Mothers’ Day in the Mother Land
1. On May 6, many Americans celebrated the 48th National Day of
Prayer. I was in Washington, D.C., to begin the day of prayer
in the Caucus Room of the Cannon House of Representatives office
building. After my opening prayer, in which I quoted from Bishop
John Carroll’s prayer for the inauguration of George Washington
in 1789, a Rabbi read from the prophet Isaiah and then the prayers
were led by evangelical Protestants. They and the hymns and readings
reflected, therefore, a deep sense of dependence upon God’s will
and a sense of profound gratitude for our salvation in Jesus Christ,
sentiments into which I entered fully. They also tended to apply
the admonitions and promises of the Hebrew prophets directly to
the United States of America and to compare the foundation of
our country to that of God’s leading the Hebrew people to the
promised land, sentiments which left me uneasy.
One of the organizers of the National Day of Prayer thanked me
for accepting their invitation and then graciously asked how they
could involve more Catholics around the country in the prayers
of the day. I suggested that any difficulty in Catholics’ participating
did not stem from a lack of respect for evangelical Protestants
nor a desire to cooperate but from our different sense of our
relationship to the nation. For Catholics, the only new Israel
is the Church, and we are uneasy when the country itself is regarded
as a kind of church or a “city upon a hill.” The foundation of
the United States was providential for the advancement of individual
freedom in the world, and we are grateful for our country and
love it as our homeland. But the United States is in no sense
a new dispensation in the history of salvation. It is no more
mentioned or implicitly spoken of in the pages of Holy Scripture
than is China or New Zealand. Catholics don’t make the United
States or any nation into a church. We belong to a visible Church
which has seen many nations come and go and will continue to do
so until Christ returns in glory.
Our country, of course, needs our prayers, especially during these
days of warfare. In June, the latest theological discussions between
Orthodox and Catholics were to take place in Baltimore. They have
been canceled, not because relations between Orthodox and Catholics
have soured but because Orthodox leaders from outside this country
will not come even to visit a country which is bombing an Orthodox
country. Let our prayers for the United States be prayers for
peace, at home and abroad, for ourselves and for other peoples.
2. After the morning of prayer on May 6, I took a short walk around
the capitol, threading through the groups of tourists, who were
mostly young people from around the country visiting the capital
city. On the back steps of the capitol, cordoned off by barricades,
were about 15 men and women holding large signs that described
abortion as a war on American children. No one could come near
them, so I didn’t discover where they were from or how often they
stood on the capitol steps. I prayed with gratitude for them and
also for the freedom to protest injustice, which we still enjoy
in this country.
Looking at them reminded me of an occasion in the late 1970s when
I was in Durban, South Africa. The archbishop of that city, Archbishop
Dennis Hurley, OMI, was a courageous leader in the anti-apartheid
movement. Long before it became acceptable to denounce apartheid,
Archbishop Hurley regularly stood alone on the steps of the Durban
city hall with a sign protesting the racism behind apartheid.
When I visited Durban, that is where I found him--by himself,
with his sign, on the steps of a building belonging to a government
marked by an immoral racist ideology. That kind of courage comes
from a faith that both tells us to pray for our country and teaches
us to be properly critical when necessary. Our deepest freedom
comes from that kind of faith, for which disciples of Jesus are
persecuted in many parts of the world today.
3. On Mothers’ Day, after the annual Mass for expectant mothers
at Holy Name Cathedral, I blessed a new statue of the Blessed
Mother. It is the gift of a man who loves Mary profoundly and
who believes that this statue will be the occasion for God to
grant many graces to the Archdiocese in the months to come. The
statue is called “Our Lady of the New Millennium”. It will begin
visiting parishes around the Archdiocese this week. The statue
is 33 feet tall and rides on its own truck bed. For all its size,
it is graceful and inviting rather than a colossus. Constructed
of steel ribbons which allow light to penetrate it, it will, I
hope, be a sign of God’s light in our lives and be well received
in our parishes. May we use its visit to ask our Blessed Lady,
patroness of the United States of America, to bless our land and
all those who make their home here. God bless you.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
