This Monday, May 29, we celebrate Memorial Day. It began as Decoration Day in the years immediately following the Civil War.

Union veterans in Illinois first observed that day as a moment to honor their dead by placing flowers on their graves. Over time, the observance expanded to remember all of the dead who died in military service.

The history of the sacrifice of those who have served in the military is deeply linked to our identity as Americans and to our practice of the faith.

Our earliest military would be the Continental Army that served under George Washington. That force, which, we proudly acknowledge included Catholics, began as untrained citizens who, by taking up arms, gambled everything by offering their lives for independence.

Their sacrifices included hunger, danger and even the freezing conditions of winter without protection from the cold because there was no money to furnish what was needed.

The fact that they endured in that sacrifice led to the formation of the country that we love and that has nurtured us. It led as well to the Constitution and its first freedom, the freedom of religion.

In ways that are still playing out, our American identity and culture was further forged by the military sacrifices of the Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln summed up the depth of that moment in his Gettysburg Address noting that the War tested whether a nation like ours, “… dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal… can long endure.” His question has not yet been fully answered.

As a country and as individuals we continue the struggle to overcome our country’s origins that legitimized slavery and with it racism. And in our own day we have added the offense against the equality of all men and women by taking the lives of the voiceless human beings in their mothers’ wombs.

How many of those who have given their lives in military service for our freedom would be appalled at our current state?

We will pray on Memorial Day for those who served and died in World Wars I and II. We pray for and honor as well those who served in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, to name just a few places.

We pray also for the families who lost those sons and daughters. We know that time may dry their tears, but it rarely heals their broken hearts.

As I go about conferring the sacrament of Confirmation and, in these weeks, presiding over the graduations at our diocesan Catholic high schools, I have a chance to speak to our young people. Invariably, some proudly mention that they are looking forward to enlisting in military service.

They do so with pride. They are looking for a way to help defend our freedom. And they recognize that freedom only comes at the cost of effort and self-giving.

We must never overlook the fact that our Catholic faith and our right to practice it have thrived in this country. Yes, it is historically undeniable that Catholics have been discriminated against and looked down upon in our country.

Still, the presence of our churches and cemeteries, the flourishing of our schools and the presence of participation of Catholics and all people of faith in our government and throughout our society is no accident.

Religious freedom is part of who and what we are because of our founding and because of the many sacrifices to defend that freedom.

I will be offering Mass at 9 a.m. on Memorial Day at Calvary Cemetery outside of Rockford in order to thank God for those who have died for our freedom. We will pray in a particular way for those who have died alone and forgotten, who perhaps still await in purgatory their final union with God.

Wherever you will be on Memorial Day, please join me in praying for those who have served in the military, in the past and in our own day. And remember how their sacrifices have made it possible for us to practice our faith in our beloved country.