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Eucharist is Thanksgiving: Homily for Thanksgiving Day 2008
By Fr. Dennis | November 27, 2008
The matriarch and her acolytes had spent the better part of the day keeping vigil over the sauces and side dishes and the 15 pound Butterball turkey, especially the turkey, with its special preparation of oils and herbs and stuffing, and they had spent the rest of the day chasing interlopers away from the kitchen, which had recently become a level three staging area. The time of the preparation had passed, and the acolytes laid the sacred vessels onto the table: the family silver, the goblets, the plates and patens, the candles made of scented wax, the warming trays, the wine and the water, and the gravy boat crafted from the noblest of sterling silver that had been passed from mother to daughter for at least 3 generations. The ritual call of gathering rang out, not so much “The Lord be with you” as “Turn that game off now and come to the table. The Packers and Lions will still be there when we finish.”
Seated at the table now, pilgrims bowing their heads and joining their hands, thanking God for what they were about to receive, what earth had given and Kroger had made available in large quantities and human hands had made, the patriarch called down the blessing. He passed the rolls, and taking the knife in his hands, he sliced the turkey, gave some to the person on his right, and said, “Take this and pass it down. And pay attention to how I do this because you may have to do it some day.”
Everywhere that Americans gather, this scene or something like it is repeated in a thousand ways, in modest homes and grand villas, in five-star restaurants in Manhattan and mess halls in Baghdad, and even at the Salvation Army mission downtown. On this day, everyone in the nation, from President to pauper, from the Hiltons to the homeless, share in the same feast and offer the same sacrifice of thanksgiving. It is the same thanksgiving once offered by our national ancestors, those pilgrim sojourners who had passed over the waters of the Atlantic Sea into the Promised Land of Plymouth Rock that would become the home of the brave and the land of the free. Thanksgiving is a kind of national sacrament by which we are joined together as a single nation, a common family.
How fitting that our nation is made a nation by a shared meal and a shared story and a common act of gratitude. How like our Hebrew ancestors who passed through the sea into the Promised Land of Israel. How like the first Christians, who shared the common “eucharistia,” the common thanksgiving, on the Lord’s day, with common bread made from the grains of the earth, and common wine made from the fruit of the vine.
The Eucharist we celebrate today is that same Eucharist, that same thanksgiving, offered by our ancestors, handed on from generation to generation. We offer what earth has given and human hands have made, and it becomes our bread of life.
Explaining the connection between our Eucharist, the thanksgiving we offer to God, and what earth has given, theologian and Catholic University of America professor Monsignor Kevin Irwin writes:
“…the things of this earth used in liturgy are from God’s goodness. This is to say that they are both natural symbols of God’s providence (water), or the results of human manufacture from what the earth has produced (bread, wine)…we worship God by using the things of this world. This means that sacramental liturgy…articulates what we believe about the human person and the cosmos.”
The Eucharist is as much about who we are as human persons and as Christians as it is about where we ourselves, and everything else, come from. All come from the goodness and providence of God. It is no coincidence that our prayers of thanksgiving during the mass begin with “Blessed are you, Lord…”
Since everything and everyone comes from God, always and everywhere, then we do well to give him thanks. It is, in fact, right to give him thanks and praise. For none of this belongs to us by our own right. None of what we own, none of what we make, none of what we have, none of what we are, none of what we give away is ultimately our own. Our claim on it is tenuous. It is a claim of stewardship rather than ownership, and the reality of stewardship makes demands on us. Our act of thanksgiving, our Eucharist, is an acknowledgement of our stewardship and of the obligations that come with it.
There is an impulse in America that tells us that no American should be without on Thanksgiving Day. It is almost as if turkey and stuffing and gravy and sweet potatoes, at least for that one day, were our national birthright, one that no American should be denied, no matter how modest his means or how minimum her wage. How many Americans clean out their pantries — how many parishioners this very day have cleaned out their pantries — to give away some of what they have to make sure that everyone will have something? Some even take part of their day to help out in the preparations for others. There’s something about our national sacrament that reminds us that it’s not all about us, and that we have an obligation to the poor.
Does our Sunday Eucharist remind us of that? Do we feel it in our Christian conscience when we hear the words and share the meal and offer to God the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving? Are we moved to act? Do we feel the need to clean out our pantries and pour out our hearts?
Pope John Paul the Great made the connection clear for us when he wrote:
“Many problems darken the horizon of our time. We need but think of the urgent need to work for peace, to base relationships between peoples on solid premises of justice and solidarity, and to defend human life from conception to its natural end. And what should we say of the thousand inconsistencies of a ‘globalized’ world where the weakest, the most powerless and the poorest appear to have so little hope! It is in this world that Christian hope must shine forth!”
In thanksgiving, then, is also our Christian vocation. We receive from the Lord’s bounty the bread and wine become the body and blood of the Lord himself, and what we have received, we must also give away. For it is not really thanksgiving unless we share it.
So bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts.
Topics: Homilies |
December 1st, 2008 at 7:27 pm
it was a great Thanksgiving… and your homily this weekend was hillarious; almost everyone at the Mass could relate… Be Vigilant, Keep Watch, and anticipate the second coming with a joyful heart.