Last week, we celebrated Thanksgiving as a nation. Most of us had great feasts on that day with our families, friends, and loved ones. Thanksgiving is a time when we give thanks for the blessings and the abundance that we have in our lives, in which we give thanks to God. Yet, there is also a harsh reality out there. There is a lot of tension in the world with the threat of a conflict with North Korea. There is a lot of tension in our own country with a harsh societal and political climate. In this reality, many of us are not sure where the world is going. There is a lot of fear and uncertainty. I saw a quote from the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who himself was killed by the Nazi at the end of the Second World War. Bonhoeffer stated: “God does not love some ideal person, but rather human beings just as we are, not some ideal world, but rather the real world.” Jesus addresses a reality in the Gospel today when he says that all kinds of bad things will come upon his followers – they will be seized and persecuted, they will handed over to the prisons and the synagogues. We are called to be true to the Gospel in good times and in bad times, in our joys and in our sufferings. We are called to be a follower of Jesus no matter what. And because of our life of discipleship, we may become a target. In this holiday season where we are called to give thanks, let us thank those who suffered for their faith so that they could pass down that faith to us.
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