers to draw closer to Christ and one another.

Sincerely.

+Bishop da Cunha