Thanksgiving Every Week

I admit it.  Thanksgiving is sort of a ho-hum holiday for me.  It's beautiful and I enjoy the delicious meal and the family getting together and the extra nudge to be grateful for the countless blessings He has bestowed upon me.  All lovely and wonderful things.  But it's never one I've looked forward to with much anticipation the way I do others, you know?  Part of it I think is that it's not one of those feasts of the Church that feels so deeply stamped on my soul.  And in a moment of clarity last week, it dawned on me a much fuller reason:

I have Thanksgiving every week.

Every week (and sometimes more) I get to have THE thanksgiving feast.  The meal that literally means and IS Thanksgiving.  Every week I leave Mass with that same feeling I have when I leave late in the evening on that Thursday in November.  A feeling of fulness, of belonging, of having just partaken of painstakingly prepared and nourishing food.  The feeling of having just spent purposeful time with family.  Sometimes it even looks the same and it means grabbing the kids and hustling out the door as quickly as possible a bit harried and exhausted with a fitful toddler in arms.  But the feeling remains.  We belong.  We've been fed.  We are grateful.  We have consumed Thanksgiving itself.  And now we go back.  

So maybe that's why the secular Thanksgiving has never struck that deep resounding chord with me.  Because I get to do a much greater version of it every week.  

This Thanksgiving I think I'll be thankful for that.  That the One who has offered His flesh and blood for me sees fit to feed me with Thanksgiving Himself.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.


"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.  He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him."
John 6:53-56




(Linking up with Cari for Thankful Theme Thursday)

2 comments

  1. You are so right. It is so wonderful to give thanks at each Eucharist.

    I have always loved Thanksgiving because it's the one big holiday with the only expectation of being with family (or friends). Of course, now that I am the one hosting the family, it's not quite my favorite. I agree that the Church holy days are by far greater!

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