America!
America! God shed His grace on thee.
The refrain from our
recessional hymn
At all of our 4th of July weekend Masses.
At all of our 4th of July weekend Masses.
A little mixture of State
into our Church celebration.
A plea—a prayer—for our country.
And God has shed His grace on America.
On all of us, individually and
collectively.
There are a lot of collective references in today’s
Scripture readings.
Massive groups of people lumped
together by their city or nation names.
The nations of Aram and
Ephraim are plotting, and will face destruction.
Jerusalem is blessed and
protected.
Sodom and Tyre and Sidon are
held up as models to avoid.
Chorazin and Bethsaida and
Capernaum are sternly warned.
Today we hear that Samaria,
the capitol of Ephraim, will be crushed.
This past Sunday we heard
Jesus’ parable
About one particular,
righteous citizen of Samaria.
The Good Samaritan.
Who showed us how to follow
the 2nd Great Commandment.
Love
thy neighbor as thyself.
Crown
thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.
And beyond.
There’s a strong tie between
the individual and the collective.
God knows us and loves us
individually, by name.
But he also views us as part
of the groups he has put us in.
And he holds us to some share
of responsibility for those groups.
The families, the cities, the
nations—humankind.
How are we feeling about our
nation today?
Collectively, how are we
doing with that 2nd Great Commandment?
Or even the 1st! (Love God!)
God has indeed blessed
America—over many years.
The
Lord has done great things for us.
But it’s too easy to become unappreciative;
presumptive.
Like the litany of peoples in
today’s readings.
To presume, that, as our Psalm said,
God upholds his city forever.
Where is America headed?
What power do we individuals have
over the collective?
We have substantial powers.
Not the least of which are the
power of prayer and the power of example.
Remember Abraham bargaining
with God over the destruction of Sodom.
God finally agreed that if
there were ten righteous people there,
He would not destroy the
city.
A few good individuals can
save an entire city—a nation—a world.
We can continue to strive to be
those good people.
We can continue to encourage
others through our example.
We can continue to pray for the
whole world.
But especially for our
country.
Pray that God will uphold us
during these dark times.
Pray, as we do in our other great
patriotic hymn.
That God Bless America.
That He Stand beside her, and guide her,
Through
the night with the light from above.
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