The Surprising Catholic Origins of Thanksgiving

‘Holiday’ is a combination of two words: holy + day (which seems rather obvious after you see it). All civil holidays declared by the authority of nation-states (e.g. Thanksgiving, Independence Day) derive from holy days which were celebrated by the Church. In some cases, they two are still the same as in Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. That is the first way in which the holiday of Thanksgiving is Catholic. The second reason is also in the name but is more specifically historical.

 
Just as, to the Catholic imagination, the phrase ‘holy day’ evokes thoughts of Our Lord, Mary, St. Patrick, and All Saints, the word ‘thanksgiving’ is a charged word for Catholics. Words like ‘confession’ or ‘adoration’ mean something to Catholic Christians that they do not necessarily connotate to the rest of secular society. While, the word ‘thanksgiving,’ conjure images of native Americans eating turkey with pilgrims wearing buckle hats (which was never actually a fashion statement), for Catholics ‘thanksgiving’ will also bring to mind the Eucharist. Just going to Mass, one will hear ‘thanks be to God,’ ‘thanksgiving,’ or ‘give thanks’ at least half a dozen times. It is a sensible word to hear in liturgical context because the word ‘thanksgiving’ in Greek is ευχαριστ?α or eucharistia or eucharist. (In fact, grace, charism, and thanksgiving are all etymologically related in Greek, sharing the root χ?ρις [charis], meaning ‘gift.’)

 
The second way that Thanksgiving is Catholic is connected to its historical name – why is it called ‘thanksgiving’ in the first place? Dr. Michael Gannon, the late University of Florida professor, published a small newspaper article that received national attention as it purported that the first thanksgiving was in fact celebrated on September 8, 1565 by Spaniards and native Americans in St. Augustine, Florida about 56 years before the first Thanksgiving of the Puritans in New England of October 1621. These Spanish celebrants of the ‘real first thanksgiving’ of 1565 under the command of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés were Catholic. After the ships landed in Florida, a Mass and feast of Thanksgiving was the first thing Menendez did, which according to Dr. Kathleen Deagan “was a common practice of sailors after a tumultuous expedition.”¹ According to the memoirs of Fr. Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, who celebrated the Mass, once “the feast day [was] observed . . . after Mass, the Adelantado [Menendez] had the Indians fed and dined himself.”² In short, the first Thanksgiving was celebrated after a Mass – the Catholic celebration of the Eucharist (the perfect sacrifice of thanksgiving).

 
Even in the pilgrim story, Catholic influence is inescapable. The ‘Puritans’ received their moniker from their desire to ‘purify’ the Church of England from Catholic influence. They arrived at Plymouth Rock as separatists from the Church of England (similar to how the Anglican Church separated from the Catholic Church about a century prior): “the Puritans were campaigning against the lingering traces of Catholicism…from English public life in the sixteenth century…They were determined to erase any vestigial belief in the sacraments, any deference to an ecclesiastical hierarchy.”³ This led the ever witty G.K. Chesterton to quip (300 years later), that the “English might very well establish another Thanksgiving Day; to celebrate the happy fact that the Pilgrim Fathers left England.”⁴

 
Nevertheless, though the Puritans tried to rid themselves of Catholicism, they were saved by Squanto (and Samoset) who happened to be a Catholic. Squanto’s journey to Plymouth involved slavery, freedom at the hands of (Spanish) Franciscan friars, baptism, returning to his homeland, and stumbling upon the Puritans in 1621. Moreoever, in good Catholic fashion, Squanto "asked [for] some beer" of his new neighbors.⁵ Despite the Puritans separatists wanting to rid themselves of the vestiges of Catholicism, they owed their origins and their survival to Mother Church.

 
There is a fourth and final, more fundamental, way in which Thanksgiving is unavoidably Catholic. To be thankful is essential to being human. Every creature, by the fact of being created receives from the Creator a gift that we can never adequately be thank in return. While all creatures receive this gift, only intelligent creatures can be thankful. That is what worship is: accepting a gift and offering it back to God in thanksgiving. In Judaism, the Rabbinic tradition foresaw that in “the Time to Come all sacrifices will cease, except the Thanksgiving sacrifice… This will never cease in all eternity…This is indicated by what is written…‘Give thanks to the Lord of hosts’ [Jeremiah 33:11].”⁶ Thanksgiving will never cease because, as one hears in the Eucharistic Prayer II, “[i]t is truly right and just, our duty and salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks.” In other words, to give thanks to God is to be human. Our humanity is not abolished but perfected in heaven, beginning here on earth: “Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the LORD is good” (Psalm 100:4-5).

 
¹ Livingston, Stephanie. “Before the Pilgrims, Floridians Celebrated the ‘Real’ First Thanksgiving.” news.ufl.edu, November 18, 2015. https://news.ufl.edu/articles/2015/11/before-the-pilgrims-floridians-celebrated-the-real-first-thanksgiving.html.

² Liberatore, Stacy. “Sorry Pilgrims, the Spanish Beat You to the First Thanksgiving.” Mail Online, November 25, 2015. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3333763/Forget-turkey-Researchers-claim-Spanish-sailors-celebrated-Thanksgiving-Florida-50-years-Pilgrims-1621-salted-pork-red-wine.html 

³ Philip F. Lawler, The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture, (Encounter Books, 2010), 22.

⁴ G. K. Chesterton, Sidelights (1932).

⁵ Mourt's Relation, a 1622 account of the early days of Plymouth Rock.

⁶ Leviticus Rabbah 9.7