We had a globe at home when I was a kid, and I was fascinated by it. This amazing ball of mother earth, which I could slowly spin, showed different colored countries and cities, numerous bodies of water and rugged mountain ranges. As time went on, I learned the history of some of those places and hoped someday to visit them.
I thought of that globe as I reflected on the two occasions we remember in our liturgy today: Memorial Day and the Feast of Mary, Mother of the Church. Both have global implications for humanity. What these remembrances have in common, and which unite us universally in different ways, is our deep desire and quest for peace.
Today as a nation, we remember what happened in cities and countries like Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, Normandy, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The list goes on of places where our military has been involved for the last 2 centuries of our country’s history. Those places all over the globe invoke so many diverse emotions on this day: sorrow and sadness, loss and grief, gratitude, and honor. We gather again this Memorial Day to remember and pray for our military men and women who died in those bloody and gruesome battles.
Memorial Day itself was established in 1868 as an occasion to remember and decorate the graves of the soldiers who died in the Civil War. Later it became a holiday to commemorate all the tens of thousands who have died since then in service to our country for the sake of freedom.
The cost of our independence has been high, and we pay it with deep reverence and gratitude to those who sacrificed their lives for us. This special day is a time to pledge to our heroic dead that although they have died and are gone from our community, their deaths will not be gone from our memory.
Before I left home this morning, I looked again at the wedding picture on my shelf of my own parents who were married during WWII. My Mom looks beautiful in her wedding dress and my Dad is stunningly handsome in his Army dress uniform. Yet, as committed as he was to the military, he never told us kids much of his war experiences when he was stationed in Guam and the Philippines. No doubt he wanted to spare us the horrible images that war created, images he lived. My Dad survived, thank God, but over 400,000 military men and women died in that war.
And I remember the first time I went to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington and was moved to tears when I located the names of 2 of my school classmates on that wall of honor: Donald Redmond and Ron Liberty. They were among the over 58,000 members of the military who died in that tragic conflict.
Today we remember and give thanks to all who have ever defended to their death the freedom we value so deeply. Each of them has a name, a family, and a story. We can’t forget any of them, or those who continue to serve us today, including our own Fr. Adam.
As we continue this Memorial Day Mass, it is comforting to remember that the words we pray right before we receive Holy Communion, “Lord, I am not worthy” … are the words of a Roman soldier who was looking to Jesus for healing and peace. In the fabric of this prayer, “only say the word and my soul shall be healed,” is a plea for peace. This prayer is powerful for us because it reminds us that after receiving Christ in the Eucharist, we are then sent to bring peace to others.
Our universal Church also has the honor this day of celebrating the beautiful feast of Mary, Mother of the Church. Our gospel lays the foundation for this special title of Our Blessed Mother. From the moment Jesus, who was suffering greatly on the cross, looked tenderly at his beloved Mother and said, “Behold your son”, and to his faithful disciple, “Behold your mother”, Mary became the loving Mother of each one of us, gathered in her own heart as a Church yet to be. She accepted her Son’s last testament of love and, in the person of the beloved disciple, welcomed all people as daughters and sons whom she would gently mother into eternal life.
Throughout the ages, Mary was often referred to as Mother of the Church, but it was not until 1964, at the height of Vatican II, that Pope St. Paul VI officially declared this distinct title for Mary. Personally, this title holds a special place in my heart because I entered the Adrian Dominicans in that year, along with 100+ other young women. It was a tradition in our community to give each group who entered a meaningful religious name, one which would particularly inspire us, and one which we could call upon to intercede for us. Yes, our group was given the name “Mary, Mother of the Church”, and we still celebrate it as a group each year.
In 2018, Pope Francis officially added this feast to the liturgical calendar to be celebrated yearly on the Monday following Pentecost. He chose this day intentionally. Yesterday, Pentecost, we celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birthday of the Church. Today we celebrate the fact that Mary, as the mother of Our Lord, is intimately and naturally linked to the Church as her mother. Our 2nd reading pictures Mary with the disciples as they await the coming of the Spirit in the Upper Room. There she is praying with them, anticipating their mission to all the world. She was there at the beginning, and helping to give birth to, what would become the universal Church. From then on, Mary would forever thereafter strengthen the Church with her maternal wisdom, guidance, and faith in her Son.
As history evolved, and the Church grew, we see Our Blessed Mother wanting to communicate with her children, and she has done so through many apparitions. Because of her appearances, we have come to know places like Lourdes, Fatima, Knock in Ireland, Guadalupe, etc. In nearly every corner of the globe, Mary, the mother of God, has appeared to children, farmers, priests and religious. She asks them to be her witnesses and to inspire others to pray, especially the rosary, for peace in our world.
To honor our Blessed Mother and her plea to pray for peace, and our military who have died valiantly for the sake of peace, we, as a people of faith, ask today for the grace to work intentionally to bring about peace on their behalf and for the sake of the kingdom.
We pray now to renew our call to be peacemakers, as Mary asks us to do, and to bring harmony, justice and reconciliation to our families, our communities, our world. The God we serve is the God of love and peace who calls us to seek ways that make for peace. We pray for the grace to act on these ways.
- May we be kind to one another,
- may we suppress the desire to gossip and be judgmental,
- may we affirm each other,
- forgive, listen, and be patient with one another,
- and may we respect the dignity and rights of all God’s children.
In these ways, and so many more, we honor Mary, Mother of the Church, and the memory of those heroes who have surrendered their lives. For them, and for the common good, may we endeavor to live better lives and be dedicated peacemakers in our own surroundings.
Mary, Mother of the Church all over the globe, thank you for continuing to pray, love, and intercede for us, your peacemakers, and may our dearly departed military sisters and brothers rest in your Son’s peace. Amen.
