The Mass: The Real Thanksgiving

The Mass: The Real Thanksgiving  

How the Catholic Church Has Been Giving Thanks for 2,000 Years—Since the Night Before Jesus Died

Every November, Americans gather around tables laden with turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie to “give thanks.” We trace the holiday back to 1621, when Pilgrims and Wampanoag shared a harvest feast in Plymouth. It’s a beautiful story, and I love the holiday as much as anyone. But whenever I sit in the pew on Thanksgiving morning (or any Sunday, for that matter), I can’t help smiling at a delicious historical irony: the Pilgrims’ thanksgiving was a one-time autumn dinner. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has been celebrating a far older, far deeper Thanksgiving every single day for two millennia. Its name literally means “thanksgiving,” and it began at the Last Supper itself.

That daily, worldwide act of thanksgiving is called the Mass, and its heart is the Eucharist. The very word “Eucharist” comes from the Greek εὐχαριστία (eucharistía), which means “thanksgiving.” So when Catholics go to Mass, we are not primarily going to “get something” or to hear a homily or even to fulfill an obligation (though all those things happen). We are going, first and foremost, to give thanks, exactly as Jesus commanded the night before He died.

This is the real Thanksgiving, and it predates Plymouth by sixteen centuries.

 The Night Thanksgiving Was Invented

On the night He was betrayed, Jesus gathered with His apostles for the Jewish Passover meal. During that supper, Scripture tells us, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which will be given up for you.” Then He took the cup of wine, again gave thanks, and said, “This is my blood, the blood of the new covenant. Do this in memory of me.” (Luke 22:19-20; 1 Cor 11:23-25)

Notice the sequence: He gave thanks twice. The Greek verb Luke and Paul use is εὐχαριστήσας (eucharistēsas)—He “eucharisted.” From that moment forward, the central act of Christian worship would forever carry the name of what Jesus did that night: thanksgiving.

The earliest Christians understood this immediately. St. Justin Martyr, writing around A.D. 155 (less than sixty years after the last apostle died), describes the Sunday gathering of Christians this way:

> “On the day we call the day of the Sun [Sunday], all who live in cities or in the country gather in one place… Bread and wine mixed with water are brought to the president of the assembly… Then he takes them and offers praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and he gives thanksgiving (εὐχαριστίαν) at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands… And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings (εὐχαριστίας), all the people present express their assent by saying Amen.” (First Apology, 67)

That is a description of the Mass in the year 155—already called the “thanksgiving,” already centered on bread and wine that have become the Body and Blood of Christ, already the same basic shape we recognize today.

 Why Thanksgiving Is the Essence of the Mass

Most of us think of the Mass in terms of sacrifice (and it is the re-presentation of Calvary), or communion (and it is the moment we receive Jesus Himself). But the Church has always insisted that thanksgiving is the primary note. The Catechism puts it plainly:

> “The Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father, a blessing by which the Church expresses her gratitude to God for all his benefits, for all that he has accomplished through creation, redemption, and sanctification.” (CCC 1360)

Think about that. Every gift we have—life, breath, family, food, forgiveness, grace, heaven itself—comes from the Father’s hand. How could we possibly repay Him? We can’t. But we can do what children do when they receive a staggering gift: we can say thank you. And the thank you that is worthy of God is the same thank you Jesus offered on the cross: Himself.

That is why the Mass is the perfect act of thanksgiving. In it, Jesus takes our poor thanks (represented by the bread and wine made from creation and human labor) and unites them to His perfect thanksgiving on the cross. He then gives Himself back to the Father—and to us—in the Eucharist. The circle is complete: God’s gifts come down, our thanks go up in union with Christ, and God’s greatest Gift comes back down to us.

 The Four Great Thanksgiving Prayers of the Mass

If you walk into any Catholic church on earth, you will hear four great “Eucharistic Prayers” (the official name for the central prayer of the Mass). Every single one of them is structured as an extended act of thanksgiving. Here’s a quick tour:

1. Eucharistic Prayer I (the Roman Canon)  

   Dates back at least to the late 300s and probably earlier. It thanks God for creation, the covenant with Abraham, the exodus, the prophets, and above all for sending His Son.

2. Eucharistic Prayer II  

   The shortest and most commonly used today. Based on an ancient prayer from the third-century document The Apostolic Tradition. It begins: “You are indeed Holy, O Lord… and we give you thanks because you have held us worthy to be in your presence and minister to you.”

