Thanksgiving Day

The Thanksgiving holiday is in the main a civic and secular tradition and yet many Christians gather that day or during that week to give thanks under the name of the holy and blessed name of the Trinity.  It is interesting to compare and contrast ordinary Thanksgiving with the extraordinary Eucharist.  There are obvious similarities beyond the definition of the Greek word.  People are urged in the civic sense to look and give thanks both for the common and ordinary as well as the special and unexpected.  In the church’s Eucharist the ordinary of bread and wine are consecrated and are for the communicant the true body and blood of the God-man, Jesus Christ, gracing the recipient with extraordinary forgiveness, life and salvation.  

Think of all that is invested in the candle lit, linen draped, Thanksgiving turkey-stuffing- cranberry-sweet potato-pumpkin pie with whipped cream topped table.   Do the Faithful find a kind of sacred soul-salivating hunger for the simple wine and often wafer-thin bread of the Mass that dismisses them with unseen forgiveness to share seen and rich peace?