stjohnsphilly.org

The 4th of July is a wonderful summer holiday. Usually it is a hot sunny day. I can't remember a rainy 4th. When I was a boy our family joined with our aunts, uncles and cousins. Sometimes we went to a park for a picnic. Often we went swimming in a river mostly, but in later years in a pool. But when dark descended, we always went to see fireworks.

Philadelphia was a far away place that I never expected to see, let alone live in. I knew that the Declaration of Independence was written and signed there, but that was just a trivia fact, not terribly relevant to our family and community's 4th of July celebration.

1976 was the Bicentennial of founding of America. I was in college. 1976 was also the year of the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia. I was interested in Philadelphia for the first time, but it was still a far away place and it did not occur to me to visit Philadelphia.

Fifty years later, we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation's founding and I have been a resident of Philadelphia for many years. In fact, I live a few blocks from Independence Hall where it all happened and the Liberty Bell which is an icon of the freedom that America was founded on.

We, the citizens of the United States, this year remember the grand ideals on which our nation was founded. The first English colonists who came to America were seeking freedom, primarily freedom of religion. Puritans, Quakers, Catholics and Jews who were unwelcome in England were able to practice faith according to their consciences in this new land.

The Declaration of Independence signed 250 years ago this week in Philadelphia avowed that "all men are created equal". I was taught as a child to be proud of our nation's founding principles. However, I grew up in the 1960s. Even in rural western Pennsylvania, I was aware of the civil rights movement, of Dr. Martin Luther King, and of the injustice that was part of our history and our present.

We children of the 1960s weren't unaware that our nation was founded on lofty ideals that we did not always observe. Slavery and racial discrimination were in direct conflict with our ethos of equality for all. Likewise, the native people who lived in this land before the colonists came from Europe were treated shamefully Their land was taken and they were forced to leave their homes. We were taught to be proud of the principles of our nation's founding, but to be aware also that we had not reached those ideals.

The work of our founders is not finished even in 2026. America has opened its arms and accepted people of all races, religions and ways of life, but not fully and not perfectly. We are rightly proud of what our nation stands for, while at the same time we are humbled because we have not yet fully established a nation of true equality and justice.

It is good to be patriotic. It is good to love our country and to sacrifice for the common good of our citizens. However, before we are Americans we are children of one God and God loves all people of all nations. Patriotism should not lead us to care only about our people. A child of God must care about all of God's children wherever they may live.

The citizens of the United States are for the most part good. And we have a duty before God to love our country and our fellow citizens. But we have a duty to love all people and to respect the rights and dignity of all.

As we celebrate the 4th of July, be proud of what happened in Philadelphia in 1776. And work in 2026 to achieve the ideals that our founders believed in.