This Thursday we are celebrating the holiday of Thanksgiving.  It is a wonderful day to get together with family and friends with turkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and the many pies and desserts.  The origins of Thanksgiving in our country centers on the pilgrims celebrating a good harvest with the Native Americans after nearly not surviving the harsh winter.  Its purpose was to give thanks to God for helping them.  With this in mind, we can see Thanksgiving has a religious purpose.  So what is the history in our own faith for thanksgiving offerings?

The origins of our thanksgiving offering, or sacrifice, comes from the Book of Leviticus with the peace offering.  Israel had many different types of sacrifices they would offer to God, including burnt offerings, cereal offerings, sin offerings, and peace offerings.  Included in the peace offerings was the offering of thanksgiving.  For the offering, the priest would kill the animal, sprinkle the blood on the altar, and burn the fat portions in the fire of the temple.  It possibly seems bizarre to us, but the offering was considered to be one which deepened the relationship with God, and it was a celebration.  The animal showed that the people were willing to take from what they had to give back to God.  All comes from God; thus, the people give it back to God as a thanksgiving.  The blood sprinkled on the altar symbolizes the person giving their blood and life source to God.  One is giving his very being to God in the blood of the animal.  The fatty portion being burnt is not to imply that God needs the food, because He does not.  It is the people showing the willingness to sacrifice the best meat of the animal to God.  The peace or thanksgiving sacrifice also has an unbloodied version in unleavened cakes mixed with oil.  In this offering, it shows that the sacrifice includes not just animals. Sacrifice can be anything that comes from the earth, such as the wheat of the ground.  In this unleavened wheat offering of thanksgiving, we have a foreshadowing of our own thanksgiving offering of the Eucharist.

The word Eucharist comes from the Greek word eucharistia, which means thanksgiving.  The Eucharist is Christ’s Body and Blood offered for our salvation.  He gave His flesh and blood so that we may have life.  He gave it on the cross as a sacrifice, and He gives that very same sacrifice to us at each and every Mass so that we may consume it and have life in us.  In receiving the Eucharist, “the Church expresses her gratitude to God for all his benefits, for all that he has accomplished through creation, redemption and sanctification” (CCC 1360).  Through this action, our relationship is deepened with God.  As in the Old Testament the priest sprinkles the blood on the altar shows the giving one’s being to the Lord, the Lord in the Eucharist gives His very self in His blood.  In the Old Testament, the priest burns the fatty portion to show the best is given to the Lord.  In the Eucharist, the Lord gives us the best in His very own Body.  The Lord gives of Himself in love in the Eucharist, and our response is thanksgiving for all He has done.  The best way we can give thanks is by seeking to live the reality of the Eucharist in our daily lives.

In all this, we can see how integral an offering of thanksgiving is in our lives.  The holiday of Thanksgiving goes so much beyond the food, the gathering, and simple thankfulness.  It is an opportunity to give thanks to God for all He has blessed us, and an opportunity to live out the reality of the Eucharist in our lives.