Thanksgiving is important in times of trouble

This Thanksgiving, it is especially important for Americans to be grateful -- for their freedoms.

One might ask how we can be grateful in such troubled times? How can we celebrate Thanksgiving?

I need only to point to two of America's greatest patriots and heroes, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Lincoln called upon the nation to celebrate a "Day of Thanksgiving" in the midst of the Civil War. He reminded the people of the Union to give thanks to God in good times and in bad.

How right he was.

There has always been evil in the world, whether today, during World War II or in the days of the Civil War. Unfortunately, there is something in the human heart -- an evil impulse. Preceding the Civil War, this evil impulse was to force people into slavery instead of freeing them into goodness and kindness.

During World War II, it was Hitler's fanaticism, and today, this same evil impulse is at work in the minds and hearts of terrorists. However, more importantly, the human heart has a more powerful impulse. This is an impulse of gratefulness. It is the ability to be thankful for freedom even in difficult times. This impulse leads us to keep liberty alive and to stop those who would force free people into fear and terror.

It is this impulse that needs to be celebrated this Thanksgiving. We need to embolden it and share it with our children.

Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined this in a stirring address to Congress a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the address he describes "the four freedoms" for everyone in the world -- freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

Roosevelt said, "This nation has placed its destiny in the hands, heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God, our strength is our unity of purpose."

In this Thanksgiving season, Americans can come together with a unity of purpose and pray to God to bring peace and justice to the world. Pray to the good Lord in this Thanksgiving season for our "four freedoms," and pray that soon everyone in the world will share in those freedoms.

This Thanksgiving share with your children the joy in your heart freedom brings. Let your children know you are grateful. Share with your children the need to honor those who fight for our freedoms and protect and preserve America as our "sweet land of liberty."

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

Father Val Peter is executive director of Girls and Boys Town, the original Father Flanagan's Boys' Home, in the Village of Boys Town, Neb. and in California, New York, Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Nevada, Rhode Island, Iowa, Philadelphia, Georgia and Washington, D.C.