100 Thanks 2023
1. “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endures forever.”
2. “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God.”
3. The Eucharist
4. Frequent Confession
5. God’s abundant and generous mercy
6. God’s divine patience
7. The gift of the priesthood
8. My brother priests
9. Confessors
10. Holy wisdom from others (and praying that I may dispense some too)
11. Last call in the rectory chapel before I retire for the night
12. Prayers from Carmelite Sisters who love their priests
13. My mom’s daily rosary and her Holy Hours
14. My dad’s (almost) daily therapy by the shoreline at sunrise with a fishing rod
15. My sister’s daily heroism managing her house full of boys
16. My oldest nephew’s last year of high school and his almost perfect report card
17. My middle nephew putting on the same football uniform his uncle wore
18. My youngest nephew becoming more obsessed with football than I am and taking losses harder than I do
19. My brother in law’s patience and peaceful presence
20. All my many cousins who keep me quite busy (seriously, I can open up a small parish to serve the needs of just my extended family with all their baptisms and weddings)
21. Happy Hours with the cousins
22. That one random cousin who is always missing that prevents us from taking a good family picture
23. Thanksgiving dinner at my parent’s house where turkey is a side dish
24. Dad’s mashed potatoes (and there are many people who are thankful for those)
25. My sister’s stuffing (she really makes it for me!)
26. Anis del Mono
27. Pies! (not pumpkin though)
28. That unexpected whole cooked turkey the priests get every year
29. Noche Buena (been far too long since we roasted an entire pig)
30. The Children’s Christmas Vigil Mass and how packed it gets
31. How I somehow make it through Midnight Mass
32. Christmas morning Solemn Mass with the Sisters at the convent
33. Full church on a Sunday morning/evening
34. Casual New Year’s Eve get togethers looking at the Biltmore fireworks at Midnight
35. Karaoke nights and that unexpected person who surprises you with their musical chops
36. 4th of July on the golf course
37. Any time I have time to actually be on a golf course
38. The 6th hole on the Red Course (not to be confused with the 6th hole on Granada, ugh)
39. The 12th hole at Deering Bay
40. My first birdie ever this year, and how long that putt was too!
41. My dedicated and hardworking parish staff
42. The heroism and selflessness of the teachers at my school and all teachers for that matter
43. For my 8th graders’ Thanksgiving lists
44. “My challenges because it reminds me a small part of Jesus’ suffering.” (written by an 8th grader)
45. For those kids who appreciate good music and movies that are well before their time
46. For that one kid who wrote down “The 1949 Classic `Who’s on First?’ Skit”
47. For musical theater especially the shows put on by my school kids!
48. For the times my sister and I can actually attend the theater
49. Seeing Wicked for the second time and screaming “Again! Again!” after Defying Gravity brings the first act to a heart-stopping close! (“It’s meeeeeeeeee!”)
50. For my big screen TV and the short turnaround film have from movies theaters to digital that allow me to skip the movie theater experience (which I used to cherish) and avoid the now 25 minutes of trailers that I’ve already seen
51. For The Greatest Show on Surf: Starring a Cheetah and a Penguin!
52. For our head football coach who is unapologetically himself
53. That its Thanksgiving and we’re in first place and talking deep playoff runs and not draft
54. For the slow but steady progress of the University of Miami football team
55. For the magical run of Canes Hoops to the Final Four. Still don’t believe we made it that far and dared to dream of being on “One Shining Moment”
56. That we’ve become a basketball school?
57. The simple purity of a baseball game at Mark Light Stadium
58. The Marlins surprisingly great year with a, albeit brief, postseason stint
59. Jimmy being Jimmy and willing us to the NBA Finals #Heatin5
60. Attending my first NBA Finals game (and wishing there were more actual diehard fans in the arena than corporate shells)
61. The generous soul who took me to that NBA Finals game and the WBC Finals
62. Seeing Ohtani pitch to Trout in person (an electrifying baseball moment)
63. Messi coming to Miami (well, Fort Lauderdale) and winning a trophy for Inter
64. Caring about soccer during a year without a World Cup
65. Remembering how great a deep Stanley Cup Playoff run is
66. The Florida Panthers and one Matthew Tkachuk
67. Our collective dominance against every Boston team this past year
68. Visiting Fenway Park for the first time (and seeing Yankees-Red Sox in person for the first time too!)
69. Lobster Rolls in New England
70. My newfound love for mechanical action organs
71. Architects and lawyers and project managers that allow me to be a priest
72. A “Chief of Staff” who takes stuff off my desk so I can be a priest
73. Monday mornings at 9am
74. Festivus Dinners
75. Stare downs and slam dunks during the children’s collection
76. PreK Thanksgiving celebrations and the big plates that accompany them
77. The “Mr. Turkey” song and its brilliance
78. Old Cuban sayings and idioms
79. Friends who have pools in their backyards or basically any friends who live by the water
80. Memorial Day Weekend Pool Parties
81. Movie Nights where I educate the youth on what cinema truly is!
82. Our yearly viewing of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”
83. “If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn’t be more surprised than I am right now.”
84. Speaking of surprises: the joyous surprise of when my kids (who aren’t kids anymore) tell me they’re having kids of their own
85. When I get to baptize those babies
86. An abundance of Catechumens this year
87. The Gloria at the Easter Vigil
88. The Little Way
89. Visiting Lisieux for the first time (and Paris and Normandy and Mont-Saint-Michel and San Sebastian and Madrid and Avila) plus ten more travel thanks:
a. Beholding the Cathedral of Notre Dame for the first time and knowing a majestic church is being heroically rebuilt
b. Getting to celebrate Mass by the tomb of the parents of St. Therese and visiting her convent
c. Carrying her relics which were the same ones that had just visited the Pope and were in my parish 24 years ago
d. The overwhelming emotion of standing on the sacred beaches of Normandy
e. Being awestruck by the splendor of Mont-Saint-Michel and celebrating Mass in an 8th century church there
f. The purifying visit to Lourdes (and discovering an incredible Italian restaurant there)
g. The gem that is San Sebastián and its bay and pinchos
h. El Hotel Londres in San Sebastián and that corner “office” with a view of one of the most perfect sunsets in the world (on the water framed by two mountains)
i. Finally visiting Madrid and eating several lunches and dinners every day
i. Cooking my own meat at El Buey
ii. Tintos de verano
j. Unexpected surprises in Avila walking in the footsteps of a mystic and the private guided tour away from tourists with new friends
90. Offering the Divine Sacrifice of the Mass in some glorious old churches in Europe
91. Seeing the joy of some my parishioners as they experienced Europe for the first time
92. Sunsets and late-night fishing in the Keys
93. New York City at Christmas and the Radio City Musical Hall Christmas Spectacular
94. Trips to Washington, DC to stand up for life and minister to the largest gathering of young Catholics in the United States
95. Hearing confessions during the March for Life
96. Taking my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew this last year
97. Conversations with people who have rung bells who are wiser than I am
98. The joy the Class of 2023 brought me and the joy my students still give me
99. The undeserved honor of having people see Jesus in me especially on tough days when even this poor priest struggles to see Him
100. Being the Pastor of the Church of the Little Flower and St. Theresa Catholic School on this Thanksgiving Day
Happy Thanksgiving!
