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7/1/2018

What Exactly is America?

For many of us, recent news has raised the question, “Who are we as Americans?”

Some say, for the devout Christian our homeland is not on this passing earth; it is before us, in the “heavenly Jerusalem.” Others counter that we are called, as our abilities and opportunities provide, to make our common home reflect the reign of God as Jesus taught.

Director’s Reflection

Dear Companions on the Journey,

For many of us, recent news has raised the question, “Who are we as Americans?”

Some say, for the devout Christian our homeland is not on this passing earth; it is before us, in the “heavenly Jerusalem.” Others counter that we are called, as our abilities and opportunities provide, to make our common home reflect the reign of God as Jesus taught.

In this regard, then, around this Fourth of July, I think of the ever-optimistic Fr. Isaac Hecker, founder of the Paulist Fathers. Hecker loved being a Catholic and he loved being an American. Contrary to many Protestant Americans of his day (mid-19th century), Hecker believed, not only that his Catholicism was not a hindrance to his being an American; rather Hecker felt his being a Catholic enhanced his being a citizen. As he audaciously asserted: “Because I am an American, I am a better Catholic. Because I am a Catholic, I am a better American.”

But what exactly is America? In the Glooghland (VA) Times, 4 October 1940, article “”What Do We Include in ‘God Bless America’?”: “America is an ideal which permits a man to stand up in 1940 and sing ‘God Bless America’ and include in that blessing 12,000,000 Negroes, 20,000,000 Catholics, 4,000,000 Jews and 40,000,0000 citizens of foreign stock. That, whether you like it or not, is America. And that, if you are an American, is the way you will want it.”

It’s now 2018, not 1940. When we sing “God Bless America,” what do we mean?

What do you think?

And let us pray for/with one another.

Michael

The Paulist Center