Deacon Bob Huber

Aints and Saints

Today is All Saints Day. I thank Fr. Rick, who has given me the great honor of preaching on this most important feast.

All Saints Day celebrates a very important aspect of our Catholic faith. Indeed, if the Catholic faith was not able in every age to raise up saints from among its ranks, it would have no purpose. All the Church’s buildings, possessions, fancy vestments and beautiful art would be useless if the Body of Christ was not built up by the example of the saints. They are the most convincing sign that the Church is doing what Jesus asked of it, spreading His faith effectively to the four corners of the world.

Therefore, it is these men and women who, after Jesus and Mary, are the Church’s greatest treasure. They have answered God’s call to holiness and emulation of the life of Christ, the life so beautifully described in the Beatitudes proclaimed by Jesus in today’s Gospel. As described in our first two readings this morning, they reign now in heaven, and see God face to face.

The example of the saints reminds us that we too are called to holiness just as the saints were and are. All Saints Day also reminds us of the great Catholic belief in the communion of saints. The theological concept of the communion of saints is based on the belief that the grace that Jesus offers to all of us is held in common. All of us draw on that grace to be able to be united with Him in this life and forever in the next. We can all become saints by drawing on a kind of bank of grace that is the economy of salvation, the communion of saints.

The path to sainthood is one that we share. We are all on the same road to sainthood, financed if you will by the blood and glory of Christ. When one of us sins, the bank of grace that is the communion of saints loses some of its assets. When one of us does something to build up the Body of Christ through loving action, the entire communion of saints gains in assets. When we seek forgiveness of our sins, the actions of all the saints both dead and living provides the spiritual capital if you will, to pay the bills of sinners.

For all these reasons All Saints Day can be thought of, after Easter and Christmas, as the most important feast in the liturgical year. Additionally, one is struck in our society by the popular fascination with the concept of saints. At one level, this is religious stirring in the hearts of all, churched or unchurched.

But even our often anti-religious, very secular culture refers to saints. Many cities are named after saints, even though many unsaintly things happen there. How often do we refer to someone as having “the patience of a saint.”? People we love and respect are called “saintly” people.” There is annual dinner of Washington politicos called Saints and Sinners. More saints than sinners I expect.

And yes, there is even a professional football team named the New Orleans Saints. Now the New Orleans Saints throughout their more than 40 year history have not been a very good football team. They have never won the Super Bowl or even gotten to the Super Bowl. They have a very good team this year. But some years they have been just plain awful. Fans of the Saints have sometimes rather cruelly referred to them as the Aints instead of the Saints, with the fans wearing brown bags over their head in protest of how bad the team was.

But maybe Saints football fans have stumbled on to a new religious concept. For if we think about our relationship with Jesus, we too can either be aints or saints. Let me give you some examples:

Aints worry about how many square feet they have in their home. Saints are more concerned how many people they welcome into their home.

Aints worry about how many fancy clothes they have. Saints are more concerned with clothing the needy.

Aints build up themselves and help themselves first. Saints build up and help others first.

Aints are concerned about their job title. Saints are concerned with doing a good job.

Aints words do not match their deeds. Saints do.

Aints worry first about their own rights. Saints worry first about the rights of others.

Aints fight to be popular. Saints fight for what is right.

Apropos of aints and saints, the patron saint of our parish, St. Hubert of Liege was a perfect example of an aint who became a saint. He was born in 656 in Maastricht, in what is now modern-day Holland. He was born into a royal family and in his younger years he was not very religious. He lived the life of a wealthy, devil-may-care young nobleman, and frequently did not attend church.

Hubert was a very avid hunter. Church tradition teaches that on a Good Friday in his young adulthood, Hubert went off to hunt deer in the Ardennes Forest. Church law permitted no hunting on that day. As he had a stag in his sight, he received a vision of a crucifix between the stag’s antlers. This event is depicted in a mural just above the entrance to our church. A voice warned him “Hubert, unless you turn to the Lord, and lead a holy life, you shall quickly go down to hell.”

This conversion experience changed Hubert’s life. Shortly after his wife died, Hubert renounced all his worldly positions, titles, and wealth and studied for the priesthood. He eventually was ordained, and rose to the position of Archbishop of Liege, Belgium. He had great preaching and evangelical skills. The poor knew him for his generosity. His stewardship was responsible for converting hundreds of pagans in the Ardennes region (a forest region covering parts of modern-day Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of Germany) to Christianity. St. Hubert died in 727 and was canonized about a hundred years later. St. Hubert is the patron saint of hunters, hunting dogs, forest workers, hunters, those struck by rabies, the city of Liege, Belgium and the Ardennes Forest. Many animal rescue shelters are named for him.