3. Eucharistic Prayer III  

   Composed after Vatican II but steeped in ancient tradition. “You never cease to gather a people to yourself, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a perfect offering may be made… We thank you for counting us worthy to stand in your presence and serve you.”

4. Eucharistic Prayer IV  

   My personal favorite. It is one long hymn of thanksgiving for the entire history of salvation: “Father most holy, we proclaim your greatness: all your actions show your wisdom and love… You formed man in your own likeness… When by his own free choice he abandoned your friendship, you did not leave him in the power of death… Again and again you offered a covenant… And when at last the time came, you sent your only Son as our Redeemer…”

Every Eucharistic Prayer ends the same way: the great doxology—“Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, forever and ever”—and the people thunder back, “Amen!” That Amen is our assent to the greatest thank you in history.

 Thanksgiving in the Worst of Times

One of the most astonishing things about the Eucharist is that it has always been celebrated—even when there was nothing else to be thankful for on the surface.

- In the catacombs while Christians were being executed for sport.  

- In Irish “Mass rocks” during the penal years when celebrating Mass was punishable by death.  

- In Nazi concentration camps—priests like St. Maximilian Kolbe smuggling in bread and wine to offer Mass on makeshift altars.  

- In Soviet gulags, where priests celebrated the Eucharist using a fingertip of wine and a crumb of bread, whispering the words of consecration while guards walked past.

Why? Because the Eucharist is not primarily thanking God for pleasant circumstances. It is thanking God for who He is and for what He has already done in Christ. Even when the crops fail, even when the diagnosis is terminal, even when freedom is taken away—Jesus has still died, still risen, still opened heaven. That is enough. More than enough.

St. Paul understood this. Writing from a Roman prison cell, awaiting probable execution, he told the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again: Rejoice!” (Phil 4:4). And to the Thessalonians: “Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess 5:18). The Greek verb in both places is the same family as eucharisteo.

 The Pilgrims Knew This (Sort Of)

It’s worth noting that the Pilgrims themselves were steeped in the language of “eucharist.” The 1611 King James Bible they carried rendered Luke 22:19 as “And he tooke bread, and gaue thankes…” The Geneva Bible (their favorite) used “gaue thankes” in the same verse. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer they had grown up with called the Lord’s Supper “The Holy Communion or Eucharist.” They knew the word; they just rejected the Catholic understanding of the Real Presence.

Yet even their famous 1621 harvest feast was consciously modeled on biblical thanksgiving feasts (especially the Feast of Tabernacles) and on the Lord’s Supper. William Bradford’s journal records that they gathered “to rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors… having these things with other victuals and a good company.” Sound familiar? Bread, wine (they brewed beer), fellowship, gratitude to God. It was a beautiful echo of the Eucharist, even if they would have bristled at the comparison.

 A Challenge for This Thanksgiving Week

This year, when you sit down to turkey and cranberry sauce, try weaving the real Thanksgiving into your day:

1. Go to Mass on Thanksgiving morning (many parishes offer beautiful morning Masses). Watch how the priest lifts the host and chalice and hear the same words Jesus spoke at the Last Supper. You are participating in the original Thanksgiving.

2. Before the family meal, pray one of the Eucharistic Prayer prefaces aloud. Eucharistic Prayer IV is especially fitting—it thanks God for the entire sweep of salvation history, right down to the food on your table.

3. Make the ancient Christian table prayer part of your family tradition:  

   “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life… Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the wine we offer you: fruit of the vine and work of human hands, it will become our spiritual drink.”  

   Then let everyone respond, “Blessed be God forever!”

4. At the end of the meal, borrow the doxology: “Through him, with him, in him… all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, forever and ever.” Family: “Amen!”

You will have turned your Thanksgiving dinner into a domestic echo of the eternal Thanksgiving that began in an upper room two thousand years ago.

 The Last Word

The Pilgrims gave us a lovely national holiday. But Jesus gave us the Eucharist—the thanksgiving that never ends, the thanksgiving that feeds the world, the thanksgiving that turns even our weakest “thank you” into something infinite because it is joined to His.

So yes—pass the gravy, watch the football game, enjoy the pie. But never forget: the real Thanksgiving began at sundown on Holy Thursday, when Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and changed history forever.

Every Mass is still that same Thanksgiving.

And every Catholic who steps forward to receive Him is stepping into the longest-running thanksgiving celebration in human history.

Happy real Thanksgiving.  

See you at Mass.