Thanksgiving and Redemption

By Fr. Frederick Edlefsen

When Giovanni da Verrazzano explored North America’s east coast in 1524, he named today’s Virginia and Maryland “Arcadia” because of the land’s verdant and mystic beauty.  The name was later applied to all the coastal lands from Virginia to New Brunswick.  In Greek mythology, “Arcadia” was an enchanted woodland inhabited by the gods of nature. John Winthrop, of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, famously proposed a vision for this new Arcadia: “We shall be as a city upon a hill…”.  

This new Arcadia was populated by natives comprising over five-hundred tribes with remarkable cultural diversity.  These nations gave us corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, chilies, chocolate, vanilla, and tobacco.  Natives grew prolific bean vines on cornstalks, shading patches of squash below.  This ingenious farming method balanced fertility, sun, shade, and moisture.  Food yields were high and sustainable.  

Some historians say the basis of today’s Thanksgiving dinner was a peacemaking feast that took place after the Pequot War (1636-1638), a tragic conflict between the Pequot tribe and an alliance of Mohegans, Narragansetts, and English colonists.  The English brutally massacred a fortified Pequot village, killing most and selling survivors to slavery.  We may never know the historical basis of our Thanksgiving legend.  But from the smoke of dark events arose our legendary commemoration of Indians and Puritans feasting on turkey and squash.  Some Native Americans commemorate it as a “day of mourning.”  

Ideals fall short.  Verrazzano did not discover Arcadia.  John Winthrop’s “city upon a hill” never happened.  But today’s Thanksgiving holiday celebrates the redemptive value of gratitude – a form of justice rooted in humility.  We might say that Thanksgiving celebrates what we should have done rather than what we did.  And it celebrates what we ought to do now.  Thanksgiving suggests something Christian:  a desire for a healing Justice that will ultimately be fulfilled in Christ’s Second Coming, the Last Judgment, and the Resurrection of the dead.