Each year at this time, we read about the real Thanksgiving. The Plymouth Pilgrims were latecomers to the tradition, we are told. Before the Mayflower arrived in 1621, the Spaniards at St. Augustine in Florida had already had their happy meal with Native Americans.
Or there was an earlier English landing in Florida that really marked Thanksgiving. Then there was Squanto, the Indian brave who was kidnapped by the English, sold to the Spanish, Christianized by a friar and returned to America to help the Mayflower settlers through their first winter.
All these deeper readings into history are enlightening, but they should not lead us away from the real meaning of the holiday, the civic feast day of Thanksgiving. We should spend a few moments this weekend to ask, "What do I have to give thanks for?"
1) As a father, I give thanks for my family, for my wife whose love made me a father in the first place, and for my children, who are great blessings, however difficult they may be at times.
2) I give thanks for the ability to work, to labor for our "daily bread," especially in these difficult economic times in which many who would like to work have been laid off or "retired" by their employers.
3) I give thanks for my country, which is so much a force for good in the world, despite the many naysayers within our own borders. Our nation is founded upon some basic truths about the human person summed up so well in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes our creator as the source of our natural rights which are "endowed," not given by the government or any other power.
What a truly revolutionary proposition this was and continues to be in our world of despotism and oppression!
Let us not take it for granted, especially as our economy melts down and government bailouts promise more control of our everyday lives.
4) Most of all, I give thanks to God for allowing me to be born to Catholic parents who brought up me and my brothers in the true faith. He must have known that if I had been born outside the Church, I would probably not have found my way into it!
5) This brings me to the true "source and summit" of all thanksgiving, the holy Eucharist, a word from the Greek that means "thanksgiving."
In the holy Eucharist we have Jesus himself – Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity – under the appearance of bread and wine. This is the ultimate gift of history, the ultimate selfless love. God himself among us.
In fact, we Catholics can add our own chapter to the "rewriting" of the Thanksgiving tradition. The first Thanksgiving was not at Plymouth Rock or St. Augustine, Florida, or some earlier English settlement. The first Thanksgiving was on Holy Thursday, when Jesus instituted the sacrament of his Body and Blood so that all humanity could have life to the full.
Jesus did it at a meal, breaking bread, and giving thanks. At every Mass, we not only remember the Last Supper, we are truly present there with Jesus, and receive his true Body and Blood.
Thanksgiving comes only once a year, as the world celebrates it. But Thanksgiving comes every day, as the Church celebrates it.
Thanks be to God.