GOSPEL “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
We are in the week of Independence Day, celebrated on our coming Saturday. May I mostly focus our attention on the Declaration of Independence Day in this homily? It is timely.
But first here’s a word about a line in our June 27-28, 2026 Sunday Gospel. Jesus makes an appeal to all who would answer Him. He said: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
Whether it is nation building or family raising or whatever—our toiling about does need to take heart and to take rest in Jesus. He says:’I will give this rest to you!’ In America, or anywhere, the most important day of the week for her is Sunday. It is called to be “The Lord’s Day.” We use it to rest and pray—if possible with our career and situations. Yet on Sunday, and it’s vigil—the Lord Jesus speaks to us to come and be in our house of worship, as to gather as believers and to praise God and to receive from His Word and Sacrament for the nourishment and guidance we need for living. The work of living can be much labor, toil, and some burdens—but the Lord says He offers us rest. He says that He wants to shoulder the burden of life for us, too. Our Sacred Liturgy on Sunday hopefully is a rest and refreshment for us to live life well, and on, and forward. Jesus continues, saying (in verse 29): ”Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” In our rest, we re-pledge our lives for Him. He will keep guiding and teaching us, helping us to find the gentle life in Him.
The most important day of the week for our whole American history has always been Sunday. We Catholics faithfully gather and come to Mass on it, or its vigil, to renew our new week ahead for the glory of God. And be better Americans by it.
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It was a Declaration of Independence of the Eastern Seaboard thirteen “Colonies” of American peoples versus England’s King rule over this land. It was made in July of 1776, with signings into August—like of the famed signature of one John Hancock. People representing the colonies were coming to sign the declaration. Some came just steps away to do so—such as men like Benjamin Franklin or Robert Morris Jr., who were Philadelphia residents. Yet others came from a long way off, such as John Penn or Thomas Heyward Jr. These were among the men coming from the Carolinas, while two men with the last name of Adams came down from New England, via horse and buggy, to get to Philly. Do you know the four Marylanders, one who was Catholic, who were signers of the Declaration? They were Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, William Paca, and Charles Carroll. Carroll was the Catholic.
I read to you the documents start: “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America—- When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Comment: That gets right the point: The colonies no longer wanted to be English- controlled territory under the king. They wanted independence. Next in their declaration comes some theistic and philosophical words to be earth-shaking.
“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.”
Comment: What an engaging statement. Self-evident truths are in humanity. All persons are created equal—acknowledging the Creator and the image of God making of humans. There is a God over us, whom we serve. A God who loves freedom. And what does that God and Creator afford as human rights? Three basics are acknowledged for colonial life ahead: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What does that trio mean to you as a Catholic American today? The right to life? The right to freedom? The right to pursue happiness.? All as God-afforded. What does it mean to you?
We read on…
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Comment: In this part of the Declaration, they are talking about the consent of the governed people. The governed want a strong say in how they are governed, and for their safety and happiness. They say its governing “form” should be as God-honoring principles. That is the founder’s direction that we took. Look today on the walls around Washington DC with all the words about God being the One to direct this nation. At the Supreme Court building: The 10 commandments. The Capitol House Chambers: “In God We Trust” is inscribed over the speaker’s chair. On the Lincoln Memorial: Quotes of Abe using Matthew 18:7 and Psalm 19:19 in an inaugural address of heeding our God Who’s revealed in the Bible. On the walls of the Jefferson Memorial: four of Jefferson’s God-centered messages. On the base of the Washington monument: Laus Deo. (Praise be to God.)
The Declaration’s opening lines here remind us of another later document in 1789 that begins in such a theme: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America…” Justice, Tranquility, Blessings, General Welfare and Liberty are all things promoted by the God we know of the Church and Bible.
Americans have not wanted a land dictated by the rich and powerful, nor put in demands or anything seeming like tyranny. The people want their fairness and freedom, and not everything under government either. They do want the benefit of a union of peoples, a defense, and a welfare for its peoples—with some clear consent of the governed. We elect officials to serve a common good, not just of a limited or narrow idea come to power. We want God-believing leaders, not such as of those socialists who deny God and thus directs persons to trust just in man and in the government state. Rather, we believe in justice, as a God-given principle. We believe in God or a Creator that has established ways for some rights for the people. We want freedom to live under God. This land is God’s land.
We read on, as the document refers to godly virtue leading the say, as it quotes:
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes… But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.” Unquote.
Comment: So in the Declaration and its words, the document states that after much prudence, patience sufferance, and dealing with abuses and usurpations. (Now that is a unique word for their cry against the English rule—we’ve just had it with your usurpations!) Now the colonists propose a higher and godly way of her own rule.
The document then gets specific….“Here follows a list of grievances against the King. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms:”
Comment: The colonists press on, and the Declaration spells out the basis for their American Revolution. This bold document would do something quite historic—of a people in these lands becoming their own free nation under God.
As we soon celebrate 250 years of American independence, on this Saturday, we do well to here and to reflect upon the document and dreams stirred which then did make this American independence go forth to today and have us reach our “Semiquincentennial!”
Post-Homily >>>>The new nation’s work got underway in July 1776, and continued with finer points in the 1789 operating Constitution, We would have our fight to keep in our liberty. We know here in Maryland, and with Washington and Baltimore to our south and north, that the war of 1812-14 had bombardment on those dreams. We print the full National Anthem in the bulletin today, written by a Frederick man, Francis Scott Key, serving in law in Georgetown in those years. The original Star Spangled Banner is in a Baltimore museum. Or for document-seeing, one can go to DC to the National Archives and see the fore-mentioned Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution.
The Declaration’s document ends with the explanation: “We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow their usurpations… They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity… may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
End of declaration.
You have heard some portion of the great Declaration of Independence upon which we stand. Our nation’s pledge reminds us, too, how we are “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all (her citizens).” That’s the spirit of July 4th, 1776. For a prayer to say for our country this week, why not use the one in the bulletin authored by our own George Washington, who prays to God for this land and folk? Of course, too, our gospel today has told us that our Lord Jesus Christ bids us to be a people of Faith in Him, foremost, and asks for us to live in good response to Jesus’ call to “Come to Him—Who is Meek and Humble of Heart—to find how He gives us rest for ourselves.” Fr. Barry