My Dear Friends:

On this Memorial Day weekend, as we approach our nation’s 250th birthday, it is our duty as Christians and as Americans to remember those who gave their lives to preserve our freedoms. While this weekend is normally marked by barbeques and pool or boat days, we should pause at some point, as we will at Mass, to honor the memories of the men and women who gave their lives for our country.

There is a letter that Abraham Lincoln wrote during the Civil War to the mother of five union soldiers who were all believed to have died on the field of battle. Historians still debate whether all of them indeed died for only two can be confirmed to have been killed in action, but it does not take away from the sheer magnitude of this letter and how we should view our honored dead:

Executive Mansion,

Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

The words of President Lincoln in the last paragraph always echo in my heart whenever I hear of the death of a member of our armed services: “laid so costly a price upon the altar of freedom.” They are words I remember whenever I officiate the burial of a veteran. While they are few and far between now, early on in my priesthood one of my greatest honors was to preside at the Funeral Masses of veterans of World War II. The Greatest Generation bore unspeakable burdens when you think of what they encountered in the Pacific theater, the invasion of the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, and those poor soldiers who were overwhelmed by the images of what they found in the concentration camps they liberated. They took to their graves the memories of the worst of humanity, but they did so with a stoic silence and resisting attention from not only defending our country but saving the world from unspeakable evils.

And then you think of those who have died in the wars since then, who saw so many brothers and sisters die in their arms. Those who still carry the scars of PTSD, and many carry them to their graves. Our nation can never fully repay the debt owed to these courageous men and women who, while most do not die while engaged in combat, they still carry with them the scars of war, and are still owed a place of honor in our Memorial Day remembrance.

On a wall of our school near the main office, there is a plaque that remembers the alumni of St. Theresa that died during World War II. Many of them were just out of high school, and they are stilled honored by our children because they “laid so costly a sacrifice on the altar of freedom.” This weekend, we remember all who made this sacrifice, but we particularly remember during this our centennial year, those members of our parish who went off to war and never came home. We are forever indebted to them and their families.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them.

God bless you all,