How to Give Adequate Thanks to God. A Meditation on Thanksgiving Day

On this feast of Thanksgiving (here in America) we do well to ponder how we ought to give thanks to God. Indeed, how can one adequately thank God who is the giver of every good and perfect gift? Is it really enough to simply kneel and say a prayer of thanks? Perhaps we should run to Church and light a candle, or visit some distant shrine? Perhaps even doing the “Snoopy dance” as we say over and over, Thank you thank you thank you” ?!

But none of these acts of thanksgiving would prove adequate. God has been too good, has done too much, and is, after all, God.

Indeed, a great question went up in the Old Testament regarding this very problem of adequately thanking God. It occurs in Psalm 116 wherein the psalmist plaintively asks

What return can I ever make to the Lord for all the good he is done for me?” (Psalm 116:12)

To that point the Jewish people had been accustomed to killing thousands of animals every day and burning them up in the Temple in order to give thanks, and to atone for sin. But the blood of animals cannot atone for sin and neither can slaying even many thousands of them really give adequate thanks to God.

And thus the same psalm not only asked the question, but it gives the answer:

What return can I ever make to the Lord, for all the good he is done for me? The cup salvation I will take up, I will call on the name of the Lord! (Psalm 116:12-13)

And yet, in supplying this answer, the actual raising of the cup of salvation could only be pointed to in the Old Testament, it could not be done. The lifting up of the cup of salvation and the giving of adequate thanks could, and would only be done by Jesus.

And this brings us to the first Thanksgiving meal. No, we are not in Plymouth Massachusetts in the 1620s. We are at the first, the true, and the only Thanksgiving Meal that can ever really render adequate thanks to the Father. And that meal is in the upper room, at the Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples. We are told that he took the bread bread, and having given thanks, he blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, “Take this all of you in eat of it, for this is my Body.” And  likewise after the meal, he took the cup, and he gave thanks, and giving it to his disciples he said, “Take this all of you and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of  the New and eternal Covenant which will be poured out for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins.” He adds, “Do this in memory of me.”

Yes, this is true and the first Thanksgiving meal. Jesus alone is able to fulfill Psalm 116, and taking the cup, the chalice, he lifts it up and give thanks to God adequately for all the good he’s done. He fulfills the Scripture and gives adequate thanks.

You and I can never give adequate thanks to the Father, but we do have a member of our family who is so able, he is our Brother and he is our Lord, he is Jesus Christ.

At Thanksgiving, how can you and I give adequate thanks to the Lord? The answer is not on some far-off distant mountaintop, it is as near as our parish church. We give adequate thanks to the Father by joining our meager thanksgiving, to the perfect Thanksgiving of Jesus in every Mass. We, as members of his Body, and he is the Head of his Body the Church at every mass fulfill  Psalm 116 wherein we, through Jesus our head take the cup salvation and call on the name of the Lord. Joining our meager thanks to that of Jesus, the Father is perfectly glorified, and perfectly thanked. The Mass is the perfect Thanksgiving, it was is and remains for us our perfect Thanksgiving meal and sacrifice.

Hidden Mass? It is interesting that in one of the Gospels picked for the Mass of Thanksgiving, we have the gospel of the 10 lepers. And you may have noticed, but perhaps not, that the whole gospel, which is a gospel about giving thanks, indeed this whole gospel has the form of a mass. For there are lepers who gather, just as we lepers gather at every Mass. And as they are gathered, Jesus is in their midst, Jesus is passing by. It is just as Jesus acting through the person of the priest walks the aisle of our church. And seeing Jesus, the lepers cry out “Lord have mercy!”  just as we cry out in every Mass: “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.” And Jesus, turning, gives them a word, quoting from Leviticus 13:2 “Go show yourselves to the priests.” We too are given a word from the Lord at every Mass. Jesus, homily to the lepers was a brief one, in effect, “Go do with this reading says.” And at the end of the day, that is a pretty good summary of what every sermon should be, as Jesus speaking through our clergy says to us, in effect, “Go do what this reading says.” One of the lepers, realizing he has been healed by this word false to his knees to give thanks. And so do we fall to our knees to give thanks in the great Eucharistic prayer. And the word “Eucharist” is from the Greek meaning to “give thanks.” Jesus then bids that the man that to go, saying that his faith and his act of thanksgiving have saved him. Thus we are told by the priest or deacon at the end of the mass to go and announce salvation to the world.

Yes, this gospel about giving thanks is in the very form of the Mass. And it is no mistake for the Mass is the perfect act of Thanksgiving wherein we are joined to Jesus in the one in perfect act of praise and thanksgiving.

Just a brief thought on Thanksgiving day. How shall we adequately thank God, for all the good he is done? You know the answer, go to Mass, join with Jesus in the only adequate way of really thanking the Father.

Here’s a nice old prayer. But the Mass is even better:

9 Replies to “How to Give Adequate Thanks to God. A Meditation on Thanksgiving Day”

  1. Excellent post. I have a question though: “To that point the Jewish people had been accustomed to killing thousands of animals every day and burning them up in the Temple in order to give thanks. . . ” Are you sure that is accurate? I recall Solomon killing thousands in one day, but I thought that was shown as an extraordinary event. Were all these animals slaughtered on the same altar? That seems almost impossible to me. Happy Thanksgiving.

      1. If that is true, and the priests got a portion of each sacrifice, then in about a week, they would have enough meat to supply them for about a year. To bad they didn’t have freezers back then. Maybe, they salted all the extra meat and kept it for times of famine.

  2. Rejoice. Pray unceasingly. Give thanks to the LORD in all circumstances for such is the will of GOD in CHRIST JESUS. 1Thes 5:16-18. Thank YOU LORD for your Mercy. Thank YOU for YOUR Grace. Thank YOU for YOUR Love that showed the Way, the Truth and the Life for us wretched, irreverent and ungrateful creation. Thank YOU for the Holy Mass for in its celebration YOU fulfill YOUR promise “Behold I will be with you until the end of age.” GOD bless you, Monsignor and GOD bless the our Holy Church.

  3. c…Thus, the Church, especially in the great Eucharistic Prayer, together with Christ, gives thanks to the Father in the Holy Spirit for all the blessings which he gives to men in creation and especially in the Paschal Mystery, and prays to him for the coming of his kingdom.
    d. Hence no Mass, indeed no liturgical action, is a purely private action…
    e…Consequently, the Eucharistic Sacrifice is the source and the summit of the whole of the Church’s worship and of the Christian life. The faithful participate more fully in this sacrament of thanksgiving, propitiation, petition and praise, not only when they whole-heartedly offer the sacred victim, and in it themselves, to the Father with the priest, but also when they receive this same victim sacramentally
    …”

    — “Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery, S.C.R., Eucharisticum Mysterium, 25 May, 1967” from Austin Flannery, O.P., “Vatican Council II, Vol 1, Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Company, 2004), pgs 100-105.

  4. Thank you, for such a beautiful post. We attended Mass yesterday, Thanksgiving Day and there was also a baptism of a baby. It made it extra special!

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