For many people, Thanksgiving is the most truly American of our national holidays, encompassing in its simple and beautiful traditions the highest ideals and greatest aspirations of our country. We believe that these ideals include the need to give thanks to our Creator and so we pray:

O gracious God, from You have come a flood of gifts to us. With grateful hearts we thank You this Thanksgiving Week for the many ways You sustain and nourish us, through the gift of life itself, our faith, family, friends and the fruits of the earth. We thank You for showing us how to return thanks by lives of service, by deeds of hospitality, by kindness to the stranger and by concern for each other. May we always be grateful for Your coming into our lives with surprises of joy, growth and unconditional love. We make this prayer through Jesus your Son and the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

By Fr. Bernard Musondoli

Dn 12:1-3 / Heb 10:11- 14, 18 / Mk 13:24-32

For the last two thousand years (and even before,) people have speculated about the end of time. It seems that human nature leads people to speculate, especially about when the world might come to an end. Writers have been making money by imaging how it might all end. Today there is a popular series of novels that has attracted a lot of readership that feeds the imagination of what it will be like and how people might be involved in those end times.

The International Formation Commission (IFC), made up of Fr. Emmanuel Kahindo (Vicar General-Rome), Fr. Richard Lamoureux (USA), Fr. Iulian Prajescu (Romania) and Fr. Jean-Paul Sagadou (Burkina Faso), has just completed a week-long working session (5-13 November, 2012), in Worcester (USA).

We are grateful to our American confrères for welcoming us with such warmth and generosity during our stay in the community at Emmanuel House on the campus at Assumption College in Worcester.

Abducted by mystery men
In the Congo that you love,
Protected by the One above
With his strenth even then.
In the community of Mbau.
From Butembo many miles,
The victims of human wiles,
On the outskirts of North Kivu.