This “first” Thanksgiving floats about in the minds of many Americans each year as they gather around the table for their turkey.īut that was 1621. The celebration has religious connotations because these pilgrims sought political asylum to practice their freedom of religion. It American mythology, the celebration of Thanksgiving traces its roots back to the pioneering Puritan pilgrims of Plymouth Rock who gathered to give thanks for a good harvest in their new North American home. He wrote the victories “were the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.” And so Lincoln decided to invite all Americans to celebrate Thanksgiving Day on the fourth Thursday of each November - a day set aside to offer “Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.” Recounting the benefits of a major victory the Union received, Lincoln recognized God alone as the object of a nation’s gratitude. In many ways, Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation reads like a prayer. It came at a time when brother fought brother in the Civil War. In 1789, George Washington declared a day of thanksgiving to acknowledge “the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.” Washington set the day aside for Americans to give thanks for their newly established government, but most of all, to render unto God “sincere and humble thanks - for his kind care and protection.” In his thanksgiving declaration, Washington rightfully acknowledged God as “the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”Ībraham Lincoln, America’s 16th president, said similar things in proclaiming Thanksgiving Day a national holiday. Paul exhorts us, “in all circumstances give thanks” (1 Thes 5:18).
Each moment is a gift each event unfolds under God’s loving providence.” The challenge for Christians is to live each day in recognition that all is gift - chief among which is our salvation. In the face of a gift that cannot be matched in return, all one can do is be grateful.”Īnd our last words at Mass is our response: “Thanks be to God.” Cardinal George explained their significance, saying that “Gratitude to God shapes our lives, at their beginning and their end. George, O.M.I., put it best: “Recognizing that none of us is self-made and unwilling to declare ourselves a cosmic accident, we turn to the Author of all that is and say thanks. What is the reason for our thanksgiving? The late archbishop of Chicago Cardinal Francis E. Both the Mass and the celebration of Thanksgiving Day call to mind the very necessary reality that, as human beings, we are made to give thanks. Citizens of the United States have celebrated Thanksgiving, at least informally, since before the country’s inception.
And there is no real separation of church and state where the celebration of Thanksgiving is considered.
It goes without saying, then, that thanksgiving is a rather significant aspect of what the Mass is all about. The very heart of Christian worship takes its name from the Greek word expressing thanks.
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