St. Hubert’s feast day is November 3.  Because St. Hubert is not included on the Roman calendar of saints that is universally celebrated throughout the Church, he is honored on All Saints Day. For those who may be interested and wish to have a more festive celebration, we have also placed in the kiosk copies of a recipe for Venison St. Hubert. Other red meat can also be used if you are not “game” for the venison version of the recipe.
 
Brothers and sisters, there is only one letter that separates aints from saints. It is the letter s. S stands for Savior. Jesus the Savior gives us the graces to become saints. The communion of saints shares the graces, making it possible for aints to become saints. And that, brothers and sisters, aint bad at all.
 

Sharing in God’s Compassion

We have a most difficult and challenging Gospel tonight (this morning). Jesus encounters a rich man who is willing to follow religious regulation but not willing to give up everything he had to follow Jesus.

This reading is so challenging because, well, who among us is willing to do this?  Priests and nuns, particularly of the cloistered and mendicant variety, have done so, and we can only stand back and be grateful for their wonderful sacrifice. But this still begs the question: what about us?

Fortunately, I don’t think Jesus had this particular kind of sacrifice in mind for all of us. After all, even Jesus had his wealthy benefactors. We believe that Mary Magdalene, and the so-called women of Jerusalem Jesus encounters during his Passion, were wealthy themselves. Jesus did not tell them to give up everything and follow Him. He needed their financial and logistical support. Jesus also had wealthy friends with whom he dined and with whom He kept friendships. And of course, who bought Jesus’ burial plot? None other than Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy member of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin.

So perhaps at this point you might be breathing a sigh of relief. Whew! I guess I don’t have to give up all my prized possessions. Well, don’t get too comfortable yet. For the challenge of our Gospel is still great. It still should, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews says in our second reading, pierce more sharply than a two-edged sword.       

The Christian faith manifests itself in two ways. One is in the building of the Kingdom of God in the world in which we live. This is called exteriority and includes our advocacy for efforts to build human dignity, human decency, stewardship of God’s creation, the dignity of work and workers, the sharing of possessions, and the building of a more peaceful world.

Then there is interiority. Part of interiority is what we are doing tonight: prayer, sacrament and Scripture. The other is individual service. Service is at the essence of all love and loving God and loving one another are the two greatest commandments.  Here is where Jesus’ call in our Gospel to reject our possessions comes into play for all of us.        

When Jesus came to this earth, He fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that a Messiah would come that would be called Immanuel, God-with-us. You remember that in Advent, the song, “O Come, O Come Immanuel”, reminds us of this. There is great significance to the term Immanuel. For Jesus was a Messiah who enters into the lives of humans in the deepest of ways. And he calls all of us to that intimacy.

For the Christian God is a God of compassion. And it is an intimate compassion that we are called to share. All of us are called to be instruments of God’s mercy, even to those we do not like or maybe even know. We do not always do that, as shown by the story of the rich man. But sometimes we do. So what are the means that we can be share God’s intimate compassion?

First, during his public life, in moments of pain and suffering, Jesus was there.  Even if there often not much we can do for the suffering, we can be present. We can show we care. When we ignore the call to be present, we ignore our faith. For being present is a radical call, a call that should penetrate to the roots of the way we live our lives. And God will always be there when we are there, entering into others and us in our problems, confusions, and questions. We enter into God’s intimate love. By our being present to others in times of trouble, we see God present as our refuge, our stronghold, our wisdom, and our shepherd. Jesus was often moved to compassion by the suffering around Him. And so must we be.

Second, Jesus, in total freedom, chose to suffer fully our pains and sorrows. It was an expression of a God who calls us to understand that our sinful selves can be overcome by the divine expression of compassion that Jesus shares with us. For us, Jesus’ life transforms our broken human condition from one of despair to hope because his suffering for others was freely chosen, and we can so choose sacrifice for others as well. Jesus healed many in his public life not to impress, to prove, to convince. And we are called to heal not to impress, to prove or convince but to relieve and share suffering.

