This year, we celebrate the 250th year of our nation’s birth. Over all those years, we have lived, suffered and triumphed together. We have known good times and bad. Overall, we have much to show for our efforts. Never has a more prosperous nation existed in history.
It helps that God gave us a richly endowed nation. We have a vast and bountiful land full of natural resources and fertile soil.
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He also created us as a practical people. We have many natural skills that help us to exploit this God-given bounty. Our people are industrious, resourceful and organized. Add daring, courage and persistence, and you have a formula for success.
We are a generous people willing to share the fruits of our labor with those in need, here and abroad. We have even shed our blood, fighting around the world to defend good causes and to suppress evil and injustice.
More importantly, we are a very religious people. Perhaps we don’t think of ourselves in these terms, but we like religious matters. Those outside America marvel at our appetite for spiritual things. Perhaps our excessive materialism makes us feel our spiritual impoverishment more. Thus, we crave spiritual fulfillment. The topic of God resonates with us.
Despite our many falls and sins, God has blessed America. His Blessed Mother has looked with favor upon us, since through her, we have received so many graces and gifts.
All these factors come together to give us reason to celebrate our 250 years. We can present our accomplishments and generosity to Our Lady on the spreadsheet of our good stewardship. We have been given much, and have used it well.
The Other Column
However, another column on our report sheet is not so good. Our time together has not been without its problems. We suffered through the Civil War and the Great Depression. We are shackled today in political and other strife. Individualism has made us lonely. A sexual revolution overturned our morals. The profound crisis inside the Church emptied our churches and suffocated vocations. A culture war now erodes what remains of our wholesome values. A new digital wasteland devastates our souls.
Today, we find ourselves in a great crisis, unlike any we have seen before. As we celebrate our 250th year, we find ourselves a disunited and polarized nation. There is no consensus about what we should do or where we should go.
Thus, we must also present these afflictions to Our Lady on this august anniversary. She will not despise these petitions, but in her mercy will “hear and answer us.”
A Child’s Right
The key to being heard and answered is to ask, even if it seems that we do not have the right to do so in light of our many sins and failings.
On special occasions like birthdays, we have a certain right to ask our mother for anything. We can invoke this child’s right and ask for everything. We should not limit ourselves to a few requests out of an ungrounded fear that we will disturb her or that our urgent and numerous needs will overwhelm her generosity. Like any mother, she takes delight in aiding those children who are most needy, especially if we present ourselves truly repentant and show her our love. Indeed, when kneeling before the Mother of Mercy, the more we ask, the better.
Thus, we should ask her to join us in celebrating our joy at reaching this milestone, of being together as one nation, under God, for so many years. We must thank her for so many blessings.
However, we must also present the seemingly insurmountable problems we face with childlike simplicity. We must ask her to come urgently to help unite our shattered nation. We must appeal to her wisdom to show us a way out of our affliction.
Invoking this child’s right, we have a window of opportunity to correct and straighten our ways. We must remember that she is not only our mother but the Queen of heaven and earth. Her power is not figurative but real. She can change things, not just for Catholics but for the nation as a whole. She can better represent our interests before her Divine Son than we can.
Asking for the Right Things
However, we must ask her for the right things. Let us not waste time by asking for material benefits, petty spiritual favors or superficial solutions to profound problems.
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Let us rather focus on those things that lie at the core of our national disunity. We must address those existential problems that fester deep within our souls and clamor for solutions. Our request should help us change our lives to be more like hers.
This is the ideal time to ask for favors that will rally and unite the nation. It is a time to consider where we went wrong and how to return to order.
A Broken Society
A debate now rages around these topics. We are witnessing the breakdown of the prevailing liberal order. The political systems, institutions and manners that long served us over these 250 years are no longer working as they once did.
In the words of noted Catholic writer and man of action, Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, we have embraced a liberal mindset in which we feel entitled to “think, feel and do everything the unrestrained passions demand.”
Over time, this mindset has dominated our society, taking us farther and farther from God and His Law. Our unity is shattered; any national consensus from years past is in shreds. We have reached the point that our social world has become what Alasdair MacIntyre called “a meeting place for individual wills, each with its own set of attitudes and preferences and who understand the world solely as an arena for the achievement of their own satisfaction, who interpret reality as a series of opportunities for their enjoyment.”
In The City of God, Saint Augustine of Hippo defines a people not merely as an assemblage of individuals, but as “an association of a multitude of rational beings united by a common agreement on the objects of their love.”
Thus, if we are to achieve our goal of asking Our Lady for what we need as a nation on our 250th birthday, we must start by asking that she help us change our mindset so that we might reunite as a people who agree to look together upon the objects of our love.
