Thanksgiving Day 2020

“As a Nation much blessed, we feel impelled at harvest time to follow the tradition handed down by our Pilgrim fathers of pausing from our labors for one day to render thanks to Almighty God for His bounties. Now that the year is drawing to a close, once again it is fitting that we incline our thoughts to His mercies and offer to Him our special prayers of gratitude.

“For the courage and vision of our forebears who settled a wilderness and founded a Nation; for the ‘blessings of liberty’ which the framers of our Constitution sought to secure for themselves and for their posterity, and which are so abundantly realized in our land today; for the unity of spirit which has made our country strong; and for the continuing faith under His guidance that has kept us a religious people with freedom of worship for all, we should kneel in humble thanksgiving. . .

“. . .[L]et all of us, in accordance with our hallowed custom, forgather in our respective places of worship and bow before God in contrition for our sins, in suppliance for wisdom in our striving for a better world, and in gratitude for the manifold blessings He has bestowed upon us and upon our fellow men. . .” 

– President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
excerpts from his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, 1953

*Freedom from Want by Norman Rockwell, c. 1941-45 (source)