A Special Birthday
July 6, 2025
“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” –Leviticus 19:33-34
Outside of a few random mental images, I don’t really recall much before the summer of 1976. I entered kindergarten that fall, just as my youngest son is doing this fall. I remember my favorite heroes on TV: Johnny and Roy from Emergency and Batman and Robin from the 60’s reruns. My brother and I would play with our “action figures,” Batmobile, and Emergency paramedic truck. The first news story I remember is seeing the picture of the Third Street Bridge half submerged in the Saginaw River in the Bay City Times. I have a bench in my office made from some timbers salvaged from that bridge. While I don’t clearly remember watching him pitch, I do remember the sensation that was caused by Detroit Tigers’ phenom Mark “The Bird” Fidrych that summer.
The summer of 1976 was also the celebration of America’s Bicentennial. The Red, White, and Blue was everywhere. Buildings all over Bay City were painted with bicentennial murals. Clothing, wallpaper, cookware, glassware, and dinner plates were all decorated in colonial style, with bunting and bald eagles. Furniture in people’s homes looked like it could be right at home on 18th century clipper ships. We listened to record albums from musicals such as 1776 and read books like Ben and Me, which was written by the mouse who lived in Ben Franklin’s print shop, slept in his fur hat, and would give Ben suggestions as he was inventing and performing science experiments. For Easter that year, my brother and I received tri-cornered hats and “minuteman” toy muskets. The history was often romanticized, even mythologized; but it was quite the summer to be a proud American!
We are now only one year away from America’s 250th birthday, our Semi-quincentennial or Sestercentennial (a mouthful, but I suspect that we’ll all learn to say it over the upcoming year!). Our nation is almost a quarter of a millennium old! I think that it is a very Catholic practice to prepare for special birthdays with a preparation time that calls us to recall our fundamental beliefs, collectively and personally examine our consciences, and look forward in hope to a renewed future. This is why we are celebrating a Jubilee Year of Hope this year in preparation for the liturgical memorial of Jesus’ 2025th birthday this Christmas. We are readying our hearts for this celebration through listening to the Gospel with renewed minds; repenting of our sins and seeking forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and receiving Indulgences; and (as Pope Francis so eloquently put it) fanning the flame of hope, restoring a climate of hope, and becoming “singers of hope” in a world that is often violent and despairing.
“And the king will say to them, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’” – Matthew 25:40
What makes America great? What is the fundamental truth that organizes our civic life, its laws and policies, and its culture? I believe that it is rooted in the first line of The Declaration of Independence, that all persons “are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This is the premise and promise of America, its foundational principle. It is this core value that has inspired people all over the world. Catholics from every corner of the globe have found that this principle is consistent with our beliefs and have sought to live lives of integrity both as Catholic Christians and as Americans. Catholics from Poland, Slovakia, Ireland, Italy, France, Vietnam, Japan, China, Thailand, Mexico, Cuba, the Philippines, Uganda and many other countries in Africa, Central and South America, and many more countries have all come to our shores seeking the promise of freedom, equality, and respect for human rights. Many came here fleeing religious persecution, violence and tyranny, famine and drought; some were brought here in the chains of slavery. Sadly, most of these new immigrants faced hostility and prejudice when they first came to America. There has always been a gap between our American ideals and our reality. But in time, immigrants to America have proven themselves to be true Americans through hard work and integrity of character.
As we begin to prepare for our nation’s 250th birthday, it is time to “listen to our better angels” as a country, examine where the gaps are in our times between the moral ideal of America and our national reality and close them. America’s founding recognition that human rights are not granted by the state or only to citizens but are given by our Creator to all human persons equally was the true American revolution that changed the world. Our respect for and defense of the life and dignity of the unborn, new immigrants, and other non-citizens around the world will be the bellwether of our true greatness. I have hope that through the Grace of God we will remain a great nation long after our Semiquincentennial celebration, but we can remain a great nation only as long as we strive to be a virtuous one.
John
“Your greatest beauty and your richest blessing is found in the human person: in each man, woman, and child, in every immigrant, in every native-born son and daughter. For this reason, America, your deepest identity and truest character as a nation is revealed in the position you take towards the human person. The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being . . . This is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition for her survival-yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weakest and most defenseless ones . . . my final prayer is this: that God will bless America, so that she may increasingly become – and truly be – and long remain one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” –St. John Paul II, Detroit, September 19, 1987