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From the Pastor&
On the last Monday of May, we Americans will once again observe Memorial Day. Tomorrow, a variety of public and private rituals and ceremonies will take place to keep a memory alive. We, as a country, set aside one day to prevent people and our past from being forgotten.
Memorial Day began in the wake of the Civil War. Soldiers from the North and South, all Americans, died and we, the country, needed to remember them. And since the War between the States, there have been two World Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and, most recently, the Gulf War. Shouldn't we stop and remember the countless numbers of young men and women who died for the cause of freedom? We set aside our differences on this day and we remember. We are to remember the sacrifice made by others so that freedom's holy light keeps burning in our hearts and our national conscience.
Memorial Day -- fireworks, high school marching bands, speakers and politicians everywhere, flowers on graves, flags waving, family picnics, softball games, joy, laughter, tears. This is the obvious and visible side of Memorial Day.
Our past is vital. It provides us with identity and dreams that have guided us as a nation, and as a Church. Back in 1863, there was a quiet whisper inside a cabin and someone said, "Mr. Lincoln said we are free." A freedom that many take for granted. A freedom that many died for. How can we forget?
"Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it," a wise philosopher/historian once said. Where are we going as a country? Lewis Carroll, in Alice in Wonderland, had Alice saying, "Cheshire-Puss, would you please tell me, which way I ought to go from here?" The cat replies, "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." Every road takes you nowhere when you do not know where you are going. The past provides an identity and a direction.
I forget who wrote the following, but I copied it down a few years ago: "For 1,500 years Christianity served as the foundation upon which Western Civilization was built. It was the mortar that held things together and made progress possible. That is all over now. The enterprise of science has wised up and taken over. The faith of our forefathers is irrelevant."
I realize that many persons from different ways of life have tried to "trash" Western Civilization as antiquated and meaningless. We even have people within the Church "trashing" Christianity. The past has not been perfect; there have been mistakes made and people were wounded. But just think what Western Civilization and the Catholic Church replaced!
Our "advanced" society has given us UR486 pills and Dr. Jack Kevorkian! If this is what replaced Western Civilization, we should weep for our country. But we have Memorial Day -- as a nation we are called to remember where we've been and where we can go. No matter how busy you are, say a prayer for the United States tomorrow. May we never forget as we forge ahead.
-- Fr. Bill
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