Keep in mind that many in Jesus’ time might well have encountered him, but they were not healed in a physical sense. Jesus did not, and does not, always take physical pain away but our God is so compassionate that he shared suffering with us. God is not a distant god, a god to be feared and avoided, a God of revenge, but a God who is moved by our pains and participates in the fullness of the human struggle. And so must we be moved by others pain and our human struggle and the struggle of others. The miracles were real, just as miracles are every day. But their source is the consolation and comfort of a compassionate God.

Third, possessions must never dominate us even if we have many of them. Instead, compassion for others should dominate our lives. This often means rejecting the life of endless competition, the life of greed, the life of esteem and credit, entering instead into the life of God himself. It means emptying ourselves so as to receive new, compassionate relationships with God and each other. By accepting our identities from the one who is the giver of all life, we can be with each other without distance or fear. We can move beyond sympathy for others to empathy for others. We can move from offering charity to seeking justice. We can not only be aware of the poor, but put them in our Rolodex.

Jesus showed us a whole new way of living, a way of living like the Apostles and the saints who were witnesses to Christ. We can take on God’s compassion for others, a compassion that is so deep and full that it cannot help but bear fruit. This compassion, the interiority of faith can take many forms. It may be simply praying for others if we are too weak or infirmed to do anything else. We can consider tithing of income and investments to provide both direct service and empowerment of the poor. We can be aware of and participate in the outreach ministries of our parish. We can go to the poor and afraid, as many of our parishioners do with single pregnant women, the hungry, and the sick.

So this evening, (morning), brothers and sisters let us pray that the God of deep and inexhaustible compassion enter into our lives and that we accept that compassion. May we be a compassionate people, a people that shares each others suffering, and never lets possessions dominate us.  Let us be instruments of God’s mercy rather than instruments of fear. Let us empty ourselves in compassion, entering into the new way of life to which Jesus called us.
 

The Suffering Servant in Every Age

In our first reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, the prophet describes the Suffering Servant of God, the Messiah, the one who will take on the sins of others to liberate God’s people.

Jesus, the Messiah did just that. He conquered sin and death so that we can do the same. But Jesus did not put us in heaven. He set the model. It is up to us to cooperate. Jesus’ model of life emphasized the building of the Kingdom of God on earth, recognizing that it would be perfected in heaven by all who have learned how to love. For heaven is indeed the Kingdom of God perfected, and we must be perfected in love to get there.

The Old Testament prophets like Isaiah taught that it was not enough to simply call oneself a Jew. One had to live one’s faith, one had to build the Kingdom of God. Jesus extended a similar requirement to his followers. For us it not enough to simply call oneself a Christian or a Catholic. We must live our faith. Our second reading from the letter of St. James makes this crystal clear. A faith without works, St. James says, is dead.

The principles of the Kingdom of God can be found in the latter chapters of the book of the prophet Isaiah from which our first reading is drawn. They are the principles that, Jesus tells his apostles in our Gospel reading from Mark, for which he will die.

The concepts of the Kingdom of God include a rather clear concept of justice.  It is a Kingdom that rejected the economics of inequality that was inherent in slavery. It was a call for ALL to be able to enjoy the fruits of God’s creation and a rejection of oppression and exploitation. It was a rejection of religious and political leaders who sought to be God’s ventriloquist, warping God’s message into one that favored some, like them and their Roman masters, at the expense of others.

The principles of the Kingdom of God bothered many comfortable Jews of Jesus’ day.  For the Kingdom of God rejects the economics of inequality, oppression and exploitation that were clearly present in Jesus’ time. It rejects a timid faith of dusty, arid rules and regulations that did not offend the oppressors of the time but added to the burdens of ordinary people. Small wonder the political establishment of Jesus’ time wanted to kill him. 

But Jesus never lacked for courage. He would say many things that would offend the ruling religious classes of his day, so much so that they would eventually find a way to kill Him. But his message would not die out with his earthly life. The loving covenant of God was extended to all people. A billion of them now call themselves Christians.

