Wrote this in 2002 for a Memorial Service for the first anniversary of 9 11 when I was teaching at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School in Albuquerque New Mexico. Talking about 9 11 this morning at church brought it back to mind, so I updated it and thought I would share it with all of you, my family and friends. Especially since I realized that most of the children at Fatima this year werent even born in 2001. I hope it pleases you. God bless. Joe WE WILL REMEMBER Joseph C. Jaramillo From the Common at Lexington Green, to the cotton bales in New Orleans; From the rolling hills of Bull Run, to San Juan Hill neath Cuba’s burning sun: From the muddy trenches at Belleau, to the pristine beaches on Oahu; From the frozen line at old Pusan, to the elephant grass around Khe Sanh: From the burning sands of the Middle East, to the powder keg Kosovo calls peace; One thing in common these all share, American blood has been spilt here: 9-11-2001 thirteen years ago this very day, the reason we gather now to pray; New York, Pennsylvania, Washington DC written in fire and blood more history: The Tree of Liberty, it is said, in patriot’s blood must be fed; Those of us who have answered