OnWord

(Memorial Day Mass with the Knights of Columbus this morning allowed me to sing more than one verse of two wonderful songs of patriotism–“America the Beautiful” and “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” When you go more deeply into the songs and their messages, you find God explicitly present. This inspired me to reprint this blog post as published in “OnWord” 2013. Overlook the reference to July 4; it was great today to remember the inspiring lyrics–along with the inspiring men and women of America’s military services–even earlier in the year than I did back then.) 

I was blessed to start out this 4th of July with Mass at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, a Mass celebrated by Bishop Kevin Rhoades to mark the end of the Fortnight for Freedom. Especially in light of the Bishop’s remarks about the need for America to respect religious liberty, it was a powerful after-Mass meditation to think about God’s presence in the patriotic songs we sing on days like today.

I knew about America the Beautiful, Battle Hymn of the Republic, God Bless America, etc., but the hymnal in the pew also contained The Star Spangled Banner, and this one surprised me. Most Americans only know the first stanza, if that. Did you know that the stanza that was third in the hymnal–and fourth in the Wikipedia article about the anthem–is another powerful statement of gratitude to God? Here it is, as provided by Wikipedia:

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!^[12]

GK Chesterton once said that he pitied the atheist who was thankful but had no one to thank. Many expressions of our patriotism are seamlessly connected to religious values. As long as we sing these songs about America, we’ll be remembering and reaffirming the values of past generations who saw a connection between the blessings of this country and the One who blesses.

The power of “you” and “you” and “you” must add up to the power of “us” in order to bring hope through solidarity. Bravo, Papa Francesco. I know TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, but here I think of it as a nickname for Theodore–“God’s gift.”

I’m playing the accordion again, and a great fund-raising event last night was a gig I’ll never forget. See the TV coverage, with a clip of me performing–even though the great musicians with whom I was privileged to team up were a major highlight for me: http://bit.ly/2okPioK

It was all about Dyngus Day, a Polish tradition that follows Easter and doesn’t officially entail blessings in the strictest sense. But there were blessings galore last night. Find out more about Dyngus Day!

God bless my daughter and all the young people for whom this year brings a first chance to vote in the U.S. presidential election. Despite a sense of normalcy in everyday life and an environment of faith and virtues nurtured by loving families, caring teachers, and stable communities, many of them grew up seeing and hearing that aspects of our culture had changed. Narcissism, relativism, secularism, and an uneasy coarseness showed up not only in the entertainment they watched, but in the real-life experiences of friends in town and newsmakers nationwide. Young folks often greeted these traits with resignation and a strategy of putting the best face on bad situations. Heroic points of contrast from the past, reflecting traits which had previously been predominant, often proved insufficient to outweigh the negative choices, to convince idealists about options for true spiritual and personal progress. Young optimists had to go looking for alternative stories and guiding lights, or they had to learn by experience to veer away when they saw darkness ahead.

Neither the young people nor their parents may have fully anticipated that the campaigns for President of the United States and other national offices would become cloaked in some of the darkness found in “reality TV” or violent, hateful movies or supermarket tabloids. Even though Hollywood had already portrayed dark worlds like “House of Cards,” we expected that our senior ranks of politicians could at least summon up their best selves–or mask their flaws with admittedly human hypocrisy–in order to be images of hope and instructors of virtue. We expected leaders naturally to rise above the norms in which they were immersed, to suddenly become chess masters after finding success in the much less reasoned world of video games. Some “realists” have come to anticipate the chronic chaos will abide election after election, constituting familiar territory where attack ads are simply a handy tool.

Alas, as Pope Paul VI wrote years ago, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” Just as Saint John Paul II became a “witness to hope,” too many of our politicians have emerged as witnesses to hopelessness. They are preoccupied with themselves and with personal gain, apparently willing to lie or deceive as necessary, and somehow at home in the chaos. They seem indifferent to a society’s responsibility for all people, especially for the marginalize and for future generations, like the upcoming generation of voters.

I pray and believe that today’s witnesses of hopelessness, gaining prominence in more fields and sometimes trying to define the hope of the hopeful, will wake people up to the need for renewal–and even awaken their own hardened hearts. Many young people are already awake and ready for a new kind of realism. They realize that the status quo of cynicism cannot go on forever. They want to find hope not in disruption, but in rediscovery of what works. Armed with information and values, they will be driven to diagnose the problems in our polity. They will actually search for the owner’s manual, at least for the manual’s “troubleshooting” section. The best troubleshooting will go beyond the quick fix and mature into a philosophical, theological, personal, and communitarian strategy to reboot and purge the cultural malware, returning to more reliable, proven solutions, such as statesmanship and servant-leadership.

Faith, hope, and love are the enduring solutions, and reality always wins. Witnesses of hopelessness who reveal the mess we’ve made will push us toward higher ground, whether consciously or not. We’ll discover and cluster around the witnesses to hope found in every generation. Saint John Paul grew up witnessing the darkness but set out to find testimonies of light. Pope Benedict said the overriding priority in our times of despair was to make the face of God present. I believe Pope Francis is another instrument for the Spirit, energizing not only designated survivors, but designated revivers, and sending forth the young–and the old–as witnesses of hope. God bless those who strive to follow Christ in carrying crosses and making all things new. Parents must be good stewards for their new voters, too, by recalling the noblest lessons of history and providing a robust witness protection program for our seekers of light until the gravest risks to hope have subsided.

Today is  the  feast day  of  the archangels St.Michael, St. Gabriel, and  St. Raphael  in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar.

Thanks to an early morning program  on EWTN, I’ve just been reminded of the connection between St.  Gabriel and the “Hail Mary” pass–a football term that Wikipedia tells us was first  used at Notre Dame in the era of the Four Horsemen.

In  a program titled “Surprises of God,” Father Raymond de Souza  talks about the phenomenon where a  football team, in the closing seconds of a game, places its hopes for a surprise win in the  hands of a quarterback’s Hail Mary pass. And Father  de Souza reminds us,  even  more importantly, that  St. Gabriel was the first voice to say “Hail Mary”  and was, as angels can be, a bearer of remarkable news.

These messengers of God deliver good news, but it may not seem like it at first. In any event, one had better pay attention to it. Of course, if an  angel appears to you, you’re probably going to pay attention.

(De Souza assures us  that he doesn’t think the  “Hail Mary pass” terminology is intended to be disrespectful, and I’m agreeing that this  is  an innocent, potentially  evangelizing phrase.)

Happy Feast Day  to  all those who love St. Gabriel (also the patron saint of radio), the excitement of Hail Mary passes, the graces of the Hail Mary  prayer, angels and God’s surprises, and the commitment to  pay attention to God’s surprises. As de Souza suggests, we constantly trust God to help us emerge victorious even when it  looks like we’re losing the battle. We wait in joyful hope always for the Lord’s good news and promise to pass it along! St. Gabriel, pray for us!