Catholics are expected to know and love what is good and worthy about our country.  We should remember and pass on to our children our patriotic traditions so that they will appreciate what it means to be a citizen.

Catholic teaching also urges non-citizens living in this country to learn the patriotic traditions of the United States in order to honor and respect those traditions. Here are a few essentials to review for ourselves and pass on to our children and to all new immigrants.

AMERICA

On this day of Patriotic Celebration, please sing this prayer for our country:

(This video came from YouTube.)                                  ,

The complete lyrics of AMERICA, also called My Country Tis Of Thee, can be found HERE.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Please join together as a family and read aloud the Declaration of Independence.  Many people know only a few words of this great document but as a free citizenry it is essential to know more than merely,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Please read ALL of it so that you and your children will know the principles set forth for this Country and upon which that which is great about the United States of America is founded. In particular, this Independence Day, think about this:

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Also find our Declaration of Independence HERE.

NATIONAL ANTHEM

Our National Anthem is almost a prayer. We hardly think of it that way, but if you read all the words to the poem, all the verses to the song, it recognizes the role God has had in this country. In this video from Youtube the first and fourth verses are sung:

Remember also the marvelous Poem written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, ALL the verses of this poem, and many other wonderful patriotic pages can be found at the USA Flag Site.

Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

 

Dear Lord, “Our Father’s God to Thee, Author of Liberty, To Thee I Sing. Long May Our Land Be Bright With Freedom’s Holy Light, Protect Us By Thy Might, Great God Our King.” Amen.