He has made me and all creatures, and it is my duty to thank him.

Thanksgiving is manifestly a time to remember our Creator. It’s not uncommon to hear people talk of giving thanks on this day, and to talk of all the bounty for which to give thanks, but not as common to hear them say to whom thanks are to be given.

Man is the only creature that has the capacity to give thanks, but there are not many who do; and even out of those who do, there are not many whose thanks is given to the true God (and even those who do can only do so by the Holy Spirit, being fallen creatures). And in truth the only thanks that are rightly given are Christian thanks: for there is no other God than the man Jesus Christ, as the Thanksgiving Gospel makes clear. There it notes that one out of ten lepers returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down at his feet and gave him thanks (St. Luke 17:11-19). Here the Evangelist subtly tells us, to repeat: the returning leper glorified God and fell on his face at his feet. And if that subtle reference to Jesus’ divinity is missed, it comes overtly from Jesus’ mouth: “There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.”

O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good, and his mercy endures forever. And let us remember that the Lord to whom we give thanks is Jesus, and, through Jesus, the Father, by the Holy Spirit.