It is not my intention to write too much about this yearly orgy of spending which is to commence this Friday following the US creation known as Thanksgiving. But one appalls at the waste.
Not to mention the mayhem that grows worse every year on these days of binge shopping for items we do not need preparing for Christmas which, thanks to the materialist mindset, is thrown in front of our faces from September onwards without even a cursory acknowledgement that we prepare for Christmas by keeping a good Advent.
But why waste words? Writers such as I can not stop this thing, which has come to be known in a serio-comic way as Black Friday. It is too ingrained in the mindset, and those politicians who cooked up their "Thanksgiving" holiday in the 19th century so as to upstage Advent and Christmas knew what they were doing. Ultimately it was done by Money for Money, as are most ventures of the Enlightenment Personified, the United States.
Waste and Consumption are twin devils that are everywhere and always promoted by the Money Interests. And why not? They have the most to gain....while we have the most to lose.
On a happier and more profound note, Advent is coming.
[Here is another interesting take on the American holiday, from Thomas di Lorenzo: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/11/thomas-dilorenzo/lincoln-nationalized-thanksgiving/]
8 comments:
What a faux secular holiday. The only thing it means to me is that the first day of buck season is four days later.
Also a good day to gather as a family and decide upon the alms to be given during the Advent season.
Since every day is an opportunity for rejoicing in Jesus Christ...Happy Thursday, folks!
Aged parent, I'm in your club.
Michael Matt on "Thanksgiving":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBjxNN5EjJc
Pretty darned educational!
http://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2012-1115-first-thanksgiving.htm
The Real First Thanksgiving
Monika at checkthisart.com POSTED: 11/21/12
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Are you preparing to eat the turkey, the dressing, the mashed potatoes, and cranberries? Put them aside and hunker down for a new twist on the Thanksgiving holiday.
“The American Indians, European immigrants, Spaniards, and other cultures around the world, according to National Geographic, often celebrated the harvest season with feasts to offer thanks to higher powers/God for their sustenance and survival.”
The Christian Science Monitor further states “the trouble is, almost everything we’ve been taught about Thanksgiving in 1621 is a myth. The holiday has two distinct histories – actual one and the romanticized one. Today most Americans celebrate a holiday based largely on the latter, whose details of turkey and cranberry sauce decorating one long table stem from the creative musings of a magazine editor in the mid-1800′s.” You can go to those two articles debating the Puritan view, Indian massacre, and plain happiness of the Europeans that survived the wars, illness, and hunger of those first few years.
Contemplating the first Thanksgiving, I came across the sculptor, Reynoldo Rivera. His work can be seen in Albuquerque New Mexico and on this blog post page. His bronze sculptures personify the heroism and bravery of the people and leaders that formed the great American West.
Apparently, the first Thanksgiving, which means Eucharista in Greek, was celebrated in Florida. Thanksgiving was not celebrated with the Pilgrims and Indians at Plymouth in 1621. According to Canterbury Tales‘s Taylor Marshall, “Thanksgiving was celebrated on September 8, 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida. The Native Americans and Spanish settlers held a feast and the Holy Mass was offered.”
Per Michael Gannon, a professor of colonial history at University of Florida, related further that “this first Thanksgiving took place in 1565 when the Spanish founder of St. Augustine, Pedro Menindez de Avilis, and 800 Spanish settlers shared in a Mass of Thanksgiving. Following the Mass, Menindez ordered a communal meal to be shared by the Spaniards and the Seloy Indians who occupied the landing site.
In his book, “Cross in the Sand”, the Thanksgiving menu would most likely have consisted of what the Spanish settlers had with them during their voyage: cocido, a stew made from salted pork and garbanzo beans laced with garlic seasoning, hard sea biscuits, and red wine. If the Seloy natives contributed to the meal, the table would have seen wild turkey, venison, gopher-tortoise, mullet, corn, beans, and squash.
Again from Taylor Marshall, “another bit of trivia is that the truly “First Thanksgiving” celebration occurred on American soil on April 30, 1598 in Texas when Don Juan de Oñate declared a day of Thanksgiving to be commemorated by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.” Although the history of the long trek from Mexico to “New Mexico” Don Juan de Oñate is a controversial one, the day also had a banquet of fish and other native foods to celebrate. There were foot races and a day of comradeship. Happy Thanksgiving, now pass the fish!
A very strange comment from a very strange website.:
"A friendly and tasty annual reminder that there is a strong argument to be made that there is no required abstinence from meat this Friday.
While always a topic of great discussion, it is widely known that Pope Pius XII granted Americans a dispensation from their Friday abstinence, so that they may enjoy turkey the Friday after Thanksgiving. I say "enjoy" turkey (or any meat) because that is truly the only reason he would have granted it -- the arguments over refrigeration and whether meat would spoil don't hold water since wide-spread, in-home refrigeration (as well as cable TV) actually did exist in the 1950s.
So eat your turkey this Friday and give great thanks to a merciful God for all that we have to be thankful for. And, while you're at it, thank and pray for Pope Venerable Pius XII before you dive into that turkey, that he may be canonized a saint soon." http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-friday-after-thanksgiving-day-indult.html
More merit would be gained by yesterday's abstinence than most other Fridays in America. Why feed into the lust and gluttony of a stinkn' state holiday? It isn't as though turkey isn't available 365 days a year.
Dear We Abstained:
Thanks very much for the comment.
I was a little startled by the quote from the Rorate site that you provided. I was certainly aware that Pius granted the "Thanksgiving Indult" but I never thought it was anything to get particularly enthused about. Frankly, I think it was an unwise move on Pius' part, despite whatever good intentions he may have had.
I'm certainly with you on this one.
In re-reading all of the above comments to this post I can truly say that I am thankful - for such great comments. My thanks to everyone who offered their thoughts.
And many thanks for visiting this blog.
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