Fortunately, the teachings of Jesus, passed down to us through our Church give us an understanding of what needs to be done as we pick up our cross and follow Him. Jesus and His Church have given us some important principles in which to build the Kingdom of God. They include:

    the promotion of human dignity at all stages of human life;
    the promotion of the community and the common good of the society in which we live, a fundamental right to life and a right to the things required for human decency (food, shelter, clothing, employment, health care, and education) as well as personal responsibility for ourselves, our families, and society;
    a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable in our society;
    the right and responsibility of all, not just some, to participate in the economic, political, and cultural life of society;
    the promotion of the dignity of work and rights of workers, including the right to productive work, decent and fair wages, safe working conditions, and the right to organize and join unions;
    the holding of God’s material creation in common, with the right to private property but not excessive wealth when others lack the basic necessities of life;
    protective stewardship of God’s creation, caring for and preserving it for future generations;
    solidarity with the entire human family and its needs, not just one or another nation;
    a constructive not oppressive role for government in promoting human dignity, protecting human rights, and building the common good; and
    the promotion of peace through mutual respect and confidence between peoples and nations tempered by legitimate measures of self-defense.   

            These are the principles of the Kingdom of God. If you don’t believe me, I suggest you visit the web page of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, www.usccb. org. The principles of the Kingdom of God are the principles of a just Catholic faith to which Jesus calls us, no less now than in the time of Jesus.

In all times and places, one can expect that the call for such a new loving covenant, a new Kingdom, will encounter opposition. In speaking about the Church’s message about carrying out the Kingdom of God, a Latin American bishop once noted, “when they see me feeding a poor person they call me a Christian; when I ask why people are hungry, they call me a communist.”

Some in this parish from time to time have called me a communist. As you can see, they can’t call me late for dinner. But I am here to preach faithfully about the teachings of the Church, whether they encounter opposition or not. And my travails are trivial compared to many others who have fought for Christian social justice, who have been Suffering Servants in the model of Jesus. Many have died believing in the Kingdom of God and fighting for its carrying out on this earth.

We remember, for example, how some of the victims of the 9/11 attacks gave their lives to save others by forcing the terrorists to crash a plan in rural Pennsylvania rather than at the U.S. Capitol. At the cost of their own human lives but certainly not their human dignity, they saved the human lives of so many others who they never even met.

By contrast, there are those who lack courage and honesty and try to make up for it with their hostility. We see this in the current debate about health care. The Catholic Church supports universal health care as a right not a privilege. It has not endorsed any single proposal to do this, and there are a lot of different ways to get there. And this right is not morally acceptable if it is not accompanied by the protection of human life at all of its stages.

So in the health care debate, on one end are those who don’t like Catholic teaching on abortion and don’t like the Catholic position that supports universal health care, but not if our tax dollars are used to increase the use of abortion.

On the other hand, we can see in town hall meetings across the country this summer, fear tactics, as those who seek to carry out the Catholic teaching for universal health care as a basic human right are called Nazis and supporters of death committees, even though the Catholic Church itself, indeed our own Archdiocese, supports end-of-life counseling.

Our political leaders are threatened with assassination. Many of us find ourselves shouted down and ridiculed. But the ultimate death panel, brothers and sisters, is the use of slander and deceit to kill efforts to bring about universal health care. This all to real death panel kills 20,000 people are year, because people can’t get insurance or face the cruel irony of losing it because they got sick. 17,000 people lose their insurance every day.

Opponents of the Kingdom of God, whatever their motivations, have learned the lessons of the Pharisees well. Scare people and they will believe anything. Inject fear and people will cling to what they have, even as they are losing it.

But there is nothing new about this. Catholics will never be fully popular with some when we promote the Kingdom of God and its covenant, be it opposition to abortion, support for universal health care, the free practice of our faith, or anything else. We may not even be popular with some sitting in our very pews. But let us pray brothers and sisters that we utilize the Holy Spirit’s gift of courage in promoting God’s covenant, the Kingdom of God, no matter how unpopular. For living that covenant, building the Kingdom of God, is the joy of being a Christian, the challenge of being Suffering Servants and the only real path to salvation.
 

The Power of the Bread of Life

This morning we confront once again readings from the so-called “Bread of Life narrative.” The Bread of Life narrative takes up five chapters in the Gospel of John, and contains the central Biblical proofs for the Catholic belief that our celebration of the Eucharist is the celebration of Jesus entering our bodies as the Real Presence of God, body, blood, soul, and divinity; Jesus, literally in us.

By now, you might just be stifling a yawn. For you have heard Father Rick, myself, and other clergy talk about the Eucharist and the Bread of Life many times. Indeed, any concept, no matter how meaningful and relevant to our physical and spiritual lives can seem a little dry or abstract unless you see it in action in real life.

In our readings tonight, the Eucharist is in action for three different people or sets of people. In our reading from the first Book of Kings, the prophet Elijah has been preaching and teaching the Jewish people. Like every preacher, the people weren’t always hanging on his every word.

