The celebration of Memorial Day always leads me to ponder the idea of rights. The Declaration of Independence states that we are “endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Our culture is preoccupied with the claiming of rights, even when it denies the Creator. I am a fan of the rights we enjoy in the United States, and I am proud of our historical role in defending the rights of Western Civilization.
Throughout the history of the United States, we have defended our rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” through bloody conflict. We have aided others in the defense of these same rights in conflicts on foreign soil. We do this because we know that the rights that we enjoy are not unalienable. There are always people who prefer their own power to individual liberty. Our rights can be taken away (or worse, given away). On Memorial Day, we do not celebrate the conflicts or the battles fought to defend our rights, nor do we honor the men and women who served in the armed forces and returned home to claim their share of rights defended. On Memorial Day, we honor the men and women who died on the field of battle and did not return home to participate in the institutions for which they fought. My rights, my freedom, my security – these were bought and paid for by the blood of others. They sacrificed their lives so that I and the rest of us might be safe from tyranny. It is a debt that I can never repay, but for which I am forever grateful.
Despite all this, as Christians, we know that there are rights beyond the temporal liberties in which we share. There are rights that are not promised to us by men in a political document at the foundation of an earthly nation, but by the actual Creator. Our human dignity, our immortal souls, our eternal relationship with God – these, too, were bought and paid for by the blood of another. The Lord our God took on flesh so that, in his divinity, he might sacrifice himself on the Cross as expiation for my sins. It is a debt that I can never repay, but for which I am forever, eternally, grateful.
As much as I enjoy the idea of “rugged individualism” and the “self-made man,” I must recognize that I have gained temporal and spiritual goods that are not the result of my efforts. What can I do when I acknowledge that I have not and cannot earn the rights that I enjoy? How do I process my inability to settle accounts with the dead, or with the author of life, who allowed his own blood to be shed in payment for my sins? This turns my thoughts to the other side of the coin, the flipside of rights that our culture is reluctant to discuss: responsibility.
What our fallen service members have done for our worldly ideals and benefits, Jesus Christ has done for our souls for the whole world. I have a responsibility to exercise my rights not for myself, but for the good of the world. I have been given freedom from oppression; I have been given the freedom to do as I ought, to choose to love the Lord our God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. How do I do this? Not everyone is called to serve in the armed forces, or to fight and die for the ideals of our nation, or even our Church. But we can all practice the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. In fact, as Catholics, we must. Our service members did not die for us to live selfish lives of self-gratification, but to carry on the ideals upon which this nation is founded, and for which they died. Christ did not mount the Cross for us to squander our souls in pursuit of worldly goods, but to love as He loved, to give of ourselves for the sake of our fellow humans.
For myself, as a parent and teacher, my time is spent feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, giving shelter to the homeless, instructing the ignorant, and occasionally admonishing sinners. But in a special way on Memorial Day, as a partial repayment for my debt, and to give glory to the Lord who saves us, I pray for the dead.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
AUTHOR: Bill Cyr, Middle School Math and Science Teacher
