The philosopher Josef Pieper once wrote some valuable words on true and false festivals/holy days:
. . . the creation of completely new festivals on the basis of a legislative act, feria ex senatus consulto, is a relatively unambiguous problem, although those closely involved may find it difficult to see through the illusion. . . . Nevertheless, the Biblical sentence remains inviolate: that the festival is a day “the Lord has made” (Ps. 117, 24). It remains true because while man can make the celebration, he cannot make what is to be celebrated, cannot make the festive occasion and the cause for celebrating. The happiness of being created, the existential goodness of things, the participation in the life of God, the overcoming of death – all these occasions of the great traditional festivals are pure gift. But because no on can confer a gift on himself, something that is entirely a human institution cannot be a real festival (In Tune with the World: A Theory of Festivity, translated by Richard and Clara Winston, St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Ind., 1999, pgs. 61, 62).
The celebration of Thanksgiving Day in the fifty States has the features of one of Mr Pieper’s phony festivals, an institution created by man for utilitarian purposes. We may find evidence of this in the history of Thanksgiving Day:
The long-standing practice of delivering political sermons on Thanksgiving Day, which made Thanksgiving both a revolutionary holiday and the occasion of Federalist era political contention, now made Thanksgiving the tool of free-soilers and abolitionists. Thanksgiving was, above all, a New England holiday, and New England was abolitionist territory; but the association was broader than this.
. . . Throughout the middle and western states, Thanksgiving was taken to heart by those same evangelical Protestant denominations that made abolition a religious cause. Antislavery and abolitionist positions were the political beliefs of a small group of citizens in colonial America and during the early years of the republic; but in the 1830s and 40s, antislavery sentiments became an article of faith for northern Protestants, causing denominations to split into northern and southern branches. Many ministers who preferred to deliver strictly spiritual sermons on the Sabbath felt impelled to speak out against the evils of slavery on Thanksgiving.
. . . Despite the strident tone of many Thanksgiving sermons, there were people of both North and South who felt that Thanksgiving Day could be a useful tool in the effort to preserve the Union in harmony and compromise. The hope, expressed by Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, was that a national holiday on which all Americans gathered to count their blessings would encourage a feeling of national unity and make all parties more willing to compromise.
This ‘holiday’ has only degenerated further over the years, to the point that neither the current president nor the president-elect bothered to mention God in their Thanksgiving Day statements this year. Here is a portion of Biden’s:
This Thanksgiving, as families, friends, and loved ones gather in gratitude, may we all celebrate the many blessings of our great Nation.
Thanksgiving is at the heart of America’s spirit of gratitude — of finding light in times of both joy and strife. The Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving to honor a successful harvest, made possible by the generosity and kindness of the Wampanoag people. On the way to Valley Forge, as General George Washington and his troops continued the fierce struggle for our Nation’s independence, they found a moment for Thanksgiving. And amid the fight to preserve our Union during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as a national holiday, finding gratitude in the courage of the American people who sacrifice so much for our country.
And here is Trump’s not unusual loud-mouth declaration:
Happy Thanksgiving to all, including to the Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country, but who have miserably failed, and will always fail, because their ideas and policies are so hopelessly bad that the great people of our Nation just gave a landslide victory to those who want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Don’t worry, our Country will soon be respected, productive, fair, and strong, and you will be, more than ever before, proud to be an American!
Our sham Godless holidays reveal a terrible truth about ourselves, that we believe we are God, able to grant salvation to one and all:
. . . wherever in the course of history we encounter artificial holidays, we may conclude that they point to a particular interpretation of man’s being: to claim that man, especially in the exercise of political power, is able to bring about his own salvation as well as that of the world (Pieper, p. 62).
Because Thanksgiving Day did not originate in an act of God but an act of man, it is unsurprising that it has fallen to such a degrading level, both celebrating and celebrated with acts of debauchery: overeating and overspending and binge-watching various glowing screens.
Real holy days and their associated festivals have a different origin, a sacred origin, as Mr Pieper said above. Another philosopher, Mircea Eliade, elaborated on that point in his own writings:
. . .
The rest is at https://orthodoxreflections.com/why-is-thanksgiving-day-in-the-us-such-a-disaster/.
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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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