Gospel for this feast. “Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said (to Mary, who was visiting her):
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?…Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ: There is an old saying: All roads lead to Rome. For Catholics, Rome is the center of unity, the place where the Church remembers the witness of Saints Peter and Paul, and the place from which the Gospel has gone forth to the nations. But as our nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, I would suggest another saying today – at least for American Catholics: All roads lead to Maryland. In fact, that Maryland visit demands a focus onto this Baltimore cathedral, America’s first Catholic one.
That is not simply local pride. It is a recognition of history. If you want to understand the story of Catholicism in the United States, sooner or later you find yourself in Maryland. You find yourself among the first Catholic settlers who arrived seeking religious freedom. You find yourself in the chapels and manors houses where the faith was preserved when Catholics were often viewed with suspicion. You find yourself in the story of the family of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, and in the life of the first bishop of the United States, John Carroll. You find yourself at the roots of a Church that helped shape a nation while remaining faithful to a kingdom not of this world.
As America marks 250 years, it is tempting to focus on power, achievement, and worldly success. Yet today’s Gospel for the Assumption of Mary, points us in a very different direction.
A pregnant Elizabeth speaks to a pregnant Mary these words: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb…” Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
It is a couple of Gospel verses that would match up to what Jesus would say of His mother. Blessed is she who has heard the Word of God and kept it, that is, has lived it out heartfully in her life.
That focus on a faithful Mary, main disciple and mother to Our Lord Jesus, helps us understand the Catholic story in Maryland. Keeping Faith and Living it out and spreading the Word of God is what matters to Our Lord. He loves us for it. From our going from less than 100 Catholics in 1634 to about a million in 2026 in Maryland, Jesus is moved by what has grown in His Church here and then throughout to the USA.
As we heard in a 2026 Summer Gospel of mustard seed beginnings, the Church started pretty small. Outside of the Carroll family, the first Catholics here did not have numbers or power to help their cause. Often they were disadvantaged, and a minority in the New World. They lived with uncertainty. These Catholics of early times experienced periods of toleration and periods of discrimination. Yet they carried something stronger than political influence. They carried faith. They carried hope. They carried the conviction that Christ is the Lord of history. The Church in Maryland survived and flourished, not because Catholics controlled events, but because they trusted the One who does.
St. Elizabeth is quoted in the Gospels today with a high comment towards Mary. “Blessed are you who believed what the Lord told you would be fulfilled.” Think about that for a moment… Empires rise and fall. Political movements come and go. Constitutions are amended. Cultures change. Yet the Spirit of God remains at work in every generation. The same Spirit who sustained Mary in the start, in a steadfast hope in what The Christ could do for the world, does repeats in Catholic believers in the Church 250 years ago, as in the days of first bishop John Carroll, as he looked to the Holy Spirit for help, to the Word of God for help, and to the aid of Queen Mary and Mother, to sustain the Church. The sanctuary of this cathedral tells that story in its artwork.
Go forward in Maryland and America to 250 years, and we conclude: The same Spirit who guided Catholics through persecution, civil war, economic depression, and social upheaval continues to guide us now. The Body of Christ will prevail, and eternal life in God is our great hope.
As we celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday, that should give us both gratitude and perspective. We can be grateful for the blessings of our country, for the freedoms we enjoy, and for the opportunities that generations before us secured through sacrifice.
I think of two women back in Maryland Catholic history who gave their lives and heart for the Lord Jesus Christ. One is of Bethesda Maryland (who also Summered in Ellicott City), and the other is a Baltimorean, who came here as an immigrant, bringing lots of faith with her.
Mary Virginia Merrick is the name of the first, a woman of extraordinary zeal who lived from a wheelchair from her teens on, but became a social reformer, a philanthropist, and founded the Christ Child Society in 1887 to serve poor children and families. What a great Catholic life. Her Christ Child work began in DC and out to Maryland, with a Christ Child House in 1900, but the society spread out to be a national organization.
Mary Lange came to the USA from Cuba and Haitian background, back in 1813 and to Baltimore. She was part of a wave of French-speaking Haitian refugees and became a devout, French speaking Catholic of modest means, but built relationship with French priests come to Baltimore in those early 1800’s, and by 1828 Lange co-founded (with Fr. Joubert) St. Frances Academy, the nations’ first Catholic school for African Americans. It is still open and new-looking on Martin Luther King Blvd, just blocks from here. Lange established the Oblate Sisters of Providence, too. They blessed Baltimore and Wash. D.C.
This is the Faith that is in us, dear Catholics. On USA year 250, it tells us that our ultimate hope is not in any political system, any ideology, or any historical achievement. Our hope is in Christ.
The Assumption Feast shows us that Jesus gave a reward to His Blessed Mother, the woman who “heard the word of God and kept it—lived it.” The reward? She was assumed into Heaven, and our Revelation Scripture gives us an image of that, of her with God, from what St. John the Apostle saw in holy visions of Glory
We would like to please the Lord by our lives, too. If we can live by Jesus’ direction, such as by following His Beatitudes, or obeying His Commandments, then Matthew chapters 5 and 25 say that “our reward in Heaven shall be great.”
The answer to our present burdens of still trying to live in a broken, sin-infested, selfish world–is not from a program or a policy or a strategy. The answer is a Person. The Person of Jesus Who wants to live and work through us, who believe in Him.
Perhaps that is the greatest lesson Maryland’s Catholic history offers the Church and the nation. The men and women who built the foundations of the faith here understood that Christianity is not primarily about winning arguments or securing influence. It is about belonging to Christ. It is about taking His Word as true and living by it. We need to prayerfully receive the Word of Life and look for ways to express the Christ in us out to Maryland and the world.
As America has entered its 250th year, perhaps the Church’s mission today is not unlike that of those first Maryland Catholics: to remind our fellow citizens that it is by our co-citizenry offer of Jesus, to live His Kingdom come, that ushers in freedom and truth, that can make America operate best.
Our Catholic Vice President just authored a book called “Communion” which testifies to the Faith he is trying to live out—and Communion with Jesus is there for us to lead us aright.
As Archbishop Lori said recently: any American prosperity without God will leave the human heart restless. The future of our nation will not be secured merely by economic strength or political success. It will be secured by men and women who allow the Spirit of God to dwell within them and who hear anew the invitation of Christ: “Come to me.”
So yes, all roads may lead to Rome. But for American Catholics, all roads eventually lead to Maryland – to a story of faith, perseverance, and hope. Led by bishops of this first cathedral of Catholic America. And all those roads ultimately lead somewhere even greater: to Jesus Christ, the Lord of history, the source of our freedom, the rest for our weary souls, and the destination toward which every faithful pilgrim journey is directed.
If Jesus comes to you, and by the blessed Mother’s assistance, I pray you leap for joy like pre-born baby John the Baptist did.