Thanksgiving

Eucharist is the word that many Christian churches use to refer to either the rite or the emblems of the Sacrament. Eucharist is a Greek word that means Thanksgiving. In its verb form, it is the word used in the New Testament when Christ initiated the first sacrament "when he had given thanks (εὐχαριστήσας), he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me". (1 Corinthians 11:23-24). Every Sunday, all over the world, Christians celebrate and remember the greatest act of love in all of history with a ritual that many call Thanksgiving. The Sacrament is a time for reflection and repentance and solemn reverence. It is a time for us to go over the highs and lows of our week and renew our commitment to keep the Commandments and always remember Jesus Christ. But it can and it ought to be a time of Thanksgiving. If we are to truly ponder on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, one of the most fundamental and pervasive emotions that we should feel is gratitude. He suffered an infinite amount for our sins, and more importantly, felt in His own flesh every heartbreak and illness and pain and loss and sorrow that each of us individually have or will ever experience. Of course it makes all the sense in the world to refer to the Sacrament as Eucharist, or Thanksgiving. And just like the Thanksgiving we celebrate in the United States, the Thanksgiving of the Sacrament should be a great spiritual feast. If we only ever use our time during the Sacrament to think of all of the mistakes we have made, that would be like coming to Thanksgiving and only eating the green bean casserole. We should be using our time during the Sacrament to contemplate and savor and rejoice in the incredible abundance and unlimited variety of our Savior's Grace. There is sorrow in repentance, but as President Nelson has said, there is also the joy of Repentance. We should make an effort each week to include in our spiritual feast of Thanksgiving both the bitter and the sweet, both Godly sorrow and Godly gratitude and we should always remember with humility and awe and reverence and especially thanksgiving all that our Savior Jesus Christ has done for us.