Thanksgiving Day is a holiday that is among the nation’s finest national traditions. Indeed, setting a day aside for giving thanks to God is not just a U.S. phenomenon as many countries worldwide celebrate harvest festivals that express gratitude to God.
For Christians, Thanksgiving Day has special meaning, for we know that gratitude lies at the very heart of discipleship. A grateful heart heralds the beginning of discipleship and opens the way to our deepest response, the desire to return to God for the bounty of our lives.
For what do we thank our Creator? The early American colonists, who gave inspiration to the Thanksgiving Day tradition were thankful for their very survival. Many of their compatriots were buried in the soil of their new land, far from all that had been cherished and familiar.
It’s natural to thank God when things seem to turn out the way we had hoped when disaster is averted when life seems filled with abundance. Harder, perhaps, is the ability to thank God for being present to us in times of struggle, failure, illness, and death. But, in the heart of the Christian, the memory of God’s presence is a comfort and a gift all its own.
If we take time to reflect on our lives, we often discover that we are most grateful for a gift we struggled to receive. Often we find that what has come to us in the form of hardship has in hindsight revealed itself as a gift. This is why each day’s struggles and trials should be met with a heartfelt “thank you.”
Meister Echhart, a 14th-century Dominican mystic, wrote, “If the only prayer you ever say is ‘thank you,’ that will suffice.” At first, this might seem puzzling. What of praise and petition? But Eckhart knew that the most genuine response, and indeed, the first and most spontaneous response of the heart which has discovered God, is “thank you”. Gratitude lies at the beginning of true prayer.
The word Thanksgiving conjures up images of turkey and cranberry sauce, parades and football games. These are traditions that have come to characterize an annual holiday to remember and celebrate the blessings of our American life.
Jesus himself offers us a model of gratitude to God for all the gifts that God has bestowed on us. He models an attitude of thankfulness and praise both in his prayers and in his actions by accepting whatever comes from God – even suffering – trusting that God has given it out of loving care and not anger.
It is with this sense of thanksgiving that we should also come to every Eucharist. Indeed, if we have participated fully in the Eucharist and understood the grace it offers us, then the attitude of thanksgiving will permeate our whole lives. We will find ourselves becoming ever more aware and ever more grateful for all the good things God gives us every day, thereby allowing our whole lives to become a symphony of praise and thanksgiving to our God.
As we reflect on this time of thanksgiving, let us be present to those moments when God’s gifts were hidden in shadow and remember to be thankful for all.
(Courtesy of Thanksgiving: Celebrating with a Grateful Heart—All Saints Press)