Memorial Day 2022

Homily by Deacon Jerry Franzen    Cathedral        5/30/2022

1 Corinthians 11:  23-26       Luke 23:39-43

 

Praised be Jesus Christ.  Good Morning everyone.

Memorial Day was established on May 30, 1868,

and was originally known as “Decoration Day.”

It was an opportunity to decorate many graves of the over 600,000 men who died in the Civil War.

That was, by far, our nation’s costliest war in terms of human life,

about 2 percent of the entire population.

That would translate into 6.5 million people of today’s population.

Now Memorial Day honors all who have died in military service to our country since its inception.

But why should we, as a nation and as Catholics, remember something so grim?

First, it is an opportunity to pray for the dead,

certainly an activity in which we all should be involved.

We needn’t know of someone who died in service to this country

in order to pray for the repose of the souls of those who did.  

                                            I

I have a story of one special Navy Seal.

In September 2006 three U.S. Navy SEALs and two Iraqi soldiers

 were on a flat rooftop in Ramadi .

Someone from below lobbed a grenade onto the roof.

It bounced off Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor’s chest, 

then clattered on the deck and he yelled, “Grenade!”

He then made a snap decision that would mark him for all time.

He flung himself onto the device, smothering it with his torso, just in time to absorb the blast.

The result was predictable; he lived only 25 minutes.

His companions escaped with only scratches and minor wounds.

Because of the configuration of the rooftop, only one of the five men

had a pathway of escape, had he chosen to use it.

And, yes, that was Michael Monsoor.

For his stunningly self-sacrificial action, he received the Medal of Honor,

our nation’s highest military honor, posthumously.

The following is written in his official Navy Summary of Action,

 “Monsoor’s actions that day could not have been more selfless or clearly more intentional.”

We pray that he may now rest in peace.

 

For Christians there can be another reason for this day.

Who else embodied a perfect sacrifice that 

“could not have been more selfless or clearly more intentional?”

The answer of course: Jesus Christ.

 What Our Lord did to save us could not have been more selfless or more clearly intentional.

                                                II

One of the most important principles of our faith is anamnesis. 

Anamnesis is the Greek word which means to remember, more literally it means, to unforget.

Anamnesis is an important principle for our faith because it is so easy to forget things.

When faced with temptation, it is easy to forget the teachings of Christ,

to forget our Christian dignity, to forget how much God loves us,

to forget that sin does not bring us the happiness we are truly longing for. 

When we forget these things, our behavior, our attitude and our morality suffer

 - we risk the loss of our soul, our humanity. 

 

The Catholic Spanish Philosopher George Santayana quipped,

“Those who forget the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat it.”

What are the lessons of the past that we should remember today? 

Another Catholic Philosopher, Edmund Burke, said,

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

The men and women who we remember today, did something.

They didn’t merely wring their hands and watch evil triumph, but they laid down their lives. 

So, what ARE the LESSONS of the past that we should remember today? 

How many times did Michael Monsoor, a Catholic, hear the words

 “Do this in memory of me” (1 Cor 11:24) at the end of the consecration?

We just heard it in the selection read from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.

How deeply was this piece of Scripture integrated into Monsoor’s daily life,

and etched into his mind and his memory?

Jesus uttered these words at the Last Supper,

just before His own stunningly self-sacrificial action on the cross.

Did Monsoor make this profound connection? Don’t know.

Certainly those who survived the rooftop blast would not forget Monsoor’s sacrifice.

Their very lives are a testament to what he did to save them.

Likewise, the Church’s entire devotional life is about remembering 

— calling to mind some aspect of the paschal mystery,

meditating upon it, being present to it, making it present to us.

Each time we devoutly pray the Rosary or walk the Stations of the Cross, for example,

we are stirring into fresh awareness what Jesus did to save us.

At Mass, Christ’s sacrifice is actually made present to us.

Our faith is fed by remembering, calling to mind, what Jesus specifically did.

                                                        III  

Every Mass is an anamnesis.

Listen at all of the Mass, but especially at the end of the consecration of the bread 

into Jesus’ sacred Body and at the end of the consecration of the wine

into His precious Blood for some form of “Do this in memory of me.”

There is a special part of every Mass actually called the “anamnesis:

it always comes right after the consecration.

In Eucharistic Prayer #1 the words are these:

“Therefore, O Lord, as WE celebrate the MEMORIAL of the blessed Passion,

the Resurrection from the dead, and the glorious Ascension into heaven

of Christ, your Son, out Lord…”

 

In Eucharistic Prayer #3, the one most commonly used, it goes like this:

”Therefore, O Lord, as WE celebrate the MEMORIAL

of the saving Passion of your Son, His wondrous Resurrection and Ascension into heaven

 as we look forward to His second coming…..”

The anamnesis in Eucharistic Prayers # 2 and #4

and in the 2 Eucharistic Prayers for Reconciliation are similar.

We celebrate not just A Memorial at each Mass, but THE MEMORIAL at each Mass.

One might say that each Mass is a Memorial Day.     

The freedom and salvation we know as Catholic Christians

are clearly traceable to a specific choice made by a man in sacrificing himself. 

Just as the SEALs who escaped the otherwise-deadly blast that day on the rooftop

 are alive today because of a specific choice of a man to sacrifice himself.

Memorial Day is an opportunity, as a nation,

to remember and appreciate those who have died so that we might live … freely.

The civil blessings of stability, prosperity and freedom we enjoy

 are a testament to the price they paid.

As Catholics, we remember those who have gone before and pray for their souls.

Honoring the fallen is important for us sinners who tend to take our blessings for granted.

But maybe, most important of all, Memorial Day can help inspire us to the greatest thing

of which we are capable, by God’s grace: sacrificial love.

Love that sacrifices for the beloved is divine and the only true love.

In remembering what Our Lord did, what all His saints have done in memory of Him,

and what others such as Michael Monsoor have done,

we are reoriented to what life is really all about.

We are more likely, in our turn, to love someone at our expense.

At its best, Memorial Day is a civil and military echo

of a profound theological truth: that God, “who is love”

sacrificed Himself so that we might live.

And Our Lord says to each of us: “Do this in memory of Me.”

Make your love of God and neighbor be this sacrificial love

and that you do it as a memorial to Jesus.

 

Base on a homily by Fr. Curtiss Dwyer, a priest of the Archdiocese of Denver,  a U.S. Navy chaplain assigned to the Marines in Quantico, Virginia. https://www.catholicsun.org/2018/05/24/do-this-in-memory-of-me-a-catholic-reflection-on-memorial-day/