God and America
One
As an infinite and flawless Being, God possesses all perfections without limits or defects. He is infinitely good, wise, beautiful, just and true, etc. Yet, these are not each separate qualities, as they are in humans, nor do they vary in degree. Rather, they are all essential to God’s perfect and infinite nature which He enjoys with eternal plenitude. These qualities joined in divine perfection without variety but only absolute unity. We, who are created in His image and likeness and who share (to greater or lesser degrees) in His perfections ought to be united: united inside ourselves, united in our families, united in our communities. To tend towards unity is to tend toward God’s perfection. But when we grow in disunity, we grow towards flawed imperfection. When we see disunity in our society, we can attribute that to one source: Sin! Sin destroys not only our relationship with God, but also diminishes our own excellence because it attacks God’s perfections offered to our souls. Thus, the paths of unity can only come through repentance from sin and reception of God’s grace.
Two
If our society lacks unity, it is only because we lack unity in ourselves. If our moral and spiritual life is weak, then our society will be weak because society is made up of individuals. The multiplicity of affections, goals, and desires offers competing masters for our souls. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus teaches, “No servant can serve two masters; he will hate the one and serve the others (Lk 16:13), or “Every Kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and house falls upon house” (Lk 11: 17). Jesus warns us about how our affections control us and can move us far away from God and into slavery, hatred, and collapse. Our forefathers of this country knew that. They founded this new country on principles that sought to bring unity to these States of America, while curbing our fallen passions through Godly rule. They affirmed in the Declaration of Independence and in the Preamble of the Constitution principles based on God’s sovereignty and His design of all persons to establish a government that ruled according to freedom, dignity, and our divine destiny. They knew that for this new government to work, its citizens needed to obey God and live according to His truths. John Adams, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and Second President of the United States, said, “Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company: I mean hell” (The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams, Vol. X, p 254). There is only one way out of our current predicament: we need God! We need to repent, and we need to live according to God’s moral truths.
Three
A beautiful Lady mystically appeared to George Washington, the Father of our Country, and gave him aid, comfort, and help in the dark days of the Revolutionary War when it appeared all was lost. Washington described this vision as a woman of incomparable beauty, crowned with stars and clothed with the son, exactly how Our Lady appears in the book of Revelation and to St. Juan Diego a little more than 200 years before. Little did the future president know but one year earlier, Bishop John Carrol, first consecrated Bishop in the United States, entrusted this country to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. After showing the president years of turmoil, strife and terrible wars, this beautiful woman removed from her head the crown that had the word UNION written on it, and Washington saw the people kneel down and say, “Amen!” The woman then said, “Son of the Republic, what you have seen is thus: three great perils will come upon the Republic. The most fearful is the third, but the whole world united shall not prevail upon her. Let every child of the Republic learn to live for God, this land, and the Union.” With these words, the apparition disappeared. Few people know of this miraculous encounter between Washington and Our Lady, but it confirms Our Lady’s role in preparing us for the strife and turmoil of our own age, and of her assurance of our victory over the forces of Satan if we obey God.
Four
St. Catherine of Sienna lived during a time of great upheaval and scandal in the Church, especially in the leadership. “We’ve had enough exhortations to be silent,” she exclaimed, “Cry out with out with a thousand tongues—I see the world as rotten because of silence.” By silence, St. Catherine meant complacency in the face of sin.
This can lead to idolizing that which is not God. The CCC states, “Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, "You cannot serve God and mammon." Many martyrs died for not adoring "the Beast" refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God. (CCC 2113).”
Five
If we wish to bring America back to God, we need to heed Our Lady, who has repeatedly stated in all of her apparitions what we need to do: penance, prayer—especially the rosary—and holy and frequent reception of the Sacraments. Recently, Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles wrote an article on America’s other founding, which occurred more than a century before the Mayflower, Madison, and Jefferson. “Perhaps,” he opined, “this can help us see beyond our present polarization. Beginning in the 1500s, missionaries from Spain were proclaiming the love of Jesus Christ to indigenous peoples from present-day Georgia and Florida to Texas and lower California. French missionaries were consecrating the lands from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico to the Virgin Mary… Recovering the spirit of America’s ‘other founding’ gives us a more solid grounding for American individualism, which is always tempted to fall into a kind of selfish pursuit of one’s own interests without regard to others” (Taken from The American Creed, the Angelus News, July 2, 2021). The Archbishop closes by recognizing that despite the failings and sins by some missionaries and founding figures of our country, America is not a nation “whose founding ideals are false, but a nation whose founding promises have yet to be fully achieved” (ibid.) Let us strive today, on this holiday, to live our faith openly and publicly, which is how our founding fathers intended, as this is the only way to bring the UNITED back to the STATES OF AMERICA. God bless America!