This week we begin what we will be generically referring to for the next month and a half as “the holidays.” That of course refers to, and includes, the end of the year featuring Christmas and New Year’s Day. They are not only holidays but also holy days. 

 

And if we are honest and think deeply, we acknowledge that the holidays begin by taking us back to the Incarnation — that is, to the birth of Jesus over 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem. Even should our society try to ignore or deny it, faith is always woven into our lives and our history.

 

In our society’s practice, the holidays began this week with Thanksgiving. The season is kicked off with people getting together with family or friends and celebrating with the traditional turkey dinner, or at least some form of it.

 

Our feast is a time or a moment for our country to offer thanks. We know that practice goes back to 1621 when the pilgrims gave thanks for their survival in the new land by joining with the Wampanoag at Plymouth for the Fall Feast. 

 

In that context, and weeks after the great sacrifice and victory won by the Union army at Gettysburg, President Lincoln formalized the civil celebration of thanks that endures still today. At that time, President Lincoln wrote, “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens … to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”

 

What ought to make an impression on us is the naturalness of President Lincoln’s willingness to lead the nation in turning its thoughts and attention to God. He says so explicitly in his Thanksgiving declaration. But beyond that, in our increasingly Godless and secular society, the very term Thanksgiving serves as a reminder. It asks us, to whom are we giving these civic thanks? And specifically, if not to God, then to whom?

 

It is right that we give thanks. In this country, despite our human failures, we have been singularly blessed with resources, earthly wealth, religious liberty and freedom from tyranny and oppression. We are able to raise our families and live out our faith.

 

Those gifts, which in truth we have inherited more than we have established them ourselves, should move us to three attitudes held in our hearts. The first is humility. Any gift can be a temptation for us to think or act as though it resulted from human effort, from our own talents. But they are from God.

Secondly, we should be moved to gratitude. In our humility we recognize that all we have has come from someone greater than ourselves and so we seek to thank Him.

 

Finally, our blessings should motivate us to generosity. What we have received should make us conscious of those less fortunate. We recognize, as a matter of gratitude, that by sharing our blessings we imitate God Himself who first blessed us in our poverty.

 

In honor of Thanksgiving Day, why not do this: come to Mass. Going to Mass during the week or on Thanksgiving Day is not an obligatory act of Catholic faith. For that reason, it is all the more pleasing to God that we should stop and thank Him by coming to Mass. Thank God for your family, for your faith, and for all the good things He has given you in the last year.

 

When we put Christ at the center of our lives, it makes all things better, even Thanksgiving and the holiday season. 

 

May God richly bless you this Advent and holiday season as we prepare to celebrate God and offer our gratitude to Him.