Memorial Day

Last weekend a new movie premiered across the country to mixed reviews. How much is true? How much is made up? Could it really have happened? What’s the big deal? Personally, I didn’t see the first two Mission Impossible movies and I probably won’t see this one either.

On the other hand, there was another movie that came out last weekend that I probably will see. It looks like it might be a little more believable and the acting might be a little better. It’s called “Over the Hedge.” It stars Bruce Willis and William Shatner. That one looks good.

There was a third movie that also opened last weekend. It got mediocre reviews but seems to be making a lot of money. It’s supposed to be a mystery, but the only mystery I can see is why anyone would waste their money to go see it.

Smarter people than me have picked the DaVinci Code apart, so I’m not going to waste your time or mine talking about it except to say that ant-Christian, anti-Catholic literature has been around for centuries. There’s nothing new here except that Brown and Hanks and Howard are going to make boatloads of money.

Mark Twain once said, “I have been educated to enmity toward everything that is Catholic, and sometimes, in consequence of this, I find it much easier to discover Catholic faults than Catholic virtues.” The more things change, the more they stay the same. If I were you, I’d go see “Over the Hedge.”
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I’ve mentioned this before and I’ll probably mention it again, I’ve gotten very intrigued by the Greek word “Kerygma”. It means proclaiming the good news of our salvation through Christ’s resurrection. Kerygma. It even sounds cool. “He’s got kerygma.” It comes from the same root as charismatic, but the spelling is much different.

K-E-R-Y-G-M-A. Any word with a “K” and a “Y” and a “G” has to be special. It’s a great scrabble word; seventeen points plus an extra fifty for using all seven tiles.

Today’s gospel is about kerygma. Jesus tells the Apostles, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.” It doesn’t get much plainer than that!

“So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven. And took His seat at the right hand of God.“ The Ascension. We proclaim it at every Sunday Mass. Say it with me, “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”

What did the Apostles do? “They went forth and preached EVERYWHERE while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.”

KERYGMA. Proclaiming the good news of our salvation through the resurrection of Christ. “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and His kingdom will have no end.”

That’s our faith. That’s our hope. His kingdom will have no end.
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Tomorrow is Memorial Day. It’s a day set aside to remember the brave men and women who have served our country and who paid the supreme sacrifice. Because of our faith, we mourn their loss but we know that they live on.

Here at St. Bernadette, we can’t help but be aware of those brave men and women every single day. As of 2005, there are 158,762 men, women and children buried on 331 acres at Jefferson Barracks cemetery, within our parish boundaries.

At every Sunday mass, we pray for the men and women who are currently serving our country, especially the members of the Missouri National Guard and Reserves, stationed right next door at Jefferson Barracks. We see them drive by every day, either in their military vehicles, or in their cars coming and going. Periodically we see them leave on busses knowing that it will be a long time before they return. And we pray that all of them WILL return.

Then there are those joyous days when we see the busses return and we pray for any that didn’t come back.

Our church itself, sits on what was once part of the first permanent United States military base west of the Mississippi, opened in 1826. This very building was built by the military.

Of course, the most important reason that Memorial Day is special to our parish is that so many of you served our country and for that we’re eternally grateful.

This morning, hundreds of Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts will gather next door. They will silently process to the cemetery where they will place American flags on each of the 160,000 graves. If you’ve never seen it, you should go over there. It’s incredible. First, it’s amazing that you can get that many boys to be quiet. Second, when the time comes for the actual placing of the flags, it happens in what seems like seconds. If you blink, you might miss it. There are so many scouts, that it really happens fast.

Then, they’re gone and all that’s left are the green grass, the white grave markers, and the red, white and blue American flags; 160,000 of them; one for each grave; one for each brave soul.

Memorial Day has been around since 1868, when it was called Decoration Day and was a day for Americans to decorate the graves of the Civil War dead. In 1915 it was expanded to include soldiers from all wars. In 1971, Congress, in their wisdom, moved it from May 30 to the last Monday in May so that we could all have a three-day weekend.

Unfortunately, making Memorial Day the end of a long weekend seems to have lessened the importance of what the day is really all about. In fact, in 2000, congress passed the "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution. It calls for all Americans to pause for a moment at 3:00 PM (local time) on Monday (tomorrow) for a moment of silence. We’ve gone from Memorial Day to a Memorial Moment.

Like many other churches, our bells will toll at 3:00 and hopefully folks picnicking and playing ball over in the park, or if the wind’s right, people on the parking lot at Wal*Mart will hear them, and take that moment to remember.

As we remember those men and women’s sacrifice, we also know that they live on for all eternity because God sent His son to live as one of us, to suffer and to die. But he defeated death and rose again. Why did He do that? He did it so you and I could rise again. We have the hope of salvation through Christ’s resurrection.

KERYGMA!

God bless all of the brave men and women of the military, past and present, living and dead, and God bless America.