Thanksgiving, Why God Loves Us, Union With God, & John Paul II On This Union
Happy Thanksgiving! Today, I wish to share how we should give thanks to God, why He wants to unite Himself to us, and review JP2’s Encyclical: “Redemptor Hominis!”
The first “Thanksgiving” in America was celebrated in Saint Augustine, Florida, by Catholics more than fifty years before the Protestant Pilgrims of the Mayflower gathered with Native Americans. Todayiscatholic.com explains:
Another story tells of a different group of Spaniards lead by Don Juan de Oñate, who in 1598 traversed the dangerous Chihuahuan Desert that spans northern Mexico and southern Texas, seeking to colonize the American southwest. After safely reaching the Rio Grande, Franciscan missionaries said Mass for the colonists, and a great feast with the natives followed.
The Spaniards eventually settled at Santa Fe. The Texas Almanac notes that various historians point to this event and the new settlement as milestones of Spanish influence in America - "one of hundreds of towns the Spanish had already established in the New World" prior to the arrival of the Puritans at Plymouth.
Even if these potential "first Thanksgivings" are not celebrated as such, the traditionally held event did have a Catholic attendee - Squanto, the Native American who taught the Puritan settlers survival techniques in their new land. Years prior, he had been captured by the English and freed by Franciscans who educated and catechized him. It is not known with complete certainty that he converted to Catholicism, but it is highly likely, as his Christianity is documented."
Unlike Christmas and Easter, there is no mark on the Catholic calendar for Thanksgiving as an official holiday; this is uniquely American, and no preparatory season for it, like Advent and Lent respectively. It is perfectly fine, however- in fact: beautiful and moving to celebrate Thanksgiving with loved ones, friends, and family members- eating good food accustomed to American culture, such as turkey, mashed potatoes, and the likes, or a different list of menu items. Truly, though: thanksgiving’s mark on the secular calendar is a check-up on the state of appreciation (or lack thereof) on the part of the Catholic faithful in relation to God. Every day we must give thanks to God in prayer for the blessings He has bestowed upon us in our lives.
The ultimate form of thanksgiving is the sacrifice of the Mass, in which the vicar representative of Jesus (the priest of a church) represents the one sacrifice of the Eternal High Priest, Our Lord Jesus Christ, on Calvary. In the sacrifice of the mass, under the apparent matter of bread, Jesus becomes truly present in such— Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity— with the blessing of the priest who has been entrusted with such authority and ability through the sacrament of holy orders and apostolic succession to preside over the supernatural process of transubstantiation.
The earliest church fathers universally attest to this, as does Saint Paul when he writes about an abuse of the Lord’s Supper— which Jesus is truly present in— not merely symbolically: “So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world,” (1 Corinthians 11:27-32).
For this reason, we must give thanks to God every day, become members of his Church- the Catholic Church (if one is not already), and go to confession with His priests regularly, so that we may grow in sanctifying grace, in holiness to receive His Mercy when our Judgement Day comes so that we may be worthy of Heaven- which He promises us for those that are faithful and obedient to Him, and to receive Him worthily in the Holy Eucharist- which also helps us grow in virtue and merit more graces that will elevate our place in Heaven!
Why, one might ask, does Jesus desire to be so intimately united with us through Holy Communion, and in our prayers? God is love, but we know that to love is not to love oneself- but to will the good of another and honor their innate good. God the Father eternally loves the Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, is the love shared between Them. God created us to love, serve, and glorify Him in this life so that we might do the same in Heaven in presence of the beatific vision in the next! Because God is infinite, and we are finite, it is necessary for Him to aid us in this effort for salvation- which is a free gift that He offers- but a grace that we must cooperate with to merit the fruit. Holy Communion is the most essential devotion in our spiritual journey and in our faith life possible, because: “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them,” (John 6:53-56).
