Thanksgiving Day 2012 is a day like no other because it follows a national election and parallels a time of almost civil war on many issues: religious liberty, protection of life for the unborn under the 14th Amendment, foreign policies that divide the country, military involvment in Iraq and Afganistan with the back-burner war of the US with Red China on civil liberties and domestic-foreign trade deficits.
How is this time like the times of 1863 when the first Thanksgiving day was made a national holiday by "Proclamation" by the President of the United States of America? Here are President Lincoln's own words that is very much in the style of the Gettisberg address. President Lincoln did not delegate this procolamation to someone else to write. He wrote it himself which shows the greaetness of the man:
"The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and heathful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come. Others have abeen added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitualy insensible to the ever watchful providene of Almighty God.
"In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and serverity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military confilct; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttel or the ship; the axe has enlarged the boarders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as for the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Populations has steadily increased, notwithstaning the waste that been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permittied to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
"No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me to fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverenttly and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.
"I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning to foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as the day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our Beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverance and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perversness and disobedience, commend His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in this lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Diivne purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and Union.
"I testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and cause the Seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Indepenence of the Untied Stetes in eighty-eight.
By the President: Abraham Lincom
William H. Seward, Secratry of State."
There is no sense of separation of church and state in this Proclamation.
God is honored, relied upon, thanked and praised. ON Thanksgiving Day in our Nation today, how much is about Thanking God? Yes, it is a time to be Thankful for family love, food on the table, our jobs, our health, our love for one another; but Abraham Lincoln goes one step further and tells us to look for the "source from which they came." To him "They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God." During these times, the ACLU wants no mention of Christ or have figures of the baby Jesus at Christmas on public ground..where you cannot display the Ten Commandments at Court Houses and cannot have prayer in public schools, this mention of God as the source of all our blessings is going out the window..as just not politically or fashionably correct. The fact is true though that without God, there would be nothing for us to be thankful for at all because ALL comes from Him initially: our life, our being, our health, our parents, our very need to thank God: all these "are the gracious gifts of the Most High God".
Therefore, for the Supreme Court to deny the 51 millions unborn lives to be born is what President Lincoln would call "sin": "They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy." What President has used the word, "sin" during our life time? 51 million lives lost is truly our national "sin". We are only second to atheistic Red China who has 400 million abortions in the last 30 years. How is it that we are Second in the World to Red China in number of abortions in the last three decades. They do not believe in God. But we do. Or do we?
Let us be thankful for all the blessing from God as so lovely said by Abraham for us to celebrate today in Thanksgiving and Praise to our Beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens."
Peace and love and thanks be to God! Pio
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