Elijah traveled from town to town and he was tired. He wasn’t driving his car to these places but hoofing it. Between the challenge of the journey, and the challenge of the audience, he was worn out and ready to give up. But God sustains him by an angel giving him food and drink. The food and drink God provides is a foreshadowing of the food and drink Jesus Himself would provide at a later point in salvation history. Elijah is fortified and is ready to resume his work on behalf of God.

In our second reading, Paul remarks how the Eucharist, for him and all of Jesus’ followers, not only feeds us spiritually but also redeems us. The Eucharist unleashes the power of the Holy Spirit, helping us to turn away from anger, malice, and violence and toward compassion, forgiveness, and even Christ-like sacrifice.

Finally, in the Bread of Life Gospel reading from John we read from tonight (this morning) Jesus reminds us that if the apostles eat his flesh, they will not die. It is a formulation which must have seemed rather strange to them, for theologians tell us the words “eat his flesh” here should be interpreted more as something like gnawing on his flesh, as someone who is very hungry might do when presented with a turkey drumstick.  But the apostles would come to understand this concept only later, after Jesus instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday. The Eucharist would turn the key for them, as it does for us, to the door of salvation. These rather ordinary people would, because of the power of the Eucharist, become extraordinary agents of God’s mercy and compassion.

But this is only really the beginning of the story. For we are ordinary people much like the apostles. And much like the apostles, we are given the extraordinary privilege of being offered the Eucharist. And we, much like the apostles, can also become extraordinary agents of God’s mercy and compassion.

We can talk a lot about the Eucharist. We can honor it, as we should. We go to rather significant lengths to protect the species of the Eucharist, preserving it in tabernacles, adoring it through exposition and benediction.

But, brothers and sisters, to really understand the power of the Bread of Life, the Eucharist, we must go deeper. For if we believe that Christ is literally in us, through the Eucharist, then we must, as Father Rick noted last week, literally put on Christ. We are called to be transformed by it, not merely accept it.

Here I have a confession to make. Despite many years as a cradle Catholic, and many years as a deacon, this notion of the Eucharist as transforming us was only superficially clear to me. For we can believe that Jesus is in the Eucharist. We can believe in the Real Presence. But we may not always see what the Real Presence in us through the Eucharist can do for those who receive it. And so let me share a personal experience that I went through these past few weeks. This experience was an awesome gift from the Lord, played out in a most ordinary way, but with extraordinary impact.

We have many wonderful parishioners here at St. Hubert. And I normally don’t call out them out from the pulpit but I am going to make an exception this morning. Many of you in this parish know Joanie Smith. She is a long-time member of this parish, who has offered her services to us in many ways over the years. She is a loving, giving, but modest person who frankly we can take for granted.

Many months ago, Joanie agreed to take care of a neighbor named Thor, an old man who had had a severe stroke. Joanie is a nurse, and was very dissatisfied with Thor’s care in a nursing home. So remarkably, she brought him to his old house, moved in with him, and took care of him. Many of you have seen Thor at church, brought to our parish by Joanie every Sunday until very recently.

Joanie has done this without any hope of compensation. Thor’s finances are a little complicated, and Joanie has asked for nothing for herself. Thor is not her father, or even her relative. He was a neighbor, but Thor had lots of neighbors. These last several weeks, it has become clear that Thor was near the end of his life. Joanie has been waiting on him hand and foot, waking every two hours to give him his medicine. I must confess somewhat shamefully that I had not given him or her much thought until Marcia Halligan, our parish administrator, asked me to look in on her.  

Like old Elijah in our first reading, people who try to serve God have good days and bad. They can get very tired because of the sheer fatigue serving others can bring. This was true of Joanie. When I visited her she was very tired, on the verge of tears at times. But I brought something with me that sustained and transformed her as it has so many people over almost 2,000 years. It was the Eucharist.

Perhaps, brothers and sisters, I have been a little dense. But in a way that I had never appreciated before, the Bread of Life, the Eucharist, is not just a concept. Oh, we should believe the concept. But we should really believe the wonderful things it does. Watching Joanie put on Christ through the Eucharist was an exceptional revelation, a remarkable gift of God’s grace. And I praise God and thank Joanie for sharing her service-based love for Thor, with me.

