TRINITY AND MEMORIAL DAY 2010

Deacon Carl Knapp

It is Trinity Sunday and Memorial Day weekend. Trinity Sunday is the last of the major feast of the Church. It is the only special Sunday that is not associated with the earthly life of the Messiah. Way back in the 80’s Dr. Williamson – Associate Pastor Emeritus of this parish- did the preaching schedule. He hated to preach on the Trinity. He always said that after three words a person was deep into heresy. He also said that a deacon was not expected to know about the finer aspects of Trinitarian Theology. Thus I was chosen to preach on Trinity Sunday every year. Well here I am again. But in my declining years, I have rebelled. I am not going to ever talk about the Trinity again. Today the sermon is on the origins and meaning of Memorial Day.

This is a weekend to remember, and we could start by remembering the seldom heard second stanza of the National anthem.

The Civil War ended in April of 1865. With the cessation of hostilities the former slaves of Charleston, South Carolina went to the Washington Race Course. It had been a prison camp and a mass grave for the many Union soldiers who died there. They had been buried with no ceremony and no dignity. Quietly, the newly freed slaves dug up all the bodies and reinterred them properly with individual graves. What an act of reverence to those who had died giving these slaves citizenship, humanity, and freedom. They built a fence around the graveyard and on the entrance arch they declared it a Union graveyard. All of this was accomplished in ten days. On May first, 1865, just days after Robert E. Lee surrender, almost seven thousand men and women and three thousand children walked to that cemetery and with hymns and prayers these former slaves dedicated that hallowed ground.

How blest are those who show mercy; mercy shall be shown to them.

It was a year later in Columbus, Mississippi on April 25^th, 1866 that the women of the town went to the local cemetery to place flowers on the graves of the Confederate soldiers who lay there. One sorrowful Mother was observed placing flowers on the neglected graves of the few Union soldiers who had died in a nearby skirmish. She was accosted: “Why are you doing that? They are Union boys. They are not ours!” She replied: “I pray that a mother in the North is placing some flowers on the graves of our boys who are buried up there.”

How blest are those of a gentle spirit; they shall have the earth for their possession.

Yet the bitterness of the recent conflict prevented the South from accepting the call for a national ‘Decoration Day.’ It was in Waterloo, New York, 1866, that the movement for a national day of remembrance was declared for May 5^th. In 1868, General John Logan the commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic issued a proclamation that the observation would be on May 30. This was chosen because it was not the date of any battle. The term Memorial Day came into use in 1882 and was nationwide after World War II. It became the official name in 1967 and in 1971 by federal law Memorial Day became the last Monday in May.

How blest are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail; they shall be satisfied

On Monday flags are flown at half staff from dawn until noon; and the local veterans groups will place flags many graves in our churchyard. On Monday there is the military salute over the grave of the Medal of Honor recipient by the rectory. We will hear the haunting notes of TAPS played this weekend. Consider the words.

Day is done Gone the sun From the lake

From the hills From the sky All is well

Safely rest God is nigh

Fading light Dims the sight And a star

Gems the sky Gleaming bright From afar

Drawing nigh Falls the night

This tradition of remembering reaches far back into human experience; over 24 centuries ago the Athenian leader Pericles offered a tribute to the fallen heroes of the Peloponnesian War. “Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone, but in the hearts of men.”

When I was a child my Mother and I would walk up to the Avenue for shopping. It was World War II and all of her brothers were in the Navy. We always passed a house with a small banner in the window with three blue stars. Then one of the stars became Gold and then a second Gold star. Now it was the Spring after the Battle of the Bulge; we were walking to the stores and the third star was now also Gold. My Mother burst into tears and we went home. I was sent outside to play while, in the kitchen, she softly wept.

How blest are the sorrowful; they shall find consolation.

I really did not fully understand her reaction until one evening at Fitzpatrick’s Funeral home. As a ninth grader, Raymond was an obnoxious, loudmouth mess. By his senior year he was the President of his class and a fine young man. As I stood by that sealed casket I wondered why we were in Vietnam; as I now question why we are in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, we must always honor those whom we have sent forth in our name: those who have returned and the gentle heroes who have not returned.

Let me close with a message written by Captain Michael O’Donnell just 11 weeks before his helicopter was shot down while trying to rescue eight soldiers.

If you are able,

save for them a place

inside of you

and save one backward glance

when you are leaving

for the places they can

no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say

you loved them,

though you may

or may not have always.

Take what they have left

and what they have taught you

with their dying

and keep it with your own.

And in that time

when men decide and feel safe

to call the war insane,

take one moment to embrace

those gentle heroes

you left behind.