Fourth of July 2011. Monday of the
Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time. Genesis 28: 10-22a.
Matthew 9: 18-26.
We are a pilgrim people. Almost 4000 years ago God
appeared to Abraham and said: "Look up at the sky and count the stars,
if you can. Just as many shall your descendants be."
Abraham put his faith in the Lord… and God made Abraham and Sarah the father
and mother of a vast community of people stretching far beyond the
The God-given dream of a new and holy people was brought to
our land by our ancestors, new and old, as the dream of a people rooted in
faith, equality, freedom and peace spread across of land. We are not a prefect
people and the dream we seek to live is still not complete. We cherish
our heritage and we seek to better understand it. We know that our
precious heritage faithfully and more deeply lived, is the key to a bright
future for us and for all the people of the earth. As we express our
gratitude to God for this land, we are coming to recognize that Native American
Indian people were often pushed aside and mistreated in our land. We know
that African slaves were brought to this land in bondage against their
will. We know that it took an amendment to our Constitution to give women
the right vote. Only one Catholic signed the Declaration of Independence and
the mood in the Colonies was very anti – Catholic. Today 28% of the
Congress is Catholic, the Speaker of the House and the presiding officer of the
Senate (the Vice President) are Catholic. Six out of nine judges on the
Supreme Court are Catholic. We are on a pilgrimage. We don’t claim to be
perfect. We know that there are many struggles and challenges in our land
today. We are one nation under God and in God we trust and on God’s mercy
and goodness we rely. Touch us Lord, make us holy.
The preface for today’s Mass says, “Once you chose a
people and gave them a destiny,
and, when you brought
them out of bondage to freedom, they carried with them the promise that all
people would be blessed and all could be free. It happened to our ancestors who
came to this land as if out of a desert into a place of promise and hope. It
happens to us still, in our time, as you lead all people through your Church to
the blessed vision of peace."
We are a very gutsy and courageous people. Like the woman in
today’s gospel we know that if we can only touch the tassel of the cloak of
Jesus we will be healed. Jesus said to the parents of the little girl in
the gospel, “The little girl is not dead. She is only sleeping.” When
the crowd laughed at Jesus he took the girl by the hand and raised her to
life. On this Fourth of July we ask the Lord to take us and our nation by
the hand and raise us up to new life. It didn’t matter that the old world
laughed at our ancestors in scorn for challenging the might of Great
Brittan. On July 4, 1776 – with trust in the Providence of God, the
founders of our great nations said:
“We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States
of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of
the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by
Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that
these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent
States.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm
reliance on the protection of Divine
This is a heritage that this first generation had to fight
for. This is a heritage that we still struggle to live today.
My father came through Ellis Island from
"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-tost
to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
May God bless each of us. May
God bless