In a similar way, devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother of God, is critically important for a Christian. We know that Mary is not divine, but that she is the Ark of the New Covenant, and the greatest human creature by virtue of her Immaculate Conception— possible and Willed by the grace of God, and the closest person to Jesus in the course of His earthly life, and in Heaven to Him ever since Her Assumption. For this reason, and in light of the fact that those in Heaven are significantly closer to God than we are, they are alive in a far more profound way than us on earth, they are able to hear our prayer requests, have knowledge of the events of the earth, and seek to guide us on our walk with God and spiritual journey: we are able to ask the saints in Heaven to pray for us, to petition their intercession, and to honor and revere them as the stars of the human race in God’s Hall of Fame. No greater saint exists than the Blessed Virgin Mary. Saint John Damascene famously said, “Having confidence in you, O Mother of God, I shall be saved; being under your protection, I shall fear nothing; with your help I shall give battle to my enemies and put them to fight, for devotion to you is an arm of salvation which God gives to those whom it is His will to save.” Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote: “As sailors are guided by a star to the port, so Christians are guided to Heaven by Mary.” Saint Frances de Sales said: “Let us run to Mary, and, as her little children, cast ourselves into her arms with a perfect confidence.” By virtue of Our Lady of Sorrows, which I strongly encourage all to invest in, and by praying the Seven Sorrows Rosary, we can find ourselves more aware, more holy, and more fitting to receive to God’s grace in cooperation with His Will. We also, by the intercession of Our Lady, are more easily able to embrace the fight for sainthood and establish a fervent, intimate devotion to appreciating and uniting ourselves to the sufferings of Jesus and Our Lady. “Sainthood” is to glorify God by a devout spiritual life- despite our flaws and imperfections; we are all called to this, wherever we are or whatever our background, struggles, or failings.
Pope John Paul II, in an address to the Representative of the Italian Military, on March 1, 1979, said: “The most beautiful and stirring adventure that can happen to you is the personal meeting with Jesus, who is the only one who gives real meaning to our lives.” In light of this theme in his pontificate, and in continuation with this theme of thanksgiving and unity with God, I would like to share some of the most important parts of Pope John Paul II’s first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis (1979), which discusses the union desired between God and man (His children) through the mystery of the Incarnation and the God-Man Himself: Our Lord Jesus Christ:
THE REDEEMER OF MAN, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe and of history.
Our spirit is set in one direction, the only direction for our intellect, will and heart is-towards Christ our Redeemer, towards Christ, the Redeemer of man. We wish to look towards him-because there is salvation in no one else but him, the Son of God-repeating what Peter said: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,” [John 6:88, cf. Acts 4:8-12]
“By her relationship with Christ, the Church is a kind of sacrament or sign and means of intimate union with God, and of the unity of all mankind,” and the source of this is he, he himself, he the Redeemer. The Church does not cease to listen to his words. She rereads them continually. With the greatest devotion she reconstructs every detail of his life. These words are listened to also by non-Christians. The life of Christ speaks, also, to many who are not capable of repeating with Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He, the Son of the living God, speaks to people also as Man: it is his life that speaks, his humanity, his fidelity to the truth, his all-embracing love. Furthermore, his death on the Cross speaks-that is to say the inscrutable depth of his suffering and abandonment. The Church never ceases to relive his death on the Cross and his Resurrection, which constitute the content of the Church's daily life. Indeed, it is by the command of Christ himself, her Master, that the Church unceasingly celebrates the Eucharist, finding in it the “fountain of life and holiness,” the efficacious sign of grace and reconciliation with God, and the pledge of eternal life. The Church lives his mystery, draws unwearyingly from it and continually seeks ways of bringing this mystery of her Master and Lord to humanity-to the peoples, the nations, the succeeding generations, and every individual human being-as if she were ever repeating, as the Apostle did: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” The Church stays within the sphere of the mystery of the Redemption, which has become the fundamental principle of her life and mission.
