Father Matthew's Fourth of July Homily

Fourth of July Mass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Z3Kj6fdIM

Today is the Fourth of July. It is a day to celebrate the birthday of the United States. There are many holidays that we celebrate for the country. A lot of them are days where you celebrate our veterans, days we celebrate workers. But today is a day where we can celebrate the whole of the country. To celebrate all the people in the country. Today we celebrate the country. We celebrate mostly the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The day that basically the founding document of the United States of America was signed, it was put into effect. It is the anniversary of the country. The day that this country became official. The country was founded more than 200 years ago. It is a day of fireworks and barbecues. A day for people to get together and to celebrate the day that their country, the place they were born or moved, was founded. Many countries have a day like this too, they are in some countries known as constitution days, the United States has a constitution but that is not what the US celebrates. We celebrate the signing of our declaration of independence. Where we declared our independence from Great Britain. Many countries have also declared and won their independence. We love our countries which is why we celebrate holidays that show how great our countries are. We celebrate holidays that celebrate the people who have served our countries. Veterans Day is a day where you celebrate all veterans. Especially all of those who have died, who have sacrificed their lives. We celebrate those who have died for the causes that are close to us. That is why we celebrate the martyrs. While it is to celebrate the independence of the country from Great Britain, it is still important to celebrate all that is this country. All that this country is. While there is a lot of bad in this country. There is a lot of good, and it is important to look at that good in the country and to celebrate that. And that is what we celebrate. We must celebrate not just this Independence day, but on all days. But independence day should be a reminder of all the good in this country. It is a day where everyone can get together. For barbecues as an example. For parades. Although sometimes the bad can get into this day, last year at a parade there was a shooting. But we must look past the bad and look at the good. There is good in the world, we just have to look past this bad. But again today is the day to celebrate that good. To come together with friends, to celebrate this country. We have to celebrate where we live. That is what today is about. It is celebrating the country we live in. Being proud of where we live. It's a day where we dress red white and blue to celebrate the flag. We outfit our houses with flags, with stars, with red and white and blue. That is what we celebrate. We celebrate the flag. The most universal symbol of any country is its flag. That is what we celebrate. While there is a flag day, all days of a country are a flag day. The flag is the country. We know a country by its name and by its flag. If it is the flag of Poland you would know it’s Poland, someone in Canada and the UK would know that flag is the flag of Poland. The flag is the most universal symbol of a country. It is how people in and out of a country know a country. Whether or not the flag was created by Betty Ross, it has remained with the similar design for the past 200 years. And that is what the fourth of July is about: it is celebrating the past 200 years of the country. The last 200 years of history our country is. There is a lot to celebrate, good and bad. We look from times of wars to times of pandemic. So much has happened even in 5 years, 10 years, 15, 20, 25, 30. In any amount of time something happens. And anytime something really big happens. And we can look at some things that seem small to others. And something that seemed big to the world was small to us. Winston Churchill said: “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” Another version of this is “History Is Written by the Victors”. History is by those who can afford to be in it, who do the important things. The history of this country is as we know written by the people who have changed and who have ran it. And most of these people are the rich and famous. But not always there are times where the simplest of people have changed the country. And we do not always have to think about leaving a mark in our country, rather there are small places to start. We can start simply in our own community, we can leave our mark in history in our community. Volunteering, signing up, donating. These are ways we can affect our community and leave our mark in history for generations to come. And simply being a good friend, helping around, can leave a mark in history, even though future generations may not know your name, it is important to leave a mark no matter how small, no matter how unimportant it may seem. Even the smallest mark. Another quote from Winston Churchill is: “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Know this is a common saying. You have probably heard undoubtedly sometime in your life. And it is true. We have to learn from what was in history. We have to learn to avoid what happened in history that was bad, that was wrong. We have to look at their solutions to problems. We have to avoid the bad and look at solutions. Sometimes the simplest solutions were discovered in the past. But we have to learn from that. That is why we learn history in school so we know it, and we can avoid repeating it. We especially need to avoid the bad, what was wrong. There is much that we need to learn from history. And I think that soon we are doomed to repeat. I am especially talking about the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. The US is getting involved, which is fine, but we have learned what getting involved in other peoples conflict has gotten us into in the past. And I fear that it is not just the US, I fear the problem is with Russia. Russia who started this whole attack this whole conflict. The Ukrainians are in a constant fight to lose their country. I fear that every day the nature of the war to go into a full on war, another world war, comes closer everyday. That we are closer to war than ever. I fear that we must stop this fight. War should not be what modern countries want. We should not want to fight, rather right now, we should have peace. Not fighting. I think our solution is to make peace between countries. It seems maybe we did not learn from history. I feel it is good that we are helping our neighbor countries. But at what cost? At what amount is it too much? Have we reached that? War is a tough thing, but I thought we had already learned that. I would have thought that from the past we would have learned war bad. And from previous wars, getting involved in other countries' conflicts, even if the situation seems terrible for the people, supporting them is not always the answer. War kills, war harms. It seems horrible to say don't help the lives of those who will die in another country because of war. But we should worry about our homefront, before worrying about other countries' conflicts. And it is sad to say that we cannot save every life. And any conflict of war is going to have deaths, and sometimes the people in another country may be oppressed. But sometimes we have to live knowing. We cannot help everyone. We must love everyone, yes. But we cannot help and support everyone. It is simply impossible. And it would be great if we could. But we can't. And we have to learn sometimes we cannot even help our friends, if it comes at a great cost to us. Killing people of ours, just to protect another country. There is not unlimited money or supplies that we can ship over. We cannot just print more money, we have to learn that from history, we cannot always just make more supplies. Yes, we should help our neighbors, yes, we should help other countries. But then where do we draw the line between help and truly getting involved in a conflict, joining a war. And how much does one or two countries support mean we all have to join. The world is currently in a terrible state, no doubt. But we must improve it. This is our country. We need to make our improvements. Stand up for what you believe, what you as it is in the US as a free citizen. Stand up for what you believe. By standing up for what is right we may just be able to fix the world’s problems. I know it will take time. But this is our world. And I fear that if we wait any longer to fix problems, there is no tomorrow. If we do not fix our problems, and there are many, there is no tomorrow. No I do not just mean the day after today. I mean in the long run. But today we celebrate and remember our history. There is bad, but it is unavoidable. But remember this country and its greatness. God Bless America.