We're about to all sit down and gorge ourselves on food as we join together with Friends and Family tomorrow for Thanksgiving. Many people forget that Thanksgiving was originally a religious holiday. See, there just aren't any gifts, and so we spend the afternoon perusing advertisements in search of stellar shopping bargains for the next day, forgetting the religious intent and overtone of Christmas as well.
Thanksgiving traditionally became common in our minds and dear to our hearts with the Puritans. They celebrated the providence of Providence for a harvest and for their survival in 1621. Other colonies also held "Days of Thanksgiving" which became days of prayer to God for blessings such as rain or cessation of hostilities. It finally came to rest approximately where we know it under President Lincoln, who, although not the first to so enact or suggest, called for a National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving. I reproduce the act here because I think it's important.
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
Roosevelt was the president who, like many other things, ruined Thanksgiving and bastardized it. After trying for two years, he was finally able to move Thanksgiving from the final Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday in order to give the economy a boost after the attack on Pearl Harbor that year [55 Stat. 862 (1941)].
After Thanksgiving, many people will go out excitedly for Black Friday. It is so called because for many businesses it is the first day of the fiscal year on which they finally operate in the black and turn a profit. As we think about Thanksgiving, as mentioned by Lincoln in recognition of the gracious gifts of the Most High God, and the Christmas season, let us remember a very different Black Friday.
In accordance with Jewish tradition, Thursday at Sunset, which was Friday for Jews, Jesus met in that upper room with his disciples to celebrate the Passover. Some time around midnight, he repaired to the garden of gethsemane to pray where he took upon himself the punishment for and burden of the sins of the world who would repent and come unto him. Within a few hours, Iscariot betrayed him and he was arrested. By sunrise, he had been on trial twice and confined to Ciaphas' prison. Between sunrise and when most people get to work, Jesus went through three more trials and was sentenced to crucifixion, before which he was sent out to be scourged. He carried his own cross from the court of the Romans to Golgotha where he was nailed into place on its crossbeam. He hung on the cross for three hours. By late afternoon, before any of us will be done with work, he was dead. That was a very black Friday.
In this tough and trying time, we have been likewise the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. Many people among us suffer, but not all. Our population continues to increase, our crops continue to ripen, and our armies continue to be victorious, even in the face of economic, moral, and environmental upheaval. We enjoy what we have, despite what others may claim, not due to any councils of men but by the Providence of our Creator. These are gracious gifts and tender mercies of the Most High God, the birth of whose son we will all soon commemorate.
To his memory and his name, I commend this holiday to you and your loved ones. Just because one aspect of my life isn’t how I wish doesn’t give me permission to pretend the others aren’t well. I still have Seven of Eight, and so my life is blessed indeed. As we gear up for Thanksgiving, let us give more thanks to our Father and His Son, in whom we have hope, and by whom we are lifted up to have, do, and be more than we otherwise could and recognize His hand with an attitude of gratitude.
Thanksgiving traditionally became common in our minds and dear to our hearts with the Puritans. They celebrated the providence of Providence for a harvest and for their survival in 1621. Other colonies also held "Days of Thanksgiving" which became days of prayer to God for blessings such as rain or cessation of hostilities. It finally came to rest approximately where we know it under President Lincoln, who, although not the first to so enact or suggest, called for a National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving. I reproduce the act here because I think it's important.
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
Roosevelt was the president who, like many other things, ruined Thanksgiving and bastardized it. After trying for two years, he was finally able to move Thanksgiving from the final Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday in order to give the economy a boost after the attack on Pearl Harbor that year [55 Stat. 862 (1941)].
After Thanksgiving, many people will go out excitedly for Black Friday. It is so called because for many businesses it is the first day of the fiscal year on which they finally operate in the black and turn a profit. As we think about Thanksgiving, as mentioned by Lincoln in recognition of the gracious gifts of the Most High God, and the Christmas season, let us remember a very different Black Friday.
In accordance with Jewish tradition, Thursday at Sunset, which was Friday for Jews, Jesus met in that upper room with his disciples to celebrate the Passover. Some time around midnight, he repaired to the garden of gethsemane to pray where he took upon himself the punishment for and burden of the sins of the world who would repent and come unto him. Within a few hours, Iscariot betrayed him and he was arrested. By sunrise, he had been on trial twice and confined to Ciaphas' prison. Between sunrise and when most people get to work, Jesus went through three more trials and was sentenced to crucifixion, before which he was sent out to be scourged. He carried his own cross from the court of the Romans to Golgotha where he was nailed into place on its crossbeam. He hung on the cross for three hours. By late afternoon, before any of us will be done with work, he was dead. That was a very black Friday.
In this tough and trying time, we have been likewise the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. Many people among us suffer, but not all. Our population continues to increase, our crops continue to ripen, and our armies continue to be victorious, even in the face of economic, moral, and environmental upheaval. We enjoy what we have, despite what others may claim, not due to any councils of men but by the Providence of our Creator. These are gracious gifts and tender mercies of the Most High God, the birth of whose son we will all soon commemorate.
To his memory and his name, I commend this holiday to you and your loved ones. Just because one aspect of my life isn’t how I wish doesn’t give me permission to pretend the others aren’t well. I still have Seven of Eight, and so my life is blessed indeed. As we gear up for Thanksgiving, let us give more thanks to our Father and His Son, in whom we have hope, and by whom we are lifted up to have, do, and be more than we otherwise could and recognize His hand with an attitude of gratitude.
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