The American Thanksgiving holiday is not about the Eucharist but it is the secular holiday that most resembles a Catholic holy day because it is a day dedicated to giving thanks for blessings received.
In the Catholic Church, thanksgiving is celebrated at Mass every day in the Eucharistic Liturgy when Christ is profoundly present to Catholics in a sacramental way. The Greek word “eucharisto” means “to give thanks”.
In 1565, Catholic settlers from Spain celebrated the first Mass of Thanksgiving in the New World and held a feast with Timucua Indians in St. Augustine, Florida.
56 years later, Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians thanked God for the harvest by celebrating a 3-day feast in 1621.
President George Washington originally called for an official “day of public thanksgiving and prayer” in 1789. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared that the 4th Thursday of November would be an official holiday of Thanksgiving.
A secular holiday with religious overtones:
Uniquely American and uniquely religious:
Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4: 4-7
Gratitude is fundamental to Christianity:
As in the prayer of petition, every event and need can become an offering of thanksgiving. The letters of St. Paul often begin and end with thanksgiving, and the Lord Jesus is always present in it: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you”; “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2638
Remembering how God has blessed us:
Thanking God always and everywhere:
May the most blessed Virgin Mary, from whom Christ the Lord took the flesh that “is contained, offered, received” in this Sacrament under the appearances of bread and wine, and may all the saints of God and especially those who were more inflamed with ardent devotion toward the divine Eucharist, intercede with the Father of mercies so that this common belief in the Eucharist and devotion to it may give rise among all Christians to a perfect unity of communion that will continue to flourish. Lingering in Our mind are the words of the holy martyr Ignatius warning the Philadelphians against the evil of divisions and schisms, the remedy for which is to be found in the Eucharist. “Strive then,” he says, “to make use of one single thanksgiving. For there is only one flesh of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and only one chalice unto the union of His blood, only one altar, only one bishop . . .”
Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei, 3 September 1965
The first Thanksgiving was a Catholic Mass:
Catholics were involved in creating Thanksgiving:
Celebrating Thanksgiving as a Catholic and an American:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Open to whatever the Lord is going to do:
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