Two stories anchor our oldest holiday. Both took place in times of division and deprivation. And both offer a hopeful note about who we can be when we try.

The first, of course, unfolds in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. After a devastating first winter that wiped out nearly half the pilgrims, the Wampanoag people taught the survivors to cultivate corn, tap maple trees and fish local waters. The generosity of the first Americans was the settlers’ salvation. And while that three-day harvest celebration was part of a too-brief alliance, the tale we tell ourselves about that first Thanksgiving teaches us the lifesaving grace of welcoming the stranger, of sharing gifts across profound cultural differences and the possibility of peaceful coexistence.

The second story, almost 250 years later, offers a brief bright spot in the darkest hour of our still-young nation. In 1863, halfway through the Civil War, as brother fought brother on American battlefields, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving. Notably, he did not frame this observance as a chest-thumping declaration of military victory or as a decree of national greatness. Instead, he called upon Americans to find unity in gratitude itself. He invited us to recognize, even as we tore ourselves apart, that we remained a people blessed by “fruitful fields and healthful skies.” One can practically hear today’s political media racing each other to call such a message “out of touch.” But Lincoln understood that the practice of giving thanks could bridge chasms that politics and war had torn open. He offered hope that acknowledging our common blessings might preserve the union when little else could.

The peaks and valleys of American history are commonly defined by our wealth and our power. But as these stories remind us, the true character of America is found in our capacity as a pilgrim people to find reasons for hope and gratitude and share those blessings with others.

So, what might those moments suggest for today’s era of disunity and discord?

We find ourselves once again in a season of polarization. Political disagreements over immigration and the role of government fracture families, ideologies separate neighbors and the public square often feels less like a commons than a battlefield with violence both threatened and tragically real. Real human suffering unfolds as indiscriminate immigration crackdowns separate families without explanation, refuse sanctuary to those fleeing violence and deport the strangers at our doorstep to countries they’ve never visited with languages they don’t speak. Many of our neighbors have lost jobs and suddenly feel the pangs of hunger in this land of plenty.

In the face of all this, the overwhelming temptation can be to retreat to our separate corners, to give thanks only with those who think as we do, to harden our hearts against those on the other side of whatever divide the algorithms tell us is most urgent that day.

But Plymouth and Lincoln offer us a different path. They remind us that giving thanks itself can be an act of unity — not by papering over our differences or pretending they don’t exist, but by recognizing that our blessings are real and shared regardless of those differences. The pilgrims and the Wampanoag came from vastly different worlds but found common cause in gratitude for the harvest. Lincoln’s divided nation could not agree on the fundamental questions of union and freedom, yet he invited us to agree that we had received blessings worth acknowledging.

We all have reasons for hope, and we all can find light and laughter even in difficult times. We are all inheritors of the pilgrim spirit, not in the sense of conquest or superiority, but in the humility of recognizing our dependence on time and chance and one another.

May we hear Lincoln’s call to discover unity in our shared blessings. And may we claim our common identity as those blessed by providence, with reasons for giving thanks that transcend and outlast our deepest disagreements.

Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Blase J. Cupich as the ninth archbishop of Chicago in 2014. He serves on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Migration and the Subcommittee for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe and wrote this for the Chicago Tribune. 

https://www.dailypress.com/2025/11/28/column-giving-thanks-can-be-an-act-of-unity/