Happy Thanksgiving!

I am wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving today as I will probably not be writing tomorrow. There is a long but beautiful Mass I usually go to that takes most of the morning and then dinner and a football game. I hope all of my readers have a blessed, joyful holiday.
Here is a good thought from James Martin, S.J.'s book on "Becoming Who You Are: Insights on the True Self from Thomas Merton and other saints:

I don't think that you can be a true contemplative without being utterly honest before yourself and God. I don't think you can be honest with yourself without being a contemplative in some way. One supports the other. Honesty before God and others deepens your relationship with God, and therefore your prayer. Likewise a deepening intimacy with God frees you to be honest with yourself and with others.

He quotes Merton as saying "To be a saint means for me to be myself." I find this consoling and also that if we want to be a saint, we will be one.
I think the first quote goes with all I have written in the past about the call to be transparent.
I hope you are all thinking about how to enter Advent on Sunday with the spirit of preparation so we profit from that joyful season of four weeks of expectation before the coming of Christ celebrated as a triple coming into our history, our hearts, and the final coming of which we know not the day...