This past week we celebrated Independence Day in the United States. The American flag and red, white, and blue bunting were prominent in many places. Fireworks signaled an annual and significant celebration. 

 

We as Americans rightly recall on that day the approval of the text of the Declaration of Independence. And this year we celebrate the fact that because of the efforts of those who have gone before us, the new experiment in liberty and government accountable to the consent of those governed, has endured for 245 years.

 

In November of 1863, in dedicating the cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa., President Abraham Lincoln summed up our task of gratitude and responsibility as citizens. It is, he said that we should “... be dedicated here to the unfinished work ...” carried out by the soldiers who died in the three day battle on that hallowed ground. And he said that work is “... that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

 

Lincoln’s description of our “unfinished work” is something we could well reflect upon both civilly and spiritually. Civilly, we are going through what can rightly be called a crisis in our day. In order to exalt the individual and to accommodate our increasingly economic based vision of freedom — a freedom to acquire more and more material things, even at the cost of the common good — modern society is experiencing a loss of confidence.

 

Many are now criticizing the very heart of the efforts at forming what was a new manner of self-rule carried out by people committed to the recognition that all “... are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ... .” 

 

Such criticisms are not without merit. We need only think, for example, of the shameful treatment of slaves that was allowed to endure after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. We cannot either gloss over the manner in which Native Americans were mistreated during the western expansion and settlement of our country.

 

Still, Lincoln’s words of “unfinished work” ring true. Respect for the dignity and rights of every man, woman and child is an on-going principle that has been a guiding force, even if imperfectly, on our national history. We can think of the sacrifice of the Civil War to end slavery. We recall the contributions to world freedom made by the efforts of our citizens in the two World Wars. And we still see today the plight of many in countries and places where such a guiding force has never been known or attempted.

 

At the same time, the experiment in democracy has always needed a religious and spiritual dimension in order to succeed. Human freedom can only flourish in truth and with a common commitment to seeking the knowledge of right to be done and wrong to be avoided. Unfortunately our current social dialogue causes a loss of confidence in our ability to know right and wrong. That results in questioning the very nature of ourselves and our relation to what the Declaration of Independence refers to as “nature’s God.”

 

Both civilly and religiously, we need to embrace our unfinished work. Civilly, we must purify and expand the good of seeking and respecting human dignity. This is a long and hard task, one which is ever changing to meet the needs of different moments in history. That requires us to acknowledge past failures and faults. But it encourages us to rise above them.

 

Spiritually, we must rededicate ourselves to faith in God. Knowledge of what is truly good and what is truly sinful must always have a connection to Him who has made us and the whole world, and who sent His Son to redeem us. The task of allowing grace to transform us and the world according to the mind and heart of Christ is also an on-going work that will continue until the Lord returns.

 

Unfinished work. Lincoln well described so succinctly our task as citizens and believers. Our country and the world needs us as Catholics to engage that effort. And we are confident that God helps us as we do so.