Thanksgiving : A Gift of Holiday Recollections : A Parable of Grace and Good Fortune

They had survived their first raw winter in the new land--a harrowing time of scarce food, hard work and sickness that killed nearly half of the tiny band of 102 Pilgrims who had settled in Plymouth, Mass.

And so they gathered in the autumn of 1621, having been befriended by their Indian neighbors and blessed by a bountiful harvest, to rejoice and give thanks, as was their custom, with a harvest festival.

Three-hundred sixty-four years later, the spirit of that first New England Thanksgiving lives on.

It’s a theme with few variations: An annual reunion of family and friends, a festive occasion permeated with the tastes and smells of good things to eat.

But, as years go by, it is the memories of past Thanksgivings and the people we shared them with that help give special meaning to the annual rite of fall.

To find out what significance the national holiday has played in their lives, prominent Orange County residents were asked to share their thoughts on Thanksgivings past and present.

Father Paul Martin, pastor of the San Juan Capistrano Mission, recalls a Thanksgiving story his mother used to tell her children many years ago about her family.

“There was a person in jail, a neighbor in town who had taken too much to drink, and after the family had finished their meal they all got up--my maternal grandmother and my mother and her sister--and they went down to the jail to bring him a Thanksgiving meal. It was to remind us how fortunate we are and to think of others every Thanksgiving. I can recall that most vividly.”

Martin, who concelebrated a Thanksgiving eve Mass with associate pastor John Ruhl and who celebrated an 8 a.m. Thanksgiving Mass this morning, will be having Thanksgiving dinner this afternoon in the rectory with his brother-in-law from Santa Monica.

Thanksgiving, Martin said, “is a good reminder of the faith and the gratitude of our early Pilgrim fathers and certainly reminds all of us of the real meaning of Thanksgiving: to give thanks to the Lord for all of the benefits we might otherwise take for granted.

“It’s a word we don’t say often enough to the Lord.”