Memorials

I really like football, but that doesn't mean that on Super Bowl Sunday I want the priest to organize a game of two-hand touch in the sanctuary at Mass, or to play the Fox Football theme as a communion piece.  I'm really big on science, but that doesn't mean that I want physics demonstrations in between the Bible readings.  And I really love my country.  I'm an Eagle Scout; I stand up when the American Flag passes by; I sing the National Anthem at every sporting event.  But that doesn't mean I want people to try to turn the Mass on Memorial Day into some sort of civic patriotic ceremony. 

That may sound like a weird thing, but weird was what it felt like at the Mass I happened to attend on Memorial Day.  Must worldly concerns pursue me even into heaven?  At this Mass, instead of hymns to God, there were patriotic songs that had have religious references in them.  The music was accompanied by trumpet and organ, and there was the Gloria and Creed as though it were a Holy Day of the Church.  The homily was up until the last minute where God came into it like a speech you might hear a local politician give at a civic Memorial Day ceremony, all about American politics and history.  Before the dismissal, a lector declaimed the Gettysburg Address from the lectern to an instrumental background of patriotic music.

Now, I would be happy to go to a Memorial Day thing where we had patriotic speeches and sang patriotic songs (incidentally, I don't think they had one in that town that day).  But I would not like to merge such a thing with the holy Mass.