The Festival of Thanksgiving
A Reflection on Gratitude and Giving
Today the Church keeps a feast you won’t find printed on the side of a butterball turkey or mentioned during the annual Macy’s parade. We observe The Festival of Thanksgiving—not the national holiday, but the liturgical feast found in the Book of Common Prayer. Its appointed collect reads:
Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thanksgiving, as celebrated on the last Thursday of November, is deeply woven into American identity—a day marked by food, family, and football. Yet long before it became a federal holiday in 1863, Christians throughout the colonies—and especially Anglicans—observed days of thanksgiving whenever great blessing came: a safe harvest, a preserved community after natural disaster, deliverance from hardship, or peace restored following war or rebellion. These moments were often accompanied by Eucharist, psalms of gratitude, and prayers of humble dependence upon God.
After the American Revolution, when American Anglicans became The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, we began shaping our own liturgical life to suit both our English inheritance and our newly independent national context. The 1789 Book of Common Prayer—the first American BCP—contained prayers for national days of thanksgiving, embedding gratitude into the rhythm of Episcopal life. Over time, those occasional observances matured into a formal feast with its own appointed biblical lessons and collect (prayer): The Festival of Thanksgiving, where the Church’s voice speaks not of pilgrims and parades but of providence, stewardship, and shared abundance.
This is one of the beautiful intersections of our anglican tradition with our American story. The civic holiday and the church’s feast are siblings, not twins. One remembers pilgrims, Natives, and presidential turkey pardons; the other remembers God, from whom all blessings flow. One is a moment of national memory; the other is a discipline of Christian living. Civic thanksgiving invites us to gather — liturgical thanksgiving invites us to give.
The collect for the day reminds us that gratitude is meant to move. We give thanks not only for the “fruits of the earth” and the labor that brings them to table, but we ask God to make us “faithful stewards of [God’s] great bounty… for the relief of all who are in need.” Thanksgiving becomes Christian when it turns outward. Abundance is not a trophy but a trust. Blessing is not the end—it is the beginning of generosity.
So as we celebrate today with turkey, travel, and traditions—the Church quietly offers this feast as a spiritual compass pointing us deeper: toward stewardship, toward justice, toward compassion, and toward the recognition that every good gift comes from God. In this season, may we not only say thank you, but live thank you—in our giving, our service, and our love for one another.
O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good;
His mercy endures forever.
With blessings and gratitude for each of you,
Fr. Ben +
