14^th Sunday in Ordinary Time C.  July 4, 2010.  Our Lady of Grace 5:15, 11:30, 6PM.  Isaiah 66: 10-14c.   Galatians 6:14-18.  Luke 10:1-12, 17-20.

Our great nation was founded and built up by people with a mission to create a better homeland for themselves and their children.  Some people came here as adventurers and merchants.  Most people came to our land fleeing poverty and religious persecution.  Most people did not come to America because they wanted to come.  They came because they had to.  Our ancestors came to this country as early as the Pilgrims in 1620 and as late as this year in a flood of immigrants that continue to dream of a better life and see the United States as the best sanctuary for freedom, opportunity and happiness.

On October 28, 1886, a massive statue commemorating the centennial of the signing of our Declaration of Independence was given to the United States by the people of France to represent the friendship between the two countries established during the American Revolution. Without the French we would never has won the war with Great Britain. The statue is of a woman wearing a robe, a radiant crown and sandals.  She is trampling a broken chain of bondage beneath her feet and lifting a great torch high in the sky. For many years the Statue of Liberty was one of the first things seen by millions of immigrants and visitors from around the world.  Many of our ancestors passed under her watchful eyes as they entered New York Harbor and this brave new land.  On the base of the Statue of Liberty the following inscription is written:

From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command…
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
' With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door”.

Our first reading reminds us that the people of Israel had been forced into exile where they suffered from the cruelty of their captors and mourned over the destruction of the holy city Jerusalem and the desecration of the sacred Temple of God.  The prophet Isaiah awakened the hearts of an oppressed and despairing people with words of hope. “Thus says the Lord; Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad because of her, all you who love her, exult, exult with her, all you who are mourning over her! …  Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent… When you see this, your heart shall rejoice and your bodies flourish like the grass; the Lord’s power shall be shown to his servants.” Hope is the gift that promises new life.

The first time that I visited Ghana I went to the slave castle where many if not most of the slaves that ended up in the United States began their journey into slavery.  African human beings were kept in dungeons around a great courtyard.  In the middle of the courtyard was a large church, used by both Catholics and Protestants.  From an opening in the wall of the slave castle called the gate of no return men and women where loaded onto slave vessels and brought to the new world, not because they wanted to come but because they had been sold into slavery.  Later when I celebrated Mass at our sister parish with our African friends I started to cry.  I never had seen the injustice of slavery so clearly. My own experience of immigration was much different.   My father came to the United States from poverty in Russia. That makes me a first generation native born American. All of his six children have been successful here and five of us have college degrees – this is the American dream in action.  My family has experienced America as the land of opportunity and freedom.  Others experienced this land as a place of continuing poverty and even enslavement. 

When Jesus began his mission he opened the Bible to the Prophet Isaiah and read, “"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord."  (Isaiah 61)  This passage serves as the introduction to our first reading.  It is also the background for today’s gospel.  “Jesus appointed seventy-two others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit.”  Jesus said, “Go on your way; behold I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way.  Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household …say to them, ‘the kingdom of God is at hand. ’”

Is this a Christian country?  There are certainly many Jews, Moslems and others living and thriving in this great land.  I love to read American history.  Several of our key founding fathers– like Jefferson and Franklin – were believing Christians in a very remote way.   A better question may be whether we are active, faithful Christians who see ourselves as having a mission in this great land.  This land is and will be as good as the people who live here.  Our mission as Christians begins at the doors of this church.  When we leave church today we will be entering the mission fields.  Our mission to the people of the Untied States is threefold.  First of all we believe that Jesus is the light of the world.  With great respect for the beliefs of others we never stop proclaiming our faith in Jesus Christ.  Our second mission is one of moral values.  We proclaim the dignity and sanctity of every human life from conception to natural death. We also demonstrate that honesty, love of neighbor and care for the poor as essential dimensions of our faith in Christ.   Thirdly we have a mission of service.  Faith without works is dead.  We worship Christ by active involvement in our community, in business, in politics, in our families, and in direct service to those in need.

In 1796 George Washington made these remarks in his Farwell Address as president of the United States. He said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”   For the religious faith and principles that enliven and challenge this great land we God thanks and praise.