I am going to start my homily a little different today. I’m going to start
by reading a proclamation:
Whereas, it is the duty of all nations 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; Whereas,
both the houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested
me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public
thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful
hearts, the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by
affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of
government for their safety and happiness!”
Now therefore, I do recommend next, to be devoted by the people
of the states to the service of that great and glorious being, who is the
beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be, that
we may then all unite in rending unto Him our sincere and humble
thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country.
This proclamation is as relevant today as it was on that Thanksgiving Day
in 1789 when President George Washington spoke those words.
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Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We truly have much to be thankful for!
Another President, Abraham Lincoln, established Thanksgiving Day in
the midst of the Civil War as a formal holiday to express our thanks to God.
He called this to be a “day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent
Father who dwells in the Heavens,” and called on all Americans, including
those at sea and in foreign lands to celebrate this day.
Is this country great or what? On Thanksgiving Day in 1982, President
Ronald Reagan said that he has "always believed that this anointed land was
set apart in an uncommon way" and that "a divine plan placed this great
continent here between the oceans to be found by people from every corner
of the Earth who had a special love of faith and freedom."
Coming to Mass today is the perfect way to celebrate Thanksgiving.
After all, Eucharist comes from the Greek word, Eucaristein, which
means “giving thanks!” Our celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy is
always a call to return to the source of every gift, the God who gave
Himself for us – God, who loves us so very much and wants to have a
close personal relationship with each and every one of us. What a
wonderful blessing!
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It is the invitation to give thanks which gathers us as families and
friends around the dinner table today. Although a “secular” holiday, the
celebration is profoundly religious at its core. To give thanks is to
acknowledge the existence of a Creator with whom we can talk to as a
friend and as our loving Father. We do not merely celebrate how much
we have today; we celebrate how much we have been given by God. We
need to make sure that God is the center focus of today, and not just a
fleeting thought. In the midst of any struggles we may face, we really do
need to stop and give thanks to God. We are a truly blessed people.
We’ve gathered together today to ask for God’s blessing and to give
thanks for all of His wonderful gifts. How very blessed we are to be able
to gather as a country each year and give thanks! To be perfectly grateful
is to know our place in this world. We are creatures of God and loved by
Him. Everything we have is a gift from God. Everything, our bodies and
souls, our talents and abilities are all reasons to give thanks to God. The
fact that we live in a nation that values religious freedom is another thing
to thank God for today.
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Many of us probably think about “the first Thanksgiving” in the
autumn of 1621, when the pilgrims gathered with the American Indians to
feast and to give thanks to God for His providence. One of the pilgrims
wrote ”By the goodness of God, we are so far from want.”
Out of the 103 people who originally disembarked for the New World,
more than half died before their first winter was over. With the spring
came the arrival of some of the Indians who taught them what plants
could be eaten and which ones were poisonous, how to tap maple trees for
sap, how to plant, etc. A few months later when they were able to
harvest, the fifty-one survivors organized a feast not just to thank the
Indians but principally to thank God for all His blessings. The survivors
could have easily looked upon their previous year as the worst year of
their lives. Do we have that same spirit of thanksgiving?
Today, as we take time out as a country to give thanks to God for all
of the graces and blessings that He has bestowed on us, we recall that for
us, as Catholics, to give thanks is something that we do (or should do)
constantly. It is not something we do only once a year but it is something
we should do every day. If we read through Scripture, it tells us literally
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hundreds of times, about our need to give thanks to the Lord, how we
need to bless the Lord, how we need to glorify the Lord. It is not
something that is optional for us. And it is something that the Church
does at every moment of every day because somewhere on earth at every
moment of every day, Mass is being offered, people are praying, hymns
of thanksgiving are being offered to God.
There is a very important dialogue of prayer that happens in the
heart of every Mass. The priest prays that the Lord be with all present
and the people pray that God will be with the priest in a special way so
that he can do what God ordained him to do. The priest commands the
people to lift up their hearts, their desires and their lives to God and the
people reply that they have indeed done that. The priest then says, “Let
us give thanks to the Lord our God: and the people respond, “It is right
and just.” The priest then echoes that sentiment saying, “It is right and
just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you
thanks, Holy Father, almighty and eternal God.” To give thanks to God
always and everywhere is the right thing to do, no matter what our
circumstances. If we are not grateful, we are not able to receive all of the
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grace that God is trying to give us. If we are not grateful, we cannot
receive the salvation that Jesus won for us.
Are we truly thankful for what God has given us? Can we identify
with the words of Sirach: “Bless the God of all who has done wondrous
things on earth?” Can we find truth in Paul’s claim that we have been
“enriched in every way?” Can we, like the leper in today’s Gospel, return
to God to give Him thanks because we realize what He has done for us?
Do we take the time each day to thank God for the many gifts He has
given us? Does it take a special holiday to remind us to thank God? Or is
it all about Turkey and football?
Let us spend today with family and friends and celebrate all of the
marvelous gifts we have received from our loving Father, but let us keep
God and our thankfulness to Him at the center of our day today!
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