His Excellency,
The Most Reverend Edward K. Braxton, Ph.D., S.T.D.
Diocese of Belleville
Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 25, 2025, 10:00 am Mass
Ss. Peter and Paul Parish, Waterloo
(This is the text as originally written. During the actual delivery, some passages were omitted and other comments were added spontaneously. Nota bene: This text has not been thoroughly proofread. Therefore, there may be errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation.)
“Jamais plus la guerre! Jamais plus la guerre!”
“Never again war! Never again war!” St.
Pope Paul VI, Address to the United Nations, October 4, 1965, feast of St. Francis of Asssisi
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
For American Catholics, every day is Memorial Day!
At every Mass we memorialize the words of Jesus’ at the Last Supper. After sharing bread and wine, sacraments of His Body and Blood, with His apostles, He said, “Do this in memory of Me.” The Mass makes every day our memorial day of the life, teachings, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. At the same time, every day at Mass we pray, “Rember our sisters and brothers who have died, especially those for whom we now pray.” In that prayer we are implicitly praying for all who have died, including those who have died in war.
In April 1863, in Columbus, Mississippi, after decorating graves of her two sons who died representing the South, an elderly woman walked to two mounds of dirt at the corner of the cemetery to place memorial flowers there also. “What are you doing?” her friends asked, “Those are the graves of two union soldiers.” Softly this compassionate mother said, “I know. I also know that somewhere in the North, a mother or a young wife mourns for them as we mourn for our sons dead too soon in war.”
On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan said “Let us gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of springtime. Let us raise above them the flag they saved from dishonor. Let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us as a sacred charge upon a Nation's gratitude.”
When I was eleven years old, Charles Jones, Jr. died when he was only twenty-four years old. He was the son of my parents’ dear friends, Margie and Charles Jones. He was married with two children, and he was like an older brother to me. Three months earlier he fulfilled his dream of serving his country by joining the army. He was in the midst of his training at a base in Alabama when his jeep careened off the road and fell into a river. He and two others drowned. His sudden death caused unspeakable sorrow for his parents, my parents, and for me. For years, after that terrible day, we visited Charles’s grave on his birthday and on Memorial Day. We cried, we laughed, played his favorite song, planted daffodils, prayed for him and his family, and sat in silence lamenting untimely death. His father comforted himself saying, “Charlie died doing what he longed to do, serving his country.”
Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) honors and mourns those who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces in multiple wars. For those whose family members perished in wars, it is a day of memories and grief. For those whose hearts burst with patriotism, it is a day full of pride and gratitude for those who died defending the American dream of democracy. But we know that many Americans think of the Memorial Day weekend primarily as the beginning of summer recreation, a time for travel, cook outs, and outdoor fun with little thought about war, peace and the honored dead.
It is the prayer and hope of the Catholic Church and ideally of every Christian that the human family will put an end to war so there will be no new honored dead on the battlefield to memorialize. In this morning’s gospel Jesus offers us a gift, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.” If leaders of nations could truly embrace Jesus’ gift of peace, they would make greater effort to resolve complex conflicts like those raging between Russia and Ukraine, between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza, and the armed conflicts in Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo by dialogue, negotiation, and compromise, instead of by bloodshed. Many Americans may think this religious ideal of non-violent resolution of conflict is completely unrealistic. Does this mean the gospel is unrealistic?
Jesus just told us, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” As Catholics believing in the mystery of the indwelling Trinity, Memorial Day weekend is a good time to reflect and pray about the Church’s long history of teachings on peace and her opposition to the wars that destroy so many lives.
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The Church, faithfully following Jesus, the Prince of Peace, actively promotes non-violent solutions to conflict. She encourages dialogue, diplomacy, and international cooperation to resolve disputes and teaches that every effort must be made to prevent war. War can never be justified by a desire to conquer a neighboring people and take possession of their land. Building on the ideas of St. Augustine in the 4th century, the Church has long taught that war cannot be justified and morally permissible unless certain conditions are met.
The Church has long taught that going to war must be for a just cause, entered into by legitimate authorities, fought with the intention of achieving a just and lasting peace, after all other peaceful means of resolving the conflict have been exhausted. The use of force must be proportionate to the harm done; attacks must be directed only at legitimate military targets. Civilian populations must be protected. A just war must offer a reasonable chance of achieving its objectives without producing greater evils. Few past wars meet these high standards.
The Church's past teachings permitting war as a last resort have been criticized by Christians who believe Christ’s teaching of non-violence in response to unjust aggression is more urgent that ever with the proliferation of modern nuclear weapons, which can destroy the earth. These critics argue that there is nothing in scripture that suggest Jesus would turn from non-violence to violence in any circumstance.
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Recent popes, St. John Paul II, Benidict XVI and especially Pope Francis have found war less and less defensible. In his 2020 Encyclical Fratelli Tutti, (On fraternity and Social Friendship), Pope Francis wrote that war cannot be a solution to any problem. Yet, in recent decades, every single war has somehow been considered “justified.”
Francis was particularly concerned about new technologies and the development and use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons which now have the power to cause indiscriminate damage against innocent civilians and the entire planet. He emphasized that in war everyone involved loses in the end. He wrote, “Nor will it trouble us to be deemed naïve for choosing peace. My heart breaks for those who suffer terribly while wars rage.” Pope Francis was aware that he was ridiculed for repeating the words of Pope Paul VI, at the U.N on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, “Jamais plus la guerre! Jamais plus la guerre!” “Never again war! Never again war!” Pope Francis was not a military tactician, and he knew that non-violent attempts to seek peaceful resolutions to conflicts might not succeed. He knew his teachings rejecting war were the result of his prayerful pastoral judgments and not defined Catholic doctrines. He clearly knew that many Catholics, including Americans, do not agree with evolving position of the Catholic Church on the senselessness of war.
Dear Sisters and brother in Christ:
Fortunately, the United States is not directly engaged in a war. But we know from history how quickly that can change. What do these words of Jesus mean? “I give you peace but not as the world gives peace.” The world can give the peace that ends arguments, quarrels, and the battles of war. We human beings are capable of bringing about this kind of peace on our own. Though we rarely do so.
It is difficult to understand how it is possible that countries steeped in Christianity, countries whose citizens can accomplish such marvels as: developing sophisticated computers, designing robots that can perform surgery, traveling to the moon, engineering the Webb telescope that can prob distant stars, building drones that can deliver packages to your door, creating artificial general intelligence that can simulate human thought, and performing medical marvels transplanting animal organs into human beings and saving lives. We human beings can do all of this. And yet we cannot outgrow the barbaric practice of Cain slaying his brother Abel. We cannot, it seems, control the wild animal instinct within us. We cannot or will not embrace nonviolent means of resolving human disputes. We cover our ears refusing to head the words of the prophet, “You shall beat your swords into plowshares, and your spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up swords against other nations, neither shall they train for war again. (Isaiah 2:4)”
The peace that Christ can give us is an interior peace, an interior calm, an interior quiet, a peace at the center that sustains us even in the midst of exterior discord, and conflict of war. The peace that Christ gives is not obtained simply by going to Mass on Sundays. This piece can only be experienced in a genuine, ongoing personal relationship with Christ.
Abraham Lincoln, perhaps our greatest president, standing at the graves of so many killed in war, eloquently expressed our Memorial Day prayer for peace when he declared “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth!”
Praised be Jesus Christ. Both now and forever. AMEN!