Thank you all for your prayerful well-wishes, support, and encouragement for the 25th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. Our liturgy of Pentecost on 18 May was a beautiful celebration of the advocacy of the Holy Spirit. Thank you to our deacons, lectors, music ministry, servers, sextons, church decorators, and rectory staff who made the occasion so special and memorable. Thank you for welcoming our guests so warmly. Thank you also to our school community at Notre Dame de Lourdes for the clap-out celebration, and delightful hand-made cards, on 15 May, my ordination date. The chocolate cake that followed was delicious. The celebration continues this weekend with our 11:30 Mass followed by our gathering at the Milmont Fire Company, I hope that you can join us. Thanks again.
“We do not know one promise these men made, one pledge they gave, one word they spoke; but we do know they summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country, they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue.”
The following quote was offered by then congressman, later President James Garfield on 30 May 1868 on the first Memorial Day commemorating the deceased soldiers of the American Civil War. President Garfield was a Union major general during the Civil War and his words, spoken at Arlington Cemetery, as well as the words of poems such as Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” – “The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done” – and McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” – “We live, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved” – remind us of the humanity of the individuals whom we honor on this Memorial Day.
Gracious God, on this Memorial Day weekend, we remember and give thanks for those who have given their lives in service of our country. When the need was greatest, they stepped forward and did their duty to defend the freedoms we enjoy, and to win the same for others.
O God, you yourself have taught us that no love is greater than that which gives itself for another. These honored dead gave the most precious gift they had, life itself, for loved ones and neighbors, for comrades and country – and for us.
Help us to honor their memory by caring for the family members they have left behind, by ensuring that their wounded comrades are properly cared for, by being watchful caretakers of the freedoms for which they gave their lives.
Holy One, help us to remember that freedom is not free. There are times when its cost is, indeed, dear. Never let us forget those who paid so terrible a price to ensure that freedom would be our legacy.
Though their names may fade with the passing of generations, may we never forget what they have done. Help us to be worthy of their sacrifice, O God, help us to be worthy. Amen.
J. Veltri, S.J. (jesuitresource.org)
Finally, on this Holy Trinity Sunday we close with the words of the Eucharistic Preface.
Lord, holy Father for with your Only Begotten Son and the Holy Spirit you are one God, one Lord: not in the unity of a single person, but in a Trinity of one substance. For what you have revealed to us of your glory we believe equally of your Son and of the Holy Spirit, so that, in the confessing of the true and eternal Godhead, you might be adored in what is proper to each person, their unity in substance, and their equality in majesty.