Monday, July 4, 2016, 240th Birthday of the USA!
Dear Patriots:
A very timely uplifting and patriotic sermon given by Father Charlie, St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, Laughlin, NV, on the then approaching 236th birthday of our country, July 4th in 2012, that we would like to share with our readers, once again, for this Monday, July 4, 2016; celebrating the 240th Birthday of our great American nation.
236 years later, we all need to remember that from the very beginning, our nation has acknowledged that there is a CREATOR and that He is the Source of our rights and that we are all endowed by our CREATOR with the right to LIFE, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT of The Declaration of Independence states that all of this is SELF-EVIDENT,
meaning any thinking person should be able to see it.
So as we prepare to celebrate July 4th this week, it’s good for us to give thanks to our CREATOR and to thank Him for giving us LIFE and LIBERTY and allowing us to pursue HAPPINESS. It should be SELF-EVIDENT to all of us that God has given us so very much in the course of our lives. It’s good to think about this.
In today’s Gospel from St. Mark, the Faith of two people is also SELF-EVIDENT. Jairus, the Synagogue leader comes to Jesus because he really believes that Jesus has the power to heal his very sick daughter and the unnamed woman, who had been sick for 12 years, really believes that if she could just get close enough to Jesus to touch His clothing, she would be cured.
Many centuries later as we look back at their Faith, it should he SELF-EVIDENT to us that in their desperation both Jairus and that woman came to Jesus because they knew there was no other place to go, no other person to turn to who could help them and that’s what should be so inspirational to us today. We live in a country where we can freely come to God in worship and where we can freely practice our Catholic faith. And like Jairus and the unnamed woman in today’s Gospel, we know God has something to offer us that no one else has; He can help us in ways that no one else can. It’s good to think about this too. It should be SELF-EVIDENT that it makes sense to be close to God.
As you leave Mass today, please take home (besides our church bulletin!) a copy of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Our American nation was founded on these documents and they are still the most fundamental law of our land.
Especially as we approach the elections this fall, keep in mind that our founding fathers believed in a powerful and good God, a God Who gave us our most basic rights and duties, and a God who deserves our worship and allegiance,
Maybe reading even a section of these founding documents will help us to vote with our conscience to preserve and protect this American nation from all who would harm it from within and from outside our borders.
In today’s Gospel, when Jesus says “Do not be afraid, just have faith,” he is talking as much to each one of us as to the people in the Gospel.
May God bless each one of us with the SELF-EVIDENT FAITH we see in today’s Gospel and may our faith be self-evident to all those around us as we live it out day by day in these United States of America”!