On this day of Thanksgiving, in the year of our Lord Two Thousand Eight, we gather with family and friends to fellowship as a nation around a traditional meal to meditate upon our blessings and to offer prayers of thanks. I have discovered that Thanksgiving celebrations occur on various levels. The most base and shameful is the one marked by carnal greed and gluttony. Sadly this is most often associated with Thanksgiving. It is purely natural and animalistic. If the practice of eating Turkey with the trimmings and pumpkin pie is all that thanksgiving constitutes, then my childhood dog celebrated Thanksgiving like no one ever could. He ate the giblets and all the scraps from the preparation through the last item of cleanup. Then he went to the neighbors’ houses. I seriously doubt that my hound dog’s base animal nature even remotely grasped the concept of Thanksgiving above or apart from his bulging stomach. Gluttony is quite far removed from the intent of the day. Therefore, I explain and dismiss this activity without classifying it as one of the three levels for today’s consideration, because there is nothing substantively Thankful about it. Yes, we feast! Yes, the food tastes great! Yes, we gather with family and friends and watch parades, movies and football. However, let us raise our eyes a few degrees above our tables and TV’s to feast with our spirit and soul. Above the physical celebration, there are three levels that transform the feast regardless if we eat Turkey or bologna this blessed Holiday.
Level One: As a child, I thought about my family, friends, pets and possessions. I listed my personal blessings and was quite content to offer a prayer to God. My prayer went something like this. “Dear God thank you for all my blessings like: food, clothes, house and family. Thank you, for Grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. Thank you for my pets. Amen.” Essentially, I saw the world from the first person, ego centric perspective. I was practicing a level one Thanksgiving. As I got older and my basis of understanding developed, I remembered to give thanks for abstract things like education, political, social and religious freedom. As I continued into adulthood, my Thanksgiving meditations continued to revolve around my personal benefits. Today I still say, “Thank you, Lord, for my family, my vocations, my situation in life, my American liberty and my early twenty first century conveniences.” This is indeed a good thing and I would encourage each and every person to live his or her life with daily and abundant prayers of thankfulness. Why starve yourself of the wealth of joy which is there to be had in maintaining a thankful heart? Living a thankful life is a wonderful way of life! Consider (Luke 17:11-19) the people who suffered from leprosy who were healed of their horrid disease. Of the ten, only one returned to Jesus rendering thanks and praise. What a joyful interaction with their healer the nine people missed out on! How many joy filled moments of life do we rob ourselves of by forgetting to be thankful for such as we have. On this level, as we become less egocentric, we can be grateful that others, such as friends, coworkers or even strangers are blessed with such temporal blessings as they have.
Level Two: As one matures in faith, it becomes evident to the individual that along with one’s thankfulness for the temporal blessings of house, home, food, clothing and family; that spiritual blessings are worthy of being acknowledged with prayers of thanksgiving. As the Psalmist wrote, “O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good and His mercy endures forever. How good and right it is that we sinful humans who suffer the scourge of spiritual leprosy and are healed through divine forgiveness bestowed to us in the blessed Sacraments, should return and give thanks for such healing blessings. God’s mercy to us is abundant, and He desires that we come to Him in penitence bringing to Him our sorrows and sufferings. He sees our need and grants us divine grace beyond measure. If it is good and right to render thanks for temporal blessings, then how much more worthy of thanks to God are the eternal blessings of forgiveness, life, and salvation? Meditating on and giving thanks for spiritual and eternal blessings, I would classify as a level two Thanksgiving. On this level we also pray for and give thanks for God’s grace and mercy which he bestows upon humanity. We rejoice and give thanks when others receive these spiritual blessings.
Level Three: Above level two which finds us rendering thanks for temporal and spiritual blessings, there is level three where-in the worshiper renders thanks for having been given life and for being in the presence of Almighty God who is of Himself complete and is love eternal. Here one worships God and gives thanks for who God is and for His attributes. The worshiper gives thanks for God’s perfect will being accomplished in time and throughout eternity. Let us pray Psalm 100 as we render thanks to God and worship him this blessed holy day.
A psalm. For giving thanks.1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his
[a];
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
[1]Blessings+
Father Daniel
_________
a Or and not we ourselves
[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. electronic ed. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Ps 100:1