Looking for Change
To do this, we must change.
Change is not easy. In this case, it involves recognizing our errors and putting in motion a transformation of ourselves and of society.
Some people propose complicated models, rigid ideologies and complex systems. Others have the strange idea that we can force people to practice virtue using the coercive power of government under a strong leader.
However, people are moved by people, not by governments. Neither the mechanical workings of cold bureaucracies nor the intricate arguments of strange ideologies move anyone. What moves us most is seeing the self-sacrificing action of others who respond to our personal needs. What moves us are the sublime, heroic and disinterested actions of others. We admire their unselfish good example, even while we struggle in our emulation. People move people, and when that other person is the Mother of God, nothing is impossible.
Our Lady is ideally suited to this role of changing souls. That is what she has always done. Thus, let us now approach her with three petitions on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of our nation’s birth.
Thus, we will present each petition, establish its urgency and explain how Our Lady can best address it. Finally, we will formulate an official request to her to come urgently to our country’s aid.
Extreme Individualism
Our first request to Our Lady for the nation is that she show us a way out of our extreme individualism that dominates our culture. We must rid ourselves of the absurd notion that we are the centers of our own little worlds around which everything must revolve.
We feel the devastating consequences of this liberal mindset everywhere. Where self-interest and self-gratification dominate, we cannot think in terms of the common good or even of starting a family.
Thomas Hobbes called it “a war of every man against every man.” We adopt a self-serving “what’s-in-it-for-me” attitude. Power becomes the determining factor in relationships. Everyone has an agenda. In the words of sociologist Sherry Turkle, we live “alone together” in a polarized society that is turned in on itself.
Our Lady, Mother of Disinterested Love
Our Lady can address the issue of extreme individualism because she is the Mother of Disinterested Love. She gives herself entirely to her children with a completely selfless love. It is unconditional without seeking personal gain or comfort or expecting anything in return.
She does not have an agenda. When a devotee becomes the beneficiary of her goodness, it is hard not to be overwhelmed. She showers us with grace and favors. Her sanctuaries and shrines proclaim her mercy and innumerable miraculous cures. Devotional books are full of stories of the marvels she works for those who have recourse to her.
Her goodness can melt the cold selfishness of our modern dog-eat-dog world. Her solicitude touches the lost souls wandering in the nihilism of our postmodern wasteland, giving them meaning and purpose.
She thinks not of herself but of how she might lead us on the surest path to her Son. She takes our part before Our Lord. The hymn “Ave Maris Stella” (Hail, Star of the Sea) expresses this tender love well, as one stanza says. “Show thyself a Mother, may the word divine, born for us thine infant, hear our prayers through thine.”
For those who think goodness is something impossible, she presents the anti-individualist model. We sense the joy of being like her and imitating her.
Thus, we might formulate our request: Oh Mother, look with pity upon this nation and shower us with thy goodness, opening up our souls, so that we may change. This is what we need on our 250th birthday.
True Freedom
The second request we should present to Our Lady on this occasion is to remove our misdirected and erroneous concept of freedom that facilitates private, public and collective sin.
Most people equate freedom with choice, including sinful choices. However, they refuse to see how sin enslaves us, depriving us of our freedom.
This misguided notion of freedom is found in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s famous pro-abortion majority opinion in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania vs. Casey. It reads like a stanza of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” It states: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
In this perverse sense, freedom means we can create our own reality regardless of what actually exists. It allows us to venture into the world of fantasy, self-gratification, pleasures and selfishness. It facilitates things like procured abortion, homosexual sin, transgenderism, drugs, pornography and so many other things that are part of life in America today.
We must admit that not all choices are equal. Some choices lead to less freedom and even slavery to sin and vice. Other choices facilitate individuals fulfilling their purpose in life and thus maximize their freedom.
We Are Called to Freedom and Truth
A bird by its nature, for example, is made to fly. Any choice that would thwart that aspiration would diminish the bird’s freedom of movement.
Leo XIII, in his encyclical Libertas praestantissimum, applies this idea to individuals. Our nature calls and attracts us to truth and goodness. Our fallen nature conspires against this call, but our inclination is to want to practice good like the bird that wants to fly.
Virtue enables us to accomplish our purpose, which culminates in our salvation. Sin works against this purpose and, therefore, undermines our freedom.
Thus, Leo XIII says that true freedom is not doing whatever comes to mind, including sin. That is called license. Freedom consists in following that good impulse that propels us toward our true end. Virtue sets us free by resisting the things that keep us from flying toward our end.
