Every household in the United States traditionally offers and makes turkey with stuffing, and cranberry sauce as the main dish on the night of Thanksgiving Day. Have you thought about why we do eat and serve turkey? Did the Plymouth settlers also eat turkey during their festivities? There were many articles written about serving turkey on Thanksgiving. Some wrote that it was because Turkey is a uniquely or indigenous to Northern America. Some even claimed that Benjamin Franklin suggested the wild turkey be declared as our national bird, but the turkey lost by just one vote to the bald eagle. Needless to say, perhaps the most logical answer is because of its size, practically speaking, it is large enough to feed the whole family.  

Nonetheless, let everyone remember that “Thanksgiving” in Greek is Eucharistia. For Catholic, the Body and Blood of Christ is the true “Thanksgiving Meal”. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the Holy Eucharist completes Christian initiation. Those who have been raised to the dignity of the royal priesthood by Baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by Confirmation participate with the whole community in the Lord’s own sacrifice by means of the Eucharist. “At the Last Supper, on the night Jesus was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of His Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross through-out the ages until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet ‘in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us’”. The Eucharist is an action of thanksgiving to God, giving Him thanks for His works of creation, redemption, and sanctification (CCC 1322-1323, 1328). Indeed, let us not forget to give glory and praise to God on Thanksgiving day.