The beasts do what they do. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, lions roar and hippos potamus. What about human beings? What is characteristic of our species? Let me propose that what makes humans human is that we give thanks. The beasts simply accept who they are. We know where what we are came from, that it is all a gift. Since everything is a gift what else can we do but give thanks. One of the great illusions is that of the “self-made man,” that someone could raise themselves by their own bootstraps. We couldn’t have rolled out of bed this morning except for God’s gift. Our intelligence, our will, our health, our drive all come from God. The Bible reminds us of the importance of giving thanks. Jesus praised the healed leper for giving thanks. St. Paul begins almost all of his letters with a word of thanks. And we in the Catholic tradition call our central act of worship “Holy Eucharist,” a translation of the Greek word to give thanks. In other words, our proper stance before God is as grateful recipients. When we are asking something of God in prayer we do so because of our awareness of how blessed we are, of how much we have already received. How does the gospel song go: woke me up this morning and started me on my way. I am always struck by the fact that Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving Day a national holiday in 1863, in the middle of the Civil War. We find it easy to give thanks when everything is hunky-dory. What Lincoln understood is that it is always the right time to give thanks, that right today, no matter how things seem to be going, God is blessing us. What else can we do but say, “Thank you, Lord.”
