Tonight, on Veterans Day, the local parish prayed The Patriotic Rosary for our country and its leaders. It should have been a time of joy, celebrating current and former military veterans who defended our freedoms. However, as I prayed with the modest gathering in the church, I felt tears come to my eyes.
At the start of the prayer hour a handful of veterans stood to be recognized, all elderly. There were no young veterans there from this sizeable Catholic parish. Would our young people defend our country or its allies if needed? As we prayed the rosary, we prayed that “the blood of Jesus to be over (each state) and all the souls within it.” And as we prayed the name of most states generated a joyful memory of my visits or the awesome beauty there.
Then it all changed.
In recent years I’ve read much on deep contemplative and mystical prayer. Unlike rote or meditative prayer, God is the lead in those prayers; thoughts and feelings, as God would perceive things, come to us which we have not planned. As we prayed the rosary, I suddenly recalled sinful events I heard were happening in some states, changing God-given freedoms to “legal rights”. In some states the teaching of the Catholic church is being made illegal and individuals required to accept --- and even celebrate --- matters on abortion, sexual changes, or euthanasia as “a good thing”, and medical people risk losing their jobs for using their freedom to disagree.
As we continued to pray the rosary for individual states on each rosary bead, I now recalled these things. And cried. At the end of each rosary decade, we prayed the Glory Be to God prayer, but tonight we prefaced that prayer with “for the conversion of our country.”
I think of all the missionary stories I’ve heard, and how missionaries go out into foreign lands, perhaps risking their lives, to proclaim the Gospel, and convert heathens. And now, tonight, we were praying for the conversion of our country!
The prayer hour ended with everyone standing and singing God Bless America. That song has always brought tears to my eyes, and tonight perhaps a few more.
