“It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade… Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more” (John Adams writing to his wife Abigail in early July 1776 about how succeed-ing generations will commemorate Independence Day).
About 500 years earlier a Dominican Priest was writing the “Summa Theologiae.” In his comprehensive masterpiece St. Thomas Aquinas proposes, “Just as it belongs to religion to give worship to God, so does it belong to piety, in the second place, to give worship to one’s parents and one’s country.”
Simply stated: patriotism is a virtue. As the United States begins its 250th year, this moment might be observed by celebrations as Adams intended, while remembering what Aquinas instructed.
To do the latter we might begin with the reality that striving to live virtuously helps us to become more like our Creator. Docility toward the gifts that the Holy Spirit pours out on us sustains our moral life. One of those gifts is known as “piety.” Yet when one conjures up the image of a pious person, it is some-times mistakenly reduced to the notion of religious sentimentality. Worse yet, one could envision a “holier than thou” façade: one who professes faith without corresponding actions and humility.
In contrast, I encourage you to think of someone who has modeled the faith in a remarkable way. For me this includes family and friends, priests and religious, teachers and neighbors. Each did so in a way that demonstrated grit, determination, and most of all trust in God’s Providential care for us, often in the face of life’s most difficult circumstances and without seeking attention for themselves.
With this sense of a pious person, a man or woman with an interior life rooted in prayer and demonstrated in self-less action, we might see the definition of piety in a greater light: “The moral virtue by which a person is disposed to render to God the worship and service He deserves.”
While St. Thomas called this religion, he sees piety as complementary. Just as we are to render our parents the honor and devotion that they are due, he also concludes that the same is true of our homeland, making patriotism a form of filial love.
This natural expression of gratitude for the many gifts bestowed on us implores us to participate in the civic life of our communities and contribute to the common good. At the same time, it keeps us from the pitfalls of disproportionate national interests, especially when seen in the light of the universal values of the faith we profess. This might lead us to recall that each of us has two homelands.
A former British Ambassador to the United States, Cecil Spring-Rice, in the aftermath of World War I, penned a poem that was set to music, known as “I Vow to Thee My Country.” While he first speaks to the love his homeland he concludes:
“And there’s another country,
I’ve heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies,
we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart,
her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and
silently her shining bounds increase, And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.”
The final line is taken from Proverbs. The previous Pope Leo put it this way: “To love both countries, that of earth below and that of heaven above…is the essential duty of Christians.”
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