“Organized Bedlam and Eucharistic Thanksgiving”
Pastor’s Pen — November 23, 2025
For most of my childhood and adolescence, Thanksgiving was celebrated at my Uncle Bill and Aunt Betty’s house at the corner of 43rd Street and Duncan, then from 1967 on at their farm near Lanesville, Indiana. I had five Robertson cousins, and there were five children, including me, in my family. There were also Robertson grandparents, Padgett grandparents, and several great aunts and uncles.
Thanksgiving was the only time this large number of people gathered in one household. There was a conglomeration of various tables and card tables spread over a series of different rooms. My dad called it “organized bedlam.” The organization was arranged by age, and over a period of years, I moved from one kind of table to another until my teenage years. Finally, I arrived at the grown‑up table — a real dining room table — and learned that what seemed the coolest place really wasn’t the coolest place. Suddenly, I missed the ruckus of the different children’s tables.
As an older adult and now a priest, I realize that our celebration of Eucharist has some remarkable similarities to Thanksgiving at my Uncle Bill and Aunt Betty Jane’s house. It was a regular gathering of people I knew. There was a shared history among the two main branches of my family. Even the dinner was eminently predictable; it was something we always anticipated, which now I remember with great fondness. This Thanksgiving, as has been my custom since moving into St. Brigid, my family and their extensions will gather in our Goetz Center, where there is sufficient space, two kitchens, a ramp, and convenient parking. This is my eleventh Thanksgiving here, so I guess this is the new tradition.
The word Eucharist is Greek for thanksgiving. The central act of the Mass is our giving thanks for Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection — the Paschal Mystery by which our sins are forgiven. Of course, we have a reverence for tradition, but retain the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. The festivity lends a sense of “organized bedlam,” but at both meals, repetition and ritual help evoke a sense of tradition and connection with the past. At Mass and at a Thanksgiving dinner, we engage in storytelling, and as we welcome new members, we learn some new traditions.
The Eucharist we celebrate on Sunday and on weekdays is sacred because Jesus is always present in the people who gather together, in the stories that are told, and in the gifts that are offered, particularly the gifts that become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Eucharist is just as recognizable as our family Thanksgiving celebrations, in part because of its ritual repetitive nature and the abiding presence of the Lord. As you share Thanksgiving with your family and friends this week, may you also be aware of the ties that bind us together, whether the setting is organized or disorganized bedlam. What never changes is what is revealed in the Letter to the Hebrews: Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.
Father Gary
