November 5, 2023
On the morning of Thanksgiving 1984, I threw a Matchbox toy car in anger at my younger brother, hitting him directly in the forehead. There was blood (lots of it); tears (lots of them, too); angry parents and a punishment somewhere thrown into the mix. I believe I was sent to my room and forbidden TV the rest of the day (which was secretly fine because “who watches dumb parades anyway,” I thought to myself at the time).
As the dinner hour approached, though, my Mom came upstairs and without any trace of anger, invited me to come downstairs and join the family for our yearly feast of turkey with all the trimmings. I’m sure I was still copping an attitude, of course, but Mom simply said: “We have a lot to be thankful for, and Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t at the table with us.”
I think about my Mom’s insight often, not just at Thanksgiving, but whenever I reflect on the gift of celebrating Eucharist as a parish family. After all, the word ‘eucharist’ is itself a Greek word that means “to give thanks,” which is what we do each time we gather to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
These next four weeks, Bishop Koenig has requested that we who preach incorporate the gift and beauty of the Lord’s Presence in the Eucharist into our Sunday homilies. As we are now in the second year of a national three-year Eucharistic Revival, it is the hope of our bishops that a great reawakening to the countless treasures contained in the Most Blessed Sacrament will transform minds and hearts in a new wave of ‘thanksgiving’ for the Supreme Gift we have been given.
And may that gift come not just to us who fill the pews of Immaculate Conception and St. Jude week after week but to all those who have been away from the Church or who do not yet know the beautiful and sacred mystery contained within the Holy Mass. As my Mom once said, which I will forever hold in my heart: “It just isn’t the same until you are at the Table with us.”