Why American Catholics Should Go to Mass on Thanksgiving Day

Today American Catholics will gather with family and friends to enjoy a festal feast of thanksgiving for all God has given to us. On a day set aside nationally to offer thanksgiving, where ultimately should Catholics begin this celebration? The answer is at Mass. The word eucharist means thanksgiving. The Mass is the place we offer right praise and thanks to God for His salvific work on the Cross and through the resurrection. There is no higher offering of thanksgiving than the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Gratitude to God for His great mercy and healing should be the default way of life for His disciples. In all the hustle and bustle of the holiday, we can forget to offer our first fruits and thanks to Him. We can forget to return to Him in thanksgiving. He is fully present body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Holy Eucharist. In Luke’s Gospel, we hear the story of ten lepers who were healed by the Lord, but only one returned to Him to offer thanks and praise:

As he continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met [him]. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” And when he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. Jesus said in reply, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” Then he said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.” (Luke 17:11-19)

The Lord miraculously heals these ten lepers, which allows them to return fully to the community and to be freed from their affliction. Only one realized he had been healed and returned to offer thanks to God. He offers thanksgiving to the One who has made him whole. We too are called to return to the Lord in thanksgiving, which we accomplish by encountering Him in the Mass. We are continuously healed by Him through the Sacraments.

It is very easy to get overwhelmed by our meal plans and the friends and family who are to attend our Thanksgiving dinners. The Lord, however, reminds us that ultimately, He must be central in our acts of thanksgiving and celebration. If we give Him our whole hearts in thanksgiving at Mass, He will provide an abundance of graces in our gatherings. He will sustain us in difficult family dynamics and divisions. He will be the peacemaker and healer of our families because we offered right praise and thanksgiving to Him at Mass.

Do we fully comprehend the greatness of Christ offering Himself to us in the Holy Eucharist and how this should inflame our hearts with praise and thanksgiving?

Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament was a 17^th century Benedictine nun in France. Her writings are a treasure trove of depth and love for Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Her words are instructive to us as we consider the profound gift of the Blessed Sacrament. We as Americans can apply her teachings to a deeper understanding of how any day dedicated to thanksgiving should have a tangible connection to the Lord’s great love for us in the Holy Eucharist and our attendance at Mass. In The Mystery of Incomprehensible Love, she writes:

O adorable mystery—mystery of incomprehensible love! This is the feast of feasts, where God gives the whole of Himself, with all His infinite perfections, profusely and prodigally, more or less according as we will have taken care to prepare ourselves for it. And I dare say that, all God and all powerful as He is, He cannot do anything more for His creature…

The Holy Eucharist is “the feast of feasts.” There is no greater celebration of thanksgiving on this side of heaven. It is this feast that should be the starting place of our offerings of thanksgiving. We who share in the common priesthood through baptism are to offer continual sacrifices, praise, and thanksgiving most especially through the ministerial priesthood in the celebration of the Mass, which is fulfilled in the partaking of the Holy Eucharist.

After receiving Communion, He should be our tongue for praising, blessing, exalting, adoring, and thanking His Father, and in the same way, our heart for loving Him. Jesus Christ does everything in a soul who allows Him to act—the secret is to remain in Him, striving not to leave Him. That is rare because of the mind’s quickness and lightness. It runs after trifles and is filled sometimes without the soul noticing when something has entered the mind, and this obscures God’s ray or disturbs the heart, drawing away thoughts and attention.

It is in receiving Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist that we can offer the fullest thanksgiving to Our Heavenly Father. The distractions of Thanksgiving Day can very easily lead us to prioritize the things of this world above heavenly things. We as Catholics are given the highest form of thanksgiving in the Mass through Jesus Christ’s Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. This great mystery pales in comparison to the finest home cooked meal.

Let us ponder these words of Mother Mectilde as we attend Mass in order to offer thanksgiving to Our Loving God and Savior on Thanksgiving Day:

…I regard the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the most magnificent feast, for in it we eat the flesh of the Son of God and we drink His Blood, so that the guests’ souls are completely filled with Jesus Christ. Consider: we are filled with His divinity and His humanity, with His holy soul and all His infinite perfections and, by concomitance, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is what is offered in this precious mystery, which being too common is neglected and being so excellent is still understood only by a few…

There is no greater feast of thanksgiving that we can offer than Christ Himself in the celebration of the Mass. Let us go to Him on this Thanksgiving Day and truly offer Him our thanks and praise.

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