MEMORIAL DAY: SACRED REMEMBERING

Every year on Memorial Day we exercise “sacred remembering” as we recall and reverence the women and men throughout our Nation’s history who suffered and sacrificed for the preservation of our freedoms. We especially hold in love and respect all those who made the ultimate sacrifice of giving their lives so that we might live in liberty and security. Historians credit Henry Welles, a pharmacist in Waterloo, New York, with beginning Memorial Day as a response to the Civil War and its heroes. It quickly caught on across the nation as a special day for commemorating those fallen in battle and for visiting and ornamenting their graves with flowers, wreathes and crosses.

As Catholics, we also see our observance of Memorial Day as a way of recognizing Jesus’ teachings regarding peace, forgiveness and mercy. Wars that cause human injuries and deaths are terrible tragedies even as they are the contexts of incredible heroism and generosity of spirit. Memorial Day teaches that we must continually pray and work on behalf of a world where “war is no more.” We need to teach our children non-violent and peaceful ways of resolving conflicts and how to compromise while holding fast to our Christian principles.

It is interesting to note that on May 21, we celebrate the Feast of Saint Joan of Arc. Most often she is portrayed in painting and statues as dressed in full body armor with sword and banner. She is credited with inspiring the dispirited French nation in the Hundred Years War and leading French troops to victory over the English. In the midst of the violence and cruelty, she maintained her prayerful union with God and her desire to do God’s will. 
In the end she was martyred and was burned at the stake. She never lost faith in God or lost her courage in the face of evil and treachery. She died crying out “Jesus” and “Mary”, the motto she had inscribed on the banner she carried in battle.

May Saint Joan of Arc strengthen us in our desire and commitment for peace and in our courage to be steadfast in our opposition to evil. All of the heroic women and men we remember on Memorial Day give us additional witnesses to bravery in time of testing and in courage on behalf of love.

May our “sacred remembering” this Memorial Day help us to grow in love, gratefulness and mercy. May all those who we remember rest in the eternal peace of Heaven.

– Msgr. Michael D. McGraw