THANKSGIVING. - An act of faith by which one acknowledges that one has every good thing from God as a free gift and expresses to him the gratitude that is due. It is the second aspect "truly worthy and just, right and salutary" (Preface of the Mass) of prayer (v.), the second end of the Sacrifice.
In commercial transactions, the mercantile equality of the things exchanged at their just price maintains on both sides the juridical level of possession: each keeps what is his own; material gain comes indirectly from the choice of the things exchanged; once the transaction is completed, the parties consider themselves released from any further debt (Mt. 20:14). In the case of a gift, however, the beneficiary is enriched directly and gratuitously. Once the free communication is completed, the benefactor, as such, has a right, not to a reciprocal gift (which would amount to a veiled commerce: Lk. 14:12), but to the remembrance of his gift, to the "acknowledgment" of his benevolence, to an affection of "gratitude" on the part of the recipient, ready to express his thanksgiving and effectively to testify to his gratitude, that is, the will to render the benefactor a gratuitous homage (Tob. 12:32-33; Mt. 25:40; 18:32-33).
The moral law of gratitude imposed itself principally in regard to God; and although everything is absolutely owed to God (Lk. 17:7-10), in his kindness and mercy God accepts man's gratitude as a spontaneous offering. The sentiment of gratitude toward God thus finds an immense field in the generosity with which the faithful heart renders its gifts to God, aiming at the greatest and most perfect in the divine service (I Cor. 9:4-27). The natural duty of gratitude is raised to a law of grace in the evangelical economy (Eph. 1:3-14), whose absolute beginning lies in God's charity toward man: the first gift, in which God communicates to man not only created being, but further the divine Being in supernatural Grace (I Io. 3:1). Charity toward God will therefore be fundamentally a return of the love shown in Grace (ibid. 4:19). Thanksgiving will give its name to Christian worship (the Eucharist), its value to humility (Rom. 5:1-11), its ardor to penance (Lk. 7:47), to faith its eloquence (Ps. 115:1-10), to hope its jubilation (ibid. 47), to charity its superabundance (Mt. 5:43-48) in the longing to render to God an equality of love (I Cor. 13:12).
Far from reserving itself to God alone, evangelical gratitude spreads solicitously toward the free cooperators in the divine munificence (Phil. 4:10-20). Christian charity does not allow itself to be overwhelmed by ingratitude, but neither does it remain insensible to well-ordered gratitude (Lk. 17:15-19): which is in the disinterested nature of love, namely to triumph solely in the reciprocation of love (Apoc. 5:9-10).
Bibliography
Michele Ledrus