Daily Meditation for November 26, 2025

When we are moved to give God thanks for His blessings, we might — if we are lucky — have a long list. However, there are many people around us who have a very short list of what they can count as blessings. For example, Alfred grew up in an inadequate and often violent home and is a troublemaker. Sara never had friends at school because of her shyness, hand-me-down clothes and lack of lunch money. Eric was a perpetual failure at his studies. Anya and her children have escaped war to live in a country where they don’t know the language or customs. Cardinal Newman, a 19th-century priest, poet and theologian, relates that God gives “blessings of friends which to my door unasked, unhoped, have come.” How could you become one of those unasked, unhoped-for blessings in the lives of people like Alfred, Sara, Eric and Anya?

By Mary Jackle, OSB