The quest for truth leads us to seek its highest expression. Thus, we turn to others to guide and direct us on this path. True freedom consists of accepting the good advice, direction and experience of others, past and present, so that we can better pursue the whole and highest expressions of truth. True freedom can be found in duty, obedience and service toward those who see and understand more than we do. Like a guide charitably directing a blind man, others help us overcome the obstacles wrought by our fallen nature, so that we might be freer to reach our goals.
Consecration to Our Lady
Our Lady can address the issue of this liberal and distorted notion of freedom because she is the highest expression of our quest for truth. She leads us to Christ, “the Way, . . . the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6). We can do nothing better than to put ourselves under her protection and guidance so that we might reach this goal.
The good news is that this act of putting ourselves under her is readily accessible. Countless American Catholics are familiar with Saint Louis de Montfort’s Consecration to Our Lady as a slave of love. It is a formula by which we put ourselves under her protection and enjoy an intense union with her so that we might be pleasing in the sight of Her Son.
In his commentary on Saint Louis’s True Devotion to Mary, Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira says that we accept this bond because “We cherish her so much, we trust her so much, that we want to do whatever she wants, just as a slave wants to do everything that his master wants. However, it is a dependence of love, not one that is imposed by tyranny or force.”
Saint Louis outlines the benefits of this consecration. He explains how it increases our virtue, gives us a greater capacity to suffer, allows us to possess a great intimacy with Our Lady and gives immeasurable value to our good works. We have everything to gain from this consecration.
Thus, we conclude that Our Lady is positioned to help us abandon the slavery to sin that troubles so many souls who surrender to their unbridled passions and fantasies.
By consecrating ourselves to Our Lady as a slave of love, we achieve the true freedom of reaching our purpose in this life and in the next.
Many Americans have already made this consecration, and the way is open for many more to implement this “easy, short, perfect, and secure way” to Jesus Christ.
Thus, we might formulate our second request: O Wise and Immaculate Heart of Mary, in these times when all consider themselves free to pursue their passions and fantasies, grant us the true freedom of putting ourselves under your maternal guidance and protection as we look beyond our nation’s 250th anniversary.
A Final Request
Our final request to Our Lady for the nation must be an end to the secular dungeon that encloses us in a world without divine agency.
The modern mindset reduces God to a personal, subjective and even emotional being that corresponds to what each one imagines Him to be rather than who He actually is.
In our liberal society, God is not allowed to act in history. He is, for all practical purposes, dethroned and no longer recognized as the source of all authority. There is no recognized universal or divine narrative by which society can implore His protection or expect His aid. By adopting this attitude, we deprive ourselves of our most powerful source of assistance. God’s supernatural action is reduced to subjective or even sentimental experiences.
In this secular, naturalistic setting, God withdraws from a society that does not want Him, awaiting times when He will once more be adored and welcomed.
Thus, many feel overwhelmed with anxiety and despair in this liberal system closed to divine action. This exclusion creates a void that can only be filled when Christ is accepted again as King.
Where She Is Queen
Our Lady can address the issue of this sterile secularism that shuts off divine agency. If there is anyone who can compel God to act, it is the Blessed Mother. Anything she asks from her Son is granted. She is all-powerful against the enemies of the Church, being “terrible as an army set in battle array” (Cant. 6:9). We can call upon her to reign once again so that He might reign.
Thus, we might formulate our final request: Come, Oh Mother, Queen of all hearts, reign over the minds, wills and hearts, not through brute force, but through thy goodness and mercy.
Are These Requests Possible?
Someone might think that these three birthday requests amount to idle speculation. These are favors we would like to receive, but are impossible petitions in the real world, which excludes the supernatural.
However, with Our Lady, the impossible is always possible. Indeed, she specializes in the impossible. At her prayer, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, in her blessed womb. Nothing could have been more impossible in those brutal pagan Roman times than the marvel of the God-made-Man. Nothing was more unlikely than the victory of the Christian Faith over the mighty Roman Empire.
Likewise, no one ever thought that the present liberal order would ever be questioned, but that is now being done everywhere.
The frustrations and anxieties of our age have triggered this debate. Something is moving inside our society. People are searching for something beyond the materialistic, individualistic and secular society that so suffocates us. People are converting in small but significant numbers. We can listen to their conversion stories and verify that miracles of grace have led these converts to embrace the Catholic faith against all odds.
Perhaps more importantly, someone is moving that can change everything. Inside countless souls, Our Lady’s action is perceptible. She is acting almost without human agency due to the apocalyptic crisis within the Church. She does not need majority numbers. It is enough that there be key souls who look toward God and cry out with Saint Augustine: “Too late have I loved Thee, Oh Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved Thee!”
She will take care of the rest.
It is time to invite Our Lady into the discussion over our future. What better time than on this 250th anniversary? We must have recourse to her, for Christ is only King where she is Queen.