Dear Brothers and Sisters,

When considering the history of the nations of the world, the United States is a very young country. This July Fourth marks only 249 years from the signing of our Declaration of Independence, where the 13 American colonies initially established by Great Britain declared their independence to the world. But even though we are considered a young nation, there are already many Americans who have been recognized by the Catholic Church as canonized saints and blesseds, and it is important to remember that the Catholic Faith came to America long before our Declaration of Independence was signed. In many ways, our beautifully decorated apse in St. Bernadette Church tells the story of our nation through the lives of our American Catholic saints who contributed to making this great nation what it is today.

The apse is the large semi-circular area covering the sanctuary of the church. It is centered directly over the altar to draw our attention to this most important part of our church building, where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass takes place. Traditionally the apse is the most decorated part of any church, and a great deal of thought went into the beautification of this sacred part of the sanctuary. Since Our Blessed Mother Mary identified herself to St. Bernadette in the grotto of Lourdes as the Immaculate Conception, she was placed as the central figure in the apse. And since Mary, as the Immaculate Conception, is the Patroness of the United States of America, our American saints and blesseds are depicted below her to recognize their contribution to the growth of the Catholic Faith in America. In this way, our apse beautifully shows that from upstate New York through the Midwest, down to Mexico, up to Canada, and all the way to California, in fact from the Atlantic to the Pacific and beyond, this land was dedicated to God by our Catholic heroes… and by Our Blessed Mother herself.

America has been under the protection of Our Blessed Mother Mary for centuries. One of the first Catholic churches in what is now the United States was dedicated to the Immaculate Conception in 1584. It is currently the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Jacksonville, Florida. Archbishop John Carroll, the first bishop in the United States, placed the diocese of Baltimore— which included all of the thirteen states of the newly established American republic— under the protection of Mary as the Immaculate Conception in 1792.

The Immaculate Conception was officially declared the Patroness of the United States of America by the American bishops in 1846. But it was Mary herself who consecrated North America to Her Son and made herself our Patroness by appearing to St. Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac outside of Mexico City in 1531. She wanted a church built as a place where her children could come to her with all their needs. And no one worked harder to spread the Faith from Mexico up into Spanish California than the Franciscan missionary St. Junipero Serra, who built nine of the twenty-one missions up the coast of California in the mid-1700s, many of which were the foundations of some of its greatest cities. The French Jesuit missionary priest, St. Isaac Jogues, who was martyred by the Iroquois Indians in 1646 in upstate New York, freely gave his life to bring the Catholic Faith to these Native Americans.

The memory of his martyrdom in her village inspired St. Kateri Tekakwitha to become Catholic, proving that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. And today she is known as the Lilly of the Mohawks. After the Revolutionary War, the Catholic Faith rapidly began to grow despite anti-Catholic sentiments. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, a widow with five children, who was born in New York and raised a Protestant, converted to the Catholic Faith despite prejudice and ostracism. She moved to Baltimore, founded the first order of religious sisters in the United States and established the Catholic parochial school system.

To be continued next week...

God Bless,

Fr. Don Kline

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