Thanksgiving 2012 - a.k.a. the feast of St. Cecilia!

I am the proud mom of a ten year old child.
And from a very, very early age I have tried to teach her
what is good and what is right and what is true...
and even more importantly....decent manners.

As all parents will attest, one of the very first lessons we teach our children is to say please and thank you.
For days, months, years we remind our children –
and other people's children - of those two important words.
“What do you say?” we repeat and repeat and repeat
with that expectant intonation that means
“you know what to say, darn it, why can't you ever remember”????
But see, children not only are unaccustomed to the niceties of communal living  but are also mostly used to getting what they desire and tend to think that everything is due.
So we keep it up: “what do you say, honey?”
“what's the magic word?”, “don't forget to thank the lady”.
And so on.
And then one day something amazing happens.
The child moves from merely repeating words under duress
to the first spontaneous immensely parent-gratifying “thank you mom”. And we are undone.

The Greek noun eukharistia derives from eu- "well" + kharis "favor, grace". Eukharisteo is the usual verb for "to thank" in the Septuagint and New Testament.
Eucharestia is what we do when we come together as a community: we praise and give thanks to God. 
Which means that every Sunday is for us Christians Thanksgiving Day.

And as with the ever present “what do you say?”
the Eucharistic liturgy that we share is habit forming.
After the Nth “what do you say?” the child begins to understand the value of it. The meaning of it. The effect it has.
The child begins to recognize that nothing is due to her
and that everything is a gift.
The world around her changes: her relationships change.

The same happens with the Eucharist.
When we come together to celebrate the Eucharist
we enter a world of grace in which a particular sense of
gratitude toward God is formed.
In the liturgy we come to know God as creator, judge, redeemer,
sustainer, and consummate lover of all creation.
Christian liturgy – what we do together - is our response to the self-giving of God in, with, and through the One who leads us in prayer – Jesus Christ.

As we progressively understand ourselves and the whole human family as receiving the gifts of God's creation, sustaining mercy
and justice we change our attitude toward the world and other human beings.
We come to see the abundance we are surrounded with,
we come to see that there is no real need for fear,
we come to see that God's grace is everlasting
and that in spite of what the world tells us we are saved,
we are forgiven, we are loved.

In the liturgy, in the part of the liturgy we call the Eucharistic prayer, which is the one the priest prays from the altar on behalf of the community, we follow a clear pattern:
    we remember God' creation,
    we remember the covenant God made with the people,
    we remember the promises and exhortations of the prophets
    and we remember the greatest gift, the gift of God's self in Christ.
    We call upon the Holy Spirit grateful for her continued presence among us
    and finally we glorify God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit all together in a joyous “amen”.

Every Sunday we remember the past and share our hope for the future giving thanks for it all again and again.
And what we do doesn't deny pain and suffering,
rather in the midst of it all, the thanking is an act of hope and resistance to what is evil within and without the human heart.

And then the prayer becomes action.
As theologian Geoffrey Wainwright has observed,
in worship we receive the self-giving love of God
and the test of our thankfulness is whether
we reproduce that pattern of self-giving in our daily relationship with other people.

Which is why today many of us have chosen to do something
to show our gratitude in a practical tangible way.
Some have served breakfast to our less fortunate brothers and sisters; some will share a meal with each other right after this serviceand many have found other ways to show the gratitude they have in their hearts.
All of us, at the end of this time together will be charged to “go into the world” and serve – which is and will always be my favorite part of the liturgy.

Thanksgiving Day doesn't come only once a year.
For us Christians it happens at least once a week.
My hope for all of us, my heartfelt prayer,
is that slowly but surely the ‘Eucharestia’ we share
may become a habit for the soul.
That we may end up celebrating it at all times.
Remembering and giving thanks for Christ's ministry,
for his death and resurrection
and awaiting his coming in glory all days of our lives.

Amen.