The Redeemer of the world! In him has been revealed in a new and more wonderful way the fundamental truth concerning creation to which the Book of Genesis gives witness when it repeats several times: “God saw that it was good.” The good has its source in Wisdom and Love. In Jesus Christ the visible world which God created for man- the world that, when sin entered, "was subjected to futility” — recovers again its original link with the divine source of Wisdom and Love. Indeed, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” As this link was broken in the man Adam, so in the Man Christ it was reforged.
Christ, the Redeemer of the world, is the one who penetrated in a unique unrepeatable way into the mystery of man and entered his “heart.” Rightly therefore does the Second Vatican Council teach: “The truth is that only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a type of him who was to come (Rom 5:14), Christ the Lord. Christ the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling.” And the Council continues: “He who is the ‘image of the invisible God’ (Col 1:15), is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin. Human nature, by the very fact that is was assumed, not absorbed, in him, has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. For, by his Incarnation, he, the son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man. He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin,” he, the Redeemer of man.
He it was, and he alone, who satisfied the Father's eternal love, that fatherhood that from the beginning found expression in creating the world, giving man all the riches of creation, and making him “little less than God,” in that he was created "in the image and after the likeness of God.” He and he alone also satisfied that fatherhood of God and that love which man in a way rejected by breaking the first Covenant and the later covenants that God “again and again offered to man.” The redemption of the world-this tremendous mystery of love in which creation is renewed- is, at its deepest root, the fullness of justice in a human Heart-the Heart of the First-born Son-in order that it may become justice in the hearts of many human beings, predestined from eternity in the Firstborn Son to be children of God and called to grace, called to love. The Cross on Calvary, through which Jesus Christ-a Man, the Son of the Virgin Mary, thought to be the son of Joseph of Nazareth- “leaves” this world, is also a fresh manifestation of the eternal fatherhood of God, who in him draws near again to humanity, to each human being, giving him the thrice holy “Spirit of truth.”
This revelation of the Father and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which stamp an indelible seal on the mystery of the Redemption, explain the meaning of the Cross and death of Christ. The God of creation is revealed as the God of redemption, as the God who is “faithful to himself,” and faithful to his love for man and the world, which he revealed on the day of creation. His is a love that does not draw back before anything that justice requires in him. Therefore “for our sake (God) made him (the Son) to be sin who knew no sin.” If he “made to be sin” him who was without any sin whatever, it was to reveal the love that is always greater than the whole of creation, the love that is he himself, since “God is love.” Above all, love is greater than sin, than weakness, than the “futility of creation,” it is stronger than death; it is a love always ready to raise up and forgive, always ready to go to meet the prodigal son, always looking for “the revealing of the sons of God,” who are called to the glory that is to be revealed.” This revelation of love is also described as mercy; and in man's history this revelation of love and mercy has taken a form and a name: that of Jesus Christ.
…. Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This, as has already been said, is why Christ the Redeemer “fully reveals man to himself.”
In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity. In the mystery of the Redemption man becomes newly “expressed” and, in a way, is newly created. He is newly created! “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly-and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being-he must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to speak, enter into him with all his own self, he must “appropriate” and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself. If this profound process takes place within him, he then bears fruit not only of adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself. How precious must man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he “gained so great a Redeemer,” and if God “gave his only Son” in order that man “should not perish but have eternal life,” [John 3:16].
In reality, the name for that deep amazement at man’s worth and dignity is the Gospel, that is to say: the Good News. It is also called Christianity. This amazement determines the Church's mission in the world and, perhaps even more so, “in the modern world.” This amazement, which is also a conviction and a certitude-at its deepest root it is the certainty of faith, but in a hidden and mysterious way it vivifies every aspect of authentic humanism-is closely connected with Christ. It also fixes Christ's place-so to speak, his particular right of citizenship-in the history of man and mankind. Unceasingly contemplating the whole of Christ's mystery, the Church knows with all the certainty of faith that the Redemption that took place through the Cross has definitively restored his dignity to man and given back meaning to his life in the world, a meaning that was lost to a considerable extent because of sin. And for that reason, the Redemption was accomplished in the paschal mystery, leading through the Cross and death to Resurrection.
