A Brief History of Canadian Thanksgiving
The second Monday of October is Thanksgiving Day here in Canada. While our neighbours to the south are very familiar with the history of their own American Thanksgiving, few (even here in Canada) know where our Canadian Thanksgiving tradition comes from, or that it preceded its American counterpart by several decades. Fewer still realize that it was instituted as a Christian holiday, since Thanksgiving today (like many holidays that were originally Christian) has been highly secularized.
The first Thanksgiving meal in Canada took place in 1578, when Sir Martin Frobisher and his crew from England first set foot upon what is now Canadian soil. The English explorers landed at Frobisher Bay (now called Iqaluit, in the territory of Nunavut) while searching for the famous Northwest Passage. Wanting to give thanks to God for their safe passage across the Atlantic, they celebrated with a Thanksgiving meal of salt beef, biscuits, and mushy peas. This first Canadian Thanksgiving meal took place 43 years before the first American Thanksgiving in 1621.
Twenty-eight years after Sir Martin Frobisher's arrival, the French explorers celebrated their first Thanksgiving meal in New France, at Port-Royal, Acadia (now in the province of Nova Scotia). This meal brought together the French settlers and the local Micmac Indians in a communal meal of Thanksgiving to God. But it was still not based on the traditional Thanksgiving food that we Canadians associate with this holiday today.
About 150 years later, around 1750, the first American-style Thanksgiving meal was celebrated in Canada, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. United Empire Loyalists, fleeing the American Revolution and setting up camp in what is now Canada in order to remain faithful to the British Crown, nevertheless brought with them to Canada American-style Thanksgiving food. So it was there, in Halifax, that was celebrated the first Canadian Thanksgiving meal that included pumpkin, squash, and turkey on the menu.
About two centuries later, in 1957, Governor General Vincent Massey issued a royal proclamation on behalf of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who was then only in the fifth year of her reign. The royal decree stated the following:
A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed, is to be observed annually as a statutory holiday on the second Monday in October.
This decree fixed the date of Canadian Thanksgiving across the country, and it is still celebrated annually at this time to this very day.
The Catholic Meaning of Thanksgiving
Saint Thomas Aquinas speaks about the importance of thanksgiving or gratitude in his great work of theology, the Summa Theologica (IIa IIae, Q. 106). The great Doctor of the Church says that thankfulness is a part of the virtue of justice. Justice means giving to a person what that person rightfully deserves. Thankfulness, he goes on to say, is something that we owe above all to God: because God is our chief good, and the source of all that is good (the source of every gift); and therefore God deserves our thanksgiving more than anyone else.
Now we are often thankful to people when they give us a gift. And though we should not be focused on the size of the gift that we receive, it is natural for us to be more thankful the greater the gift is. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas says that our thanksgiving should be proportionate to the greatness of the gift that we have received.
When it comes to our thanks to God, we can thank Him for many gifts He showers upon us. We can thank God for the beauty of creation, for the gift of life (which we should never take for granted, especially in a society that is obsessed with abortion and euthanasia — both attacks on human life). We can thank God as well for the gift of friendship, and of human love. We can thank Him for Truth, and especially for the fullness of Truth that is revealed to us through Faith and by the Catholic Church. We should in fact be thankful to God for the Catholic Church itself, since Jesus has given us the Church in order to guide us on the path from this life into His Kingdom.
We can thank God for all that is holy, and noble, and good in this world. We can thank God for the gifts He gives us through our human intellect: for art, music, poetry, science, architecture, medicine, and all the other great human achievements of mankind — for it was, after all, God Himself who created the human mind. And I am sure that you can think of many more things for which we can and should give thanks to God. The list is almost endless, since the gifts and graces of God are countless.
But if we go back to that principle of St. Thomas Aquinas (namely, that our thanksgiving should be proportionate to the greatness of the gift that we have received), and if we ask the question: For what should we be most of all thankful to God? then the answer should be clear to us Catholics: We should be most thankful to God for God’s greatest gift to mankind. And what is the greatest gift that God ever gave the world? St. John the Apostle, the one who rested his head upon the Heart of Jesus at the Last Supper, tells us the answer:
God so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish but may have Eternal Life! (Jn. 3:16)
The greatest gift of God the Father to the human race is the Gift of His Only-Begotten Son. Jesus Christ is the Gift of God par excellence! He Hinmself affirmed this truth when He said to the Samaritan woman at the well:
If only you knew the Gift of God. (Jn. 4:10)
But let us go even further and ask the question: Where does God the Father give us the Gift of His Son above all? Where does Jesus Christ shine forth as God’s greatest Gift to humanity in the most perfect way? The answer is, In two places: on the Cross; and on the Altar. The Cross and the Altar, Calvary and the Mass! In fact, these two places are really one and the same, because the Catholic Mass is the re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary.
So, though we eat turkey on Thanksgiving as a "Thanksgiving food," our even greater Thanksgiving meal should be when we eat lamb: the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! The true Thanksgiving meal is not the one that we eat with our family on the second Monday of October: the true Thanksgiving meal is the one of which we partake every time we are in a state of grace and come to Holy Mass and receive Holy Communion.
The Mass is our greatest Act of Thanksgiving to God!
And that is why we sometimes call the Catholic Mass the Holy Eucharist. The word Eucharist comes from the Greek word eucharistein, which means “thanksgiving.” Even more literally, the Greek comes from eu meaning “good” and charis meaning “grace”. So Eucharist literally means “good grace.” In French, bonne [action de] grâce, or literally, "Happy Thanksgiving!" The Holy Eucharist (or the Catholic Mass) is indeed man’s greatest act of thanksgiving to Almighty God because it is the Source of all thanksgiving, for it contains the One from Whom every grace, every blessing, and every gift flows.
I invite you, this Thanksgiving, to make your primary Thanksgiving meal not the one that you share around the table with family and friends, but the one of which you partake in Holy Communion. I invite you, in thanksgiving for such a great Gift, to fall on your knees, humbly open your mouth, and allow God's priest to feed you at Holy Mass with the greatest Thanksgiving Meal one could ever imagine! Not salty beef and mushy peas; not turkey or pumpkin or squash. But the Bread of the Angels that came down from Heaven to nourish us unto Eternal Life!
Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving
to all my fellow Canadians!
