Posted on 11/24/2004 10:11:35 PM PST by Coleus
Thanksgiving FR. WILLIAM SAUNDERS
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Recently, I had an argument with a friend over whether Thanksgiving was a civil holiday or a religious holiday. What do you think? |
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Actually, the first Thanksgiving Day observance originated in Virginia. On Dec. 4, 1619, 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Plantation on the James River near present Charles City. The settlement's charter required that the day of arrival be commemorated as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.
Most Americans, however, immediately associate our Thanksgiving celebration with the Pilgrims and their journey across the Atlantic on the Mayflower in search of a new land and religious freedom. After their perilous journey and with little food and supplies left, the Pilgrims arrived on Nov. 21, 1620 at Plymouth, Massachusetts. During their first year, the Pilgrims endured many hardships and nearly half of the original 100 settlers died. Fortunately, the native Indians befriended the Pilgrims. Squanto, who had learned English from traders, not only showed the Pilgrims how to grow and grind corn and how to hunt and fish in the new land, he assisted in negotiating a treaty with Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag Indians.
Gov. William Bradford, remarked that Squanto was “...a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectations.” Near the time of the first anniversary of their arrival, Gov. Bradford declared a day of prayer and thanksgiving to God. About 60 pilgrims were joined by 90 Indians for this celebration. The tradition continued and spread throughout the New England colonies, although no official date of celebration was set until later.
However, we must not forget that the Pilgrims were well steeped in the bible. Gov. Bradford's idea for a celebration of thanksgiving was inspired by the Hebrew Feast of Tabernacles, one of Israel's three major feasts, also known as the Feast of Ingathering or Booths. This feast was celebrated on the 15th day of the month of Tishri (mid-October, five days after the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur) at the end of the harvest. The feast lasted one week, during which time the people refrained from work and recited the “saving deeds” of God from the Torah. They remembered their desert journey from Egypt where they had been slaves and their safe deliverance to the promised land. The people lived in booths (shelters of palm branches) as a symbol of the tents used on their exodus journey. They brought offerings of harvest fruits and new wine to the temple sanctuary to be offered each day in thanksgiving to God, remembering the Lord's care and protection during the exodus, and His pledge of future protection and good harvests.
Lamps and torches illuminated the temple area to remind them of the pillar of fire which accompanied the Israelites as they crossed to the promised land. Finally, on the seventh and last day, the high priest poured a vessel of water brought from the pool of Siloam over the altar and recited the passage from Isaiah (12:3-5), “With joy you will draw water at the fountain of salvation, and say on that day: 'Give thanks to the Lord, acclaim His name; among the nations make known His deeds, proclaim how exalted is His name. Sing praise to the Lord for His glorious achievement; let this be known throughout all the earth''; this action too was reminiscent of how Moses struck the rock in the desert and God provided water for His people on their journey.
For the pilgrims, they must have seen the connection between their own exodus with that of the Jewish people: the flight from the land of persecution; the perilous journey through a wilderness; the divine protection of God who provided food, water, safety; and the settlement in the promised land.
As (Catholics, we too must not forget how our own religion was outlawed and persecuted in England at this time. On Nov. 22, 1633, a group of 300 colonists (one-third of whom were Catholic) set sail from Yarmouth harbor to establish the new colony of Maryland, where religious freedom for all people would be allowed. When they arrived at St. Clement’s Island on March 25, 1634, Father Andrew White, S.J. celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving, the first Mass in the English colonies. They also were befriended by the native Indians of the Piscataway and Yoacomaco tubes. Interestingly, these tribes believed in one true God and offered a thanksgiving ritual of first fruits at their harvest time. The Maryland colonists would continue to offer thanksgiving festivals.
After the Revolutionary War, at the request of Congress, President George Washington declared that Thursday. Nov. 26, 1789, would be for the people of the United States a day of thanksgiving: “As a day of public Thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and sole favors of Almighty God.” The declaration exhorted the people to Beseech Him to pardon our national and over transgressions, to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.”
Gradually, the celebration of Thanksgiving became a more national and permanent event. In 1780, the Protestant Episcopal Church declared the first Thursday of November as an annual day of thanksgiving to mighty God. Since 1817, New York State has officially celebrated Thanksgiving Day. By 1859, the custom of Thankgiving Day had spread to 28 states. (Virginia was the first Southern state to institute the holiday.)
In 1863, President Lincoln designated the last Thursday of November nationally “as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father.” President Johnson in 1867 and Grant in 1870 continued the practice. The fourth Thursday of November would continue as the national day of Thanksgiving until 1939, when President Franklin Roosevelt moved it one week earlier to help businesses by lengthening the Christmas shopping period. Finally in 1941, Congress legislated that Thanksgiving would be observed on the fourth Thursday of November and would be a federal holiday.
As we celebrate this great American custom this year, we must not forget God. We should pause this Thanksgiving Day and take time to pray, reflect on our lives, and give thanks. Each Catholic should make a real effort to attend Mass and come to the Banquet of our Lord to lift up our hearts in Thanksgiving and to receive Him in the Holy Eucharist. Yes, we give thanks for the gifts of family, Church, and Sacraments. We give thanks for the loved ones who are entrusted to our care and those who care for us. We give thanks for our country which has provided such great opportunities, security, and peace. In all, we give thanks and rejoice in the Lord who has blessed each of us with so much and in so many ways.
That's one of the foundations of faither, no? The ability to keep going despite not knowing what's coming next.
Catholic Ping - please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
My credo, actually.
I think Thanksgiving is a civil as much as a religious day. I can't bear the liberal point of view that "civil" means outside religion, because our cultural roots are miscellaneous and Christian religion is one of the most important basis of our Society, of our freedom, of our future.
Aren't you grateful for some guy from the back of the line who corrects you by starting whatever he wants to say with"The real question here is...."?
The Pilgrims' 1621 Thanksgiving
The tradition of the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving is steeped in myth and legend. Few people realize that the Pilgrims did not celebrate Thanksgiving the next year, or any year thereafter, though some of their descendants later made a "Forefather's Day" that usually occurred on December 21 or 22. Several Presidents, including George Washington, made one-time Thanksgiving holidays. In 1827, Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale began lobbying several Presidents for the instatement of Thanksgiving as a national holiday, but her lobbying was unsuccessful until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln finally made it a national holiday with his 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation.
Today, our Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November. This was set by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 (approved by Congress in 1941), who changed it from Abraham Lincoln's designation as the last Thursday in November (which could occasionally end up being the fifth Thursday and hence too close to Christmas for businesses). But the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving began at some unknown date between September 21 and November 9, most likely in very early October. The date of Thanksgiving was probably set by Lincoln to somewhat correlate with the anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod, which occurred on November 21, 1620 (by our modern Gregorian calendar--it was November 11 to the Pilgrims who used the Julian calendar).
There are only two contemporary accounts of the 1621 Thanksgiving: First is Edward Winslow's account, which he wrote in a letter dated December 12, 1621. The complete letter was first published in 1622, and is chapter 6 of Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth.
| Our corn [i.e. wheat] did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown. They came up very well, and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty. |
The second description was written about twenty years after the fact by William Bradford in his History Of Plymouth Plantation. Bradford's History was rediscovered in 1854 after having been taken by British looters during the Revolutionary War. Its discovery prompted a greater American interest in the history of the Pilgrims, which eventually led to Lincoln's decision to make Thanksgiving a holiday. It is also in this account that the Thanksgiving turkey tradition is founded.
| They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercising in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides they had about a peck of meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports. |
The following is a fairly complete list of the foods available to the Pilgrims during the three-day Thanksgiving harvest celebration. As can be seen in the above two quotations, the only foods specifically mentioned by the Pilgrims are: "corn" (wheat, by the Pilgrims usage of the word), Indian corn, barley, peas (if any where spared), "fowl" (Bradford says "waterfowl"), five deer, fish (namely bass and cod), and wild turkey.
The Plimoth Plantation Museum has a nice recipe page that includes a number of modernized recipes to closely simulate the actual foods likely eaten by the Pilgrims during this harvest festival.
FISH: cod, bass, herring, shad, bluefish, and lots of eel.
SEAFOOD: clams, lobsters, mussels, and very small quantities of oysters
BIRDS: wild turkey, goose, duck, crane, swan, partridge, and other miscellaneous waterfowl; they were also known to have occasionally eaten eagles (which "tasted like mutton" according to Winslow in 1623.)
OTHER MEAT: venison (deer), possibly some salt pork or chicken.
GRAIN: wheat flour, Indian corn and corn meal; barley (mainly for beer-making).
FRUITS: raspberries, strawberries, grapes, plums, cherries, blueberries, gooseberries (these would have been dried, as none would have been in season).
VEGETABLES: small quantity of peas, squashes (including pumpkins), beans
NUTS: walnuts, chestnuts, acorns, hickory nuts, ground nuts
HERBS and SEASONINGS: onions, leeks, strawberry leaves, currants, sorrel, yarrow, carvel, brooklime, liverwort, watercress, and flax; from England they brought seeds and probably planted radishes, lettuce, carrots, onions, and cabbage. Olive oil in small quantities may have been brought over, though the Pilgrims had to sell most of their oil and butter before sailing, in order to stay on budget.
OTHER: maple syrup, honey; small quantities of butter, Holland cheese; and eggs.
Ham. (The Pilgrims most likely did not have pigs with them).
Sweet Potatoes-Potatoes-Yams. (These had not yet been introduced to New England).
Corn on the cob. (Indian corn was only good for making cornmeal, not eating on the cob).
Popcorn. (Contrary to popular folklore, popcorn was not introduced at the 1621 Thanksgiving. Indian corn could only be half-popped, and this wouldn't have tasted very good.)
Cranberry sauce. (Cranberries were available, but sugar was not.)
Pumpkin Pie: (They probably made a pumpkin pudding of sorts, sweetened by honey or syrup, which would be like the filling of a pumpkin pie, but there would be no crust or whipped topping.)
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| Governor Bradford's Alleged First Thanksgiving Proclamation |
Plimoth Plantation
P. O. Box 1620
Plymouth, MA 02362
(508) 746-1622
© Plimoth Plantation, Inc. 1999
I think its a civil holiday and that pious people knew enough to be thankful for their survival, food on their table, roofs over their heads.
Agreed.
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