The Church's fundamental function in every age and particularly in ours is to direct man's gaze, to point the awareness and experience of the whole of humanity towards the mystery of God, to help all men to be familiar with the profundity of the Redemption taking place in Christ Jesus. At the same time man's deepest sphere is involved-we mean the sphere of human hearts, consciences and events.
…. We can and must immediately reach and display to the world our unity in proclaiming the mystery of Christ, in revealing the divine dimension and also the human dimension of the Redemption, and in struggling with unwearying perseverance for the dignity that each human being has reached and can continually reach in Christ, namely the dignity of both the grace of divine adoption and the inner truth of humanity, a truth which-if in the common awareness of the modern world it has been given such fundamental importance-for us is still clearer in the light of the reality that is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the stable principle and fixed centre of the mission that God himself has entrusted to man. We must all share in this mission and concentrate all our forces on it, since it is more necessary than ever for modern mankind. If this mission seems to encounter greater opposition nowadays than ever before, this shows that today it is more necessary than ever and, in spite of the opposition, more awaited than ever.
…. Jesus Christ meets the man of every age, including our own, with the same words: “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” These words contain both a fundamental requirement and a warning: the requirement of an honest relationship with regard to truth as a condition for authentic freedom, and the warning to avoid every kind of illusory freedom, every superficial unilateral freedom, every freedom that fails to enter into the whole truth about man and the world. Today also, even after two thousand years, we see Christ as the one who brings man freedom based on truth, frees man from what curtails, diminishes and as it were breaks off this freedom at its root, in man's soul, his heart and his conscience. What a stupendous confirmation of this has been given and is still being given by those who, thanks to Christ and in Christ, have reached true freedom and have manifested it even in situations of external constraint!
…. Jesus Christ is the chief way for the Church. He himself is our way “to the Father’s house” and is the way to each man. On this way leading from Christ to man, on this way on which Christ unites himself with each man, nobody can halt the Church. This is an exigency of man's temporal welfare and of his eternal welfare. Out of regard for Christ and in view of the mystery that constitutes the Church's own life, the Church cannot remain insensible to whatever serves man's true welfare, any more than she can remain indifferent to what threatens it.
…. In the mystery of the Redemption, that is to say in Jesus Christ's saving work, the Church not only shares in the Gospel of her Master through fidelity to the word and service of truth, but she also shares, through a submission filled with hope and love, in the power of his redeeming action expressed and enshrined by him in a sacramental form, especially in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the centre and summit of the whole of sacramental life, through which each Christian receives the saving power of the Redemption, beginning with the mystery of Baptism, in which we are buried into the death of Christ, in order to become sharers in his Resurrection, as the Apostle teaches. In the light of this teaching, we see still more clearly the reason why the entire sacramental life of the Church and of each Christian reaches its summit and fullness in the Eucharist. For by Christ's will there is in this Sacrament a continual renewing of the mystery of the Sacrifice of himself that Christ offered to the Father on the altar of the Cross, a Sacrifice that the Father accepted, giving, in return for this total self-giving by his Son, who “became obedient unto death,” his own paternal gift, that is to say the grant of new immortal life in the resurrection, since the Father is the first source and the giver of life from the beginning. That new life, which involves the bodily glorification of the crucified Christ, became an efficacious sign of the new gift granted to humanity, the gift that is the Holy Spirit, through whom the divine life that the Father has in himself and gives to his Son is communicated to all men who are united with Christ.
The Eucharist is the most perfect Sacrament of this union. By celebrating and also partaking of the Eucharist we unite ourselves with Christ on earth and in heaven who intercedes for us with the Father but we always do so through the redeeming act of his Sacrifice, through which he has redeemed us, so that we have been “bought with a price.” The “price” of our redemption is likewise a further proof of the value that God himself sets on man and of our dignity in Christ. For by becoming “children of God,” adopted sons, we also become in his likeness “a kingdom and priests” and obtain “a royal priesthood”, that is to say we share in that unique and irreversible restoration of man and the world to the Father that was carried out once for all by him, who is both the eternal Son and also true Man. The Eucharist is the Sacrament in which our new being is most completely expressed and in which Christ himself unceasingly and in an ever new manner “bears witness” in the Holy Spirit to our spirit that each of us, as a sharer in the mystery of the Redemption, has access to the fruits of the filial reconciliation with God that he himself actuated and continually actuates among us by means of the Church's ministry.
It is an essential truth, not only of doctrine but also of life, that the Eucharist builds the Church, building it as the authentic community of the People of God, as the assembly of the faithful, bearing the same mark of unity that was shared by the Apostles and the first disciples of the Lord. The Eucharist builds ever anew this community and unity, ever building and regenerating it on the basis of the Sacrifice of Christ, since it commemorates his death on the Cross, the price by which he redeemed us.
…. Mature humanity means full use of the gift of freedom received from the Creator when he called to existence the man made “in his image, after his likeness.”
…. Nowadays it is sometimes held, though wrongly, that freedom is an end in itself, that each human being is free when he makes use of freedom as he wishes, and that this must be our aim in the lives of individuals and societies. In reality, freedom is a great gift only when we know how to use it consciously for everything that is our true good. Christ teaches us that the best use of freedom is charity, which takes concrete form in self-giving and in service. For this “freedom Christ has set us free” and ever continues to set us free. The Church draws from this source the unceasing inspiration, the call and the drive for her mission and her service among all mankind. The full truth about human freedom is indelibly inscribed on the mystery of the Redemption. The Church truly serves mankind when she guards this truth with untiring attention, fervent love and mature commitment and when in the whole of her own community she transmits it and gives it concrete form in human life through each Christian's fidelity to his vocation. This confirms what we have already referred to, namely that man is and always becomes the “way” for the Church's daily life.
…. We believe that nobody else can bring us as Mary can into the divine and human dimension of this mystery. Nobody has been brought into it by God himself as Mary has. It is in this that the exceptional character of the grace of the divine Motherhood consists. Not only is the dignity of this Motherhood unique and unrepeatable in the history of the human race, but Mary's participation, due to this Maternity, in God's plan for man's salvation through the mystery of the Redemption is also unique in profundity and range of action.
We can say that the mystery of the Redemption took shape beneath the heart of the Virgin of Nazareth when she pronounced her “fiat.” From then on, under the special influence of the Holy Spirit, this heart, the heart of both a virgin and a mother, has always followed the work of her Son and has gone out to all those whom Christ has embraced and continues to embrace with inexhaustible love. For that reason her heart must also have the inexhaustibility of a mother.
The special characteristic of the motherly love that the Mother of God inserts in the mystery of the Redemption and the life of the Church finds expression in its exceptional closeness to man and all that happens to him. It is in this that the mystery of the Mother consists. The Church, which looks to her with altogether special love and hope, wishes to make this mystery her own in an ever deeper manner. For in this the Church also recognizes the way for her daily life, which is each person.
The Father's eternal love, which has been manifested in the history of mankind through the Son whom the Father gave, “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”, comes close to each of us through this Mother and thus takes on tokens that are of more easy understanding and access by each person. Consequently, Mary must be on all the ways for the Church's daily life. Through her maternal presence the Church acquires certainty that she is truly living the life of her Master and Lord and that she is living the mystery of the Redemption in all its life-giving profundity and fullness.
May everyone have a blessed Thanksgiving, and let us: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” - Psalms 107:1
Today is Catholic Article: https://todayscatholic.org/thanksgiving-a-catholic-holiday/
Full Text of “Redemptor Hominis”: https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_04031979_redemptor-hominis.html#-2G