Not really about Catholic legal theory, but...

...its the night before Thanksgiving and I just returned from a beautiful inter-faith service, an annual event for Thanksgiving Eve here in Port Washington, N.Y.  By tradition the sermon is given by the newest rabbi, priest or minister in town.  Tonight, the speaker was a rabbi who gave a truly inspiring talk....one of those times when you really could hear a pin drop, so rapt was the attention with which the entire congregation listened to him.

One of the points he stressed is one dear to my heart - the importance of having a sense of gratitude rather than one of desert or entitlement.  Our culture, with its excessive emphasis on individualism, does much to promote a sense of entitlement.  ("I worked hard, I did it on my own and by golly I deserve the rewards I reap from my efforts.  I earned them.")   Yet, the reality is that all we are and all we have are gifts from our loving God, and those gifts are meant to be shared and used for the benefit of the communal whole.   If that recognition filled our being, imagine how different our world would be.  It alone would change tremendously how we view our stewardship of the earth, how we view our obligation toward the poor and marginalized, how we regard life itself.  I think if I could make only one change in the world that might be the one I'd make - to replace people's view of the things of this world as a matter of entitlement with a view of them as gift; to replace an attitude of desert with one of gratitude.   

Happy Thanksgiving to all (and to all a good night).

Susan