Thanksgiving Prayers: 10 Ways To Give Thanks This Year

Thanksgiving 2017 is almost here, and as we prepare for a delicious feast with family and friends, we might get caught up organizing, cooking, and hunting for Black Friday deals have lept from the box stores in our neighborhoods to the devices in our palms, or making sure the relatives from out of town are comfortable. Let’s not let the flurry of Thanksgiving day make us forget to give thanks, to mindfully acknowledge abundance and blessings, which is the whole purpose of Thanksgiving Day.

Give thanks for all the good things that have happened, and the bad things that have been overcome, or could have been way worse. Take a moment, and speak a prayer out loud about how life’s events have found a place in the puzzle of your life. Whether you’re a great public speaker or are terrified of giving a “speech” even if it’s only in front of your family, whether you prefer Bible verses or more secular phrasings, here we share with you a few prayers to get your Thanksgiving Day started.

“Thanksgiving is sweeter than bounty itself. One who cherishes gratitude does not cling to the gift!” - Jalaluddin Rumi

Our Father in Heaven, We give thanks for the pleasure of gathering together for this occasion. We give thanks for this food prepared by loving hands. We give thanks for life, the freedom to enjoy it all and all other blessings. As we partake of this food, we pray for health and strength to carry on and try to live as You would have us. This we ask in the name of Christ, Our Heavenly Father. - Harry Jewell

O God, when I have food, help me to remember the hungry; When I have work, help me to remember the jobless; When I have a home, help me to remember those who have no home at all; When I am without pain, help me to remember those who suffer. And remembering, help me to destroy my complacency; bestir my compassion, and be concerned enough to help; By word and deed, those who cry out for what we take for granted. Amen. -Samuel F. Pugh

Though our mouths were full of song as the sea, and our tongues of exultation as the multitude of its waves, and our lips of praise as the wide-extended firmament; though our eyes shone with light like the sun and the moon, and our hands were spread forth like the eagles of heaven, and our feet were swift as hinds, we should still be unable to thank thee and bless thy name, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, for one thousandth or one ten thousandth part of the bounties which thou has bestowed upon our fathers and upon us. - From the Hebrew Prayer Book

“Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.” - Psalm 95:2

O Gracious God, we give you thanks for your overflowing generosity to us. Thank you for the blessings of the food we eat and especially for this feast today. Thank you for our home and family and friends, especially for the presence of those gathered here. Thank you for our health, our work and our play. Please send help to those who are hungry, alone, sick and suffering war and violence. Open our hearts to your love. We ask your blessing through Christ your son. Amen. - From Celebrating Faith: Year-round Activities For Catholic Families, by Mary Cronk Farrell

Thank you, Father, for having created us and given us to each other in the human family. Thank you for being with us in all our joys and sorrows, for your comfort in our sadness, your companionship in our loneliness. Thank you for yesterday, today, tomorrow and for the whole of our lives. Thank you for friends, for health and for grace. May we live this and every day conscious of all that has been given to us. - From The Catholic Prayer Book, compiled by Msgr. Michael Buckley

This Thanksgiving let those of us who have much and those who have little gather at the welcoming table of the Lord. At this blessed feast, may rich and poor alike remember that we are called to serve on another and to walk together in God's gracious world. With thankful hearts we praise our God who like a loving parent denies us no good thing. - From Songs of Our Hearts, Meditations of Our Souls: Prayers for Black Catholics

We bow our hearts to You and pray. We give You thanks for all You've done, especially for the gift of Jesus, Your Son. For beauty in nature, Your glory we see, for joy and health, friends and family, for daily provision, your mercy and care, these are the blessings You graciously share. So today we offer this response of praise with a promise to follow You all of our days. - Mary Fairchild

O God, We thank you for this earth, our home; for the wide sky and the blessed sun, for the ocean and streams, for the towering hills and the whispering wind, for the trees and green grass. We thank you for our senses by which we hear the songs of birds, and see the splendor of fields of golden wheat, and taste autumn's fruit, rejoice in the feel of snow, and smell the breath of spring flowers. Grant us a heart opened wide to all this beauty; and save us from being so blind that we pass unseeing when even the common thornbush is aflame with your glory. For each new dawn is filled with infinite possibilities for new beginnings and new discoveries. Life is constantly changing and renewing itself. In this new day of new beginnings with God, all things are possible. We are restored and renewed in a joyous awakening to the wonder that our lives are and, yet, can be. Amen. - Walter Rauschenbusch