Happy Thanksgiving, and Blessed Advent!

May all of you have a happy Thanksgiving.  You know what you should be grateful for--and there's plenty.

And--beginning Sunday--have a blessed Advent.  Yes, it IS penitential.

The first words of the first Mass of Advent are these:

Ad te levavi animam meam: Deus meus, in te confido, non erubecam: neque irrideant me inimici mei: etenim universi, qui te exspectant, non confundentur. (Psalm) Vias tuas, Domine, demonstra mihi: et semitas tuas edoce me.

(Not that you'll hear that in 95++% of Catholic churches; at best, you'll get "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel".  That's because 95++% of Catholic priests these days don't understand the Roman liturgy.)

But for those of us who take text seriously, because text is "word" and Word, here's the English:

To Thee I lifted up my soul: in Thee, O my God, I put my trust, let me not be ashamed: neither let my enemies laugh at me: for none of them that wait on Thee shall be confounded. (Psalm) Show, O Lord, Thy ways to me: and teach my Thy paths.

And of course, we are 'shown His ways' beginning on Christmas.