What Americans do on the fourth Thursday of the month of November, what Jews do on the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan, and what Christians do on Sundays have a lot in common.
All three involve symbols, and the symbols involve remembrance, and remembrance involves gratitude, and gratitude expresses itself in giving thanks.
Thanksgiving in the United States traces its origin to 53 Pilgrims celebrating their first harvest in Plymouth in 1621, joined by 90 Native Americans. The format of the Thanksgiving celebration is a meal together, giving thanks to God for his bounty, and the typical foods served evoke those of the original celebration, especially turkey, cranberry sauce, corn, and other fall vegetables—and pumpkin pie!
Passover began as a celebration of the liberation of the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. It is celebrated with a ritual family meal of remembrance, rich in symbolism. Many of the foods eaten are reminders of specific aspects of the ancient history of the Jewish people.
Sunday Mass (or Divine Liturgy) is a kind of weekly echo of the Easter celebration. It is rooted in the Passover observance and also is a ritual, collective meal of remembrance, rich in symbolism. The foods eaten are only two: bread and wine.
Sometimes what happens with ritual observances is that we can get so engrossed in the details that we pay less attention to the overall meaning. And, with ritual meals, we can get so absorbed by the foods themselves that we pay less attention to their symbolism.
Thanksgiving, Passover, and Mass, each in its own way, are about remembering the gifts, love, and providence of God and personally and collectively giving thanks to God for them.
“Thanksgiving” names the essence of the observance, “Passover” alludes to the critical moment in the history of the people of God which was the beginning of the observance, and “Mass”, oddly, echoes the final Latin words of dismissal (Ite, missa est) when the Sunday observance is over!
The better name for the Sunday observance is Eucharist—which comes from the Greek word, eucharistia, meaning gratefulness, thanksgiving.
What sometimes happens with our observance of each of these rituals is that we may become so concerned with, devoted to, or distracted by particular aspects of them that we are insufficiently attentive to their central element and purpose: grateful personal and collective thanksgiving to God.
In St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Christians, he reminded them of this, that the essence of their weekly observance was more than just a meal together:
. . . the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Cor 11:23b-24)
The broken bread was to remind them of the loving gift of Jesus’ body, of his life for them; the wine, of the lifeblood of Jesus that sealed the new covenant. For all this, and for you and I being part of it, we ever give grateful thanks to God!
14 June 2020