It’s worth remembering that most countries are founded on nothing, or on passing abstractions quite unlikely to provide much stability and energy....
[However] the opening of Lincoln’s Gettysburg’s Address offers a clue to how we…think about America. If you count back from 1863 to “four score and seven years ago,” the point at which Lincoln and his listeners believed “our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation,” you don’t come to the date of the Constitution (1787)... You get 1776, the year when the Declaration of Independence famously said: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”
This is the starting point for a vision of social order that set the foundations on the most unshakeable ground of all: God Himself. The signers knew they were risking everything – their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. And explicitly chose to do so “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.
The American Jesuit John Courtney Murray …argued there are three solid deductions from our founding. First, there are truths – important truths. Second, we human beings can know them. And last, and far from least, we – we Americans – hold these truths, that is we embrace them as the ground on which we stand....
...On Memorial Days, we still talk a fair amount about the sacrifices brave citizens have made to defend this nation. But any country can say that in honor of its military; the specific difference for us is the kind of social order preserved by our brave men and women.
...We seem to think that our religious foundations and confidence in the energies of a free people under God are antiquated notions in an age when government can provide for our comforts and welfare without much effort or struggle....On Memorial Day, it’s good for us to remember that we did not get prosperity and liberty without costs and sacrifices, and that we will not keep them without understanding whence they come and on what they are based. (The Catholic Thing, 2011)
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Memorial Day Mass. So this weekend, we begin the unofficial start to summer with parades, cookouts, friends and family. Please consider a fitting start to this day by attending Jesus’ own “Memorial” (“Do this in memory of me”) at our Memorial Day Mass at St. Mary Cemetery, Monday at 9:00 AM. There the Lord builds our character and virtues, and we thank him for his many blessings including freedom, and the sacrifices of so many that preserve it for all of us. See further down in this Newsletter for more details.
