Today I offered morning Mass at the Missionaries of Charity “Gift of Love” house, a former motel they have renovated for the poorest of the poor in San Francisco, men whom not even the city will take in. As I approached the altar, wondering what on earth I could preach about, I noticed a vase of red, white, and blue flowers beneath Our Lady’s statue. What a nice touch of patriotism, I thought. Here are the thoughts that someone, perhaps the Holy Spirit, put into my head for our valiant missionaries this morning.
I am delighted to see red, white, and blue flowers beneath Our Lady’s statue this morning! You sisters are exercising the virtue of patriotism, thanking God for this beautiful country. And it seems that Our Lady is patriotic too, because patriotism—gratitude for the patria, the “fatherland” God has given us—is gratitude to God Himself.
We Catholics live in two countries: the motherland in which we were born, and the eternal homeland which we aspire to reach after death. You fifteen sisters are living in the United States of America, even though most of you were not born here. You are also living in the Kingdom of Heaven, and never more so than when in this poor little chapel.
Last Saturday we celebrated the 250th anniversary of this nation, and many of you attended the Mass I offered last Monday on the 250th anniversary of our city. On June 29, 1776, San Francisco was born when Fr. Francisco Palou offered the first Mass at Mission San Francisco. Five days later, the United States was born when Thomas Jefferson signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. While Jefferson was a remarkable man, along with the other founders of our nation, he did not believe in the Christian God in the way we in San Francisco did in those years. The founders of our country were “spiritual but not religious,” so-called Deists, and most of them Masons, while the Spaniards who founded this City were convicted Catholics.
Among the great gifts we Catholics have received is a “sacramental worldview.” We see everything on earth as a foretaste of heaven. Life on earth is good, but not the best. The best is yet to come, and all the good things God has given in this age point to perfection in eternity. Catholics strive to see everything sub specie aeternitatis, “in the light of eternity.” I have a big TV screen at the parish with the letters “LG” on them, an appliance company whose acronym stands for “Life is Good.” Life is good, this electronics company tells us, when we buy enough of their touchscreens, cellphones, dishwashers, and microwave ovens. I like my LG television, but I have to remember that it is only a window into another, a better world. If our happiness is stacking up LG appliances, we will not be very happy.
In the Catholic calendar, July is the month of the Precious Blood, which we celebrate on July 1. In the civic calendar, July is the month of our nation’s independence, which we celebrate on July 4. Both celebrations are colored red. I stood at the altar on July 1 in red vestments, and your red daisies still grace the altar from July 4. The red stripes in the American flag stand for the blood shed by her soldiers, and the red on my vestments stands for the blood of Christ. The soldiers who fought our War of Independence offered their blood that their wives and children might have a better life; Christ offered his blood that His spouse and children might have eternal life.
St. Thomas More, the great English patriot, said at his trial that he was “the King’s good servant, and God’s first.” He is often misquoted as saying “I am the King’s good servant, but God’s first.” But the distinction between “and” and “but” is important, because More did not oppose loyalty to the King against loyalty to God. He insisted, even unto death in the Tower of London, that the only way he could be fully loyal to King Henry VIII was to be loyal first to God.
So it is with us Americans. Patriotism begins loyalty to God, and any “American way” that departs from the way of God betrays our country. Before America was our patria, God is our Father, and only within God’s fatherhood can our fatherland flourish. This deeper patriotism is the charism we Catholics must bring to America.
I am delighted to see red, white, and blue flowers beneath Our Lady’s statue this morning! You sisters are exercising the virtue of patriotism, thanking God for this beautiful country. And it seems that Our Lady is patriotic too, because patriotism—gratitude for the patria, the “fatherland” God has given us—is gratitude to God Himself.
We Catholics live in two countries: the motherland in which we were born, and the eternal homeland which we aspire to reach after death. You fifteen sisters are living in the United States of America, even though most of you were not born here. You are also living in the Kingdom of Heaven, and never more so than when in this poor little chapel.
Last Saturday we celebrated the 250th anniversary of this nation, and many of you attended the Mass I offered last Monday on the 250th anniversary of our city. On June 29, 1776, San Francisco was born when Fr. Francisco Palou offered the first Mass at Mission San Francisco. Five days later, the United States was born when Thomas Jefferson signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. While Jefferson was a remarkable man, along with the other founders of our nation, he did not believe in the Christian God in the way we in San Francisco did in those years. The founders of our country were “spiritual but not religious,” so-called Deists, and most of them Masons, while the Spaniards who founded this City were convicted Catholics.
Among the great gifts we Catholics have received is a “sacramental worldview.” We see everything on earth as a foretaste of heaven. Life on earth is good, but not the best. The best is yet to come, and all the good things God has given in this age point to perfection in eternity. Catholics strive to see everything sub specie aeternitatis, “in the light of eternity.” I have a big TV screen at the parish with the letters “LG” on them, an appliance company whose acronym stands for “Life is Good.” Life is good, this electronics company tells us, when we buy enough of their touchscreens, cellphones, dishwashers, and microwave ovens. I like my LG television, but I have to remember that it is only a window into another, a better world. If our happiness is stacking up LG appliances, we will not be very happy.
In the Catholic calendar, July is the month of the Precious Blood, which we celebrate on July 1. In the civic calendar, July is the month of our nation’s independence, which we celebrate on July 4. Both celebrations are colored red. I stood at the altar on July 1 in red vestments, and your red daisies still grace the altar from July 4. The red stripes in the American flag stand for the blood shed by her soldiers, and the red on my vestments stands for the blood of Christ. The soldiers who fought our War of Independence offered their blood that their wives and children might have a better life; Christ offered his blood that His spouse and children might have eternal life.
St. Thomas More, the great English patriot, said at his trial that he was “the King’s good servant, and God’s first.” He is often misquoted as saying “I am the King’s good servant, but God’s first.” But the distinction between “and” and “but” is important, because More did not oppose loyalty to the King against loyalty to God. He insisted, even unto death in the Tower of London, that the only way he could be fully loyal to King Henry VIII was to be loyal first to God.
So it is with us Americans. Patriotism begins loyalty to God, and any “American way” that departs from the way of God betrays our country. Before America was our patria, God is our Father, and only within God’s fatherhood can our fatherland flourish. This deeper patriotism is the charism we Catholics must bring to America.
Red, White and Blue in the Sisters' chapel this morning.
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