Thanksgiving
Day
Dear brothers and sisters,
We Americans like our holidays, and
we have distinctly American ways of observing them. Like most other peoples,
our holiday celebrations often center around food, but, of course, we give our
own flair even to this. As but one example, most non-Americans are baffled by
our near religious custom of the cook-out on Memorial Day; they do not
understand what it has to do with remembering our fallen dead. To be fair, most
of us cannot explain the connection, either, and this shows something of a
certain American disconnect in the observance of our holidays.
Nearly all of our American holidays
are civic affairs: Independence Day, President’s Day, Labor Day, etc. Today,
though, Thanksgiving Day, is different; it is our most religious holiday. Now,
I know that some may object, asking, “What about Christmas and Easter, Father?”
This is a fair objection, but, strictly speaking, these are not so much American
holidays as much as they are universal holidays.
It
is a curious thing that this most religious of American holidays has now become
– against all reason and logic – almost devoid of religion, as if it were
possible to give some form of generic thanks to the universe. Simply consider
this statement written to me yesterday: “I like the point that Thanksgiving isn't a religious
holiday (other than a possible prayer before the meal).” It is a comment that
demonstrates both a historical ignorance and a complete lack of understanding
of what it means to be grateful.
As
Americans, we lost the religiousness of Sunday when, some decades ago, we
abandoned the divinely revealed purpose of the Lord’s Day in favor of sports,
shopping, and profits. How many Americans purposefully arrange their Sundays around
these events and fit prayer in only as an afterthought instead of making the
worship of God the center of Sunday? We likewise largely gave up the focus on
the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus as the centrality of Easter in favor of new
outfits to impress others and we tossed aside the poverty of the Child Jesus at
Christmas in favor of a growing materialistic greed. To anyone then paying
attention, these were distressing signs of a declining culture. Today, a
recovery seems all but impossible.
Up
until a few years ago, it seemed the simple purity of Thanksgiving Day had been
preserved and kept safe from the heavy-footed encroachment of a cruel secularism.
Eight years ago, the owner of a bed and breakfast in Pennsylvania said, “Thanksgiving is fairly quiet in the consumer-driven market
of ghouls, glitz, and over-the-top commercialism.”[1] Today, it
is clear that the same can no longer be said. How quickly we have abandoned
even gratitude itself! Is this not why Jesus asks today, “Ten were cleansed,
were they not? Where are the other nine” (Luke 17:17)? Still, we are not
without hope.
When Mr. Lincoln issued his Proclamation of Thanksgiving on
October 3, 1863, he did so in the midst of the Civil War. He knew, the traumatic destruction of life and
property wrought by the war, but he also saw the bounty of the harvest and the
prosperity of the nation, which led him to say, in part,
The year that is drawing towards its
close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful
skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget
the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so
extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the
heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of
Almighty God. … They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while
dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It
has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and
gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American
People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United
States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign
lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of
Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.
And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to
Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble
penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender
care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the
lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently
implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation
and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the
full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.[2]
Historically, then, it is quite
false to say this quintessential American holiday of Thanksgiving is not a
religious occasion; it has, as its foundation, a communal act of gratitude to
God which is, by its very nature, religious.
Nor is it possible to give thanks
simply to one another on this day on which we gather around our tables to share
a feast. We may have purchased the food prepared, but we did not create it,
this nation, or even ourselves. There is no one on earth whom we can thank for
these gifts, because no one on earth has given them; nor is it possible to give
thanks to no one; such an act would be senseless and devoid of meaning. The fundamental
act of gratitude must above all be ascribed to God, the Creator of all that
exists, “who fosters people’s growth from their mother’s womb” (Sirach 50:22).
While a great many Americans fail
to grasp the essential quality of Thanksgiving Day, we ought not only give
thanks for God’s many mercies toward us, but we ought also do penance as
President Lincoln urged us to do. Our country remains greatly divided and a
profound healing is needed in our land, both between fellow citizens and
between citizens and the Lord. Such a healing can come about through acts of gratitude,
through acts which recognize that I deserve nothing, but that everything is a gift
from God.
Before we gather around our family
tables, we have gathered at the altar of the Lord where the
Mass invites us to discern what, in ourselves,
is obedient to the Spirit of God and what, in ourselves, is attuned to the
spirit of evil. In the Mass, we want to belong only to Christ and we take up
with gratitude – with thanksgiving – the cry of the psalmist: ‘How shall I
repay the Lord for his goodness to me’ (Ps 116:12)?[3]
For whatever within us
is attuned to the Spirit of God, let us give humble thanks; for whatever within
us is not attuned to God, let us give thanks for the gift of his mercy that can
heal this discord within us and bring us into “fellowship with his Son, Jesus
Christ our Lord” (I Corinthians 1:9). Amen.
[2] Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation of
Thanksgiving, 3 October 1863.
[3] Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, 13
September 2008.