Thor passed away a few days ago. But the Bread of Life endures for those in this life and the next. And so let us pray brothers and sisters, the next time we hear the term Bread of Life, we not only acknowledge the concept but also recognize its power. Let us not just read about the Bread of Life, talk about the Bread of Life, and believe in the Bread of Life, let us act on it in our own lives and the lives of others.      
 

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Nearly 40 years ago, the popular ballad singer Lynn Anderson had a big hit song entitled “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.”  As I examined the readings for the Masses this weekend, this song came into my head. For it does seem, at least on first impulse, to accurately describe our readings for this the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time.

In all three readings today, God calls three individuals to preach His loving covenant, a covenant he established first with the Israelites, and then with all of us. All three agree to do so. The result in the short-term is persecution and death. Ezekiel in our first reading is called to bring rebellious Israelites back to the faith. He is persecuted and ridiculed for his trouble.

Paul gives us up a life of relative ease to preach the new Christian faith throughout the Middle East and southern Europe. For his trouble he endures hardship, imprisonment, and finally execution. And the human Jesus in our Gospel according to Mark finds that his very own relatives are suspicious and hateful of Him for ruining their quiet lives with a message of love of God and others. He is creating trouble for them that is all too inconvenient and dangerous.  And eventually as we know, Jesus would pay the ultimate price, an excruciating death, for living and teaching the faith of God.

So yes indeed, God never promised Ezekiel, Paul, and even God’s Son a rose garden on this earth. And this fact can seem a little overwhelming to us as well. For if individuals of such powerful intellect and personal grace were persecuted for the faith of God, how are we going to avoid it? Why should we want such a faith?

To follow God, the path of Jesus Christ is to encounter opposition, disappointment, even death. But as Christians we are called to understand that there is simply no better way to live than God’s powerful way of life: a life of loving God and others. Such a life is never easy. History is full of Christians who gave up everything to follow Jesus. Sometimes they were killed for their beliefs. Sometimes they suffered persecution. Some were strong and were great leaders, bringing new people to the faith and the Christian way of life. Some were weak and sick, yet devoted their lives to God in prayer and service to others.  Some were tall; some were tiny. Some were fat; some were skinny. Some were quite attractive physically; others had faces only a mother could love.

But all shared one thing in common. They all understood God is love and God created us for love based on different kind of service to God and others. All these Christians understood that we are put on this earth to learn how to love. And there is no better way to learn how to love than to follow the life of Jesus Christ. When we follow Christ, we give in order to receive. We come to understand that the joy we feel when we do for others is always stronger than when we do for ourselves. When we come to accept the reality that everything we have comes from God, then no matter what is taken from us in a material sense is not as important as the reality that God can never be taken from us. The fact that our suffering, no matter how great, is joined to that of Jesus and is ultimately overcome just as Jesus’ was is the great consolation of Christian truth.

And when our time on this earth is over, Lynn Anderson’s song loses its truth. For God does indeed promise a rose garden in the next life if we live through the challenges of a life of service-based love in this life. For it is through this process that we receive the mind and heart of Jesus. We enter a loving relationship with God where there is no more suffering, no more tears, no more death. Just the intimacy that truly living the Christian life has brought us.

On this weekend when we celebrate our country’s independence, we also rejoice because we have seen and can see Americans who have lived the Gospel life. The many that give of themselves to build the Kingdom of God here on earth through their commitment to social service and economic and social justice. The many who comfort the poor and afflicted, feed the hungry and remember the dead. Those who put aside personal gain to do what is right for the larger community. Those who have fought and died for American independence, for the righteousness that rejects totalitarian values, political repression and violence. Those who work in and have built hospitals and created medicines that cure the sick and demonstrate God’s mercy. We treasure the remarkable story of Catholic education, which has shown and taught our faith to tens of millions, a faith of clean heart and invincible love. We remember the many times America has served as peacemaker, in the Middle East, in the Balkans, and many other places around the world. We also commemorate those who, despite persecution, helped overcome discrimination and inequality, making America a better and more just place for all people.

To be sure our country and we have a long way to go. We often fall short. But even as we strive to improve our country and ourselves, brothers and sisters, enjoy the true freedom of the sons and daughters of God.  We may be rejected. We may suffer. We may be weak not strong. And we will die to this life sooner or later. Understanding all of this can be very difficult things for us to accept. But the human Jesus suffered these things too. He asks us for right motives and a believing heart. He asks us to do our best. For then Jesus can do His best. And this brothers and sisters, is the sweet scent of the ultimate and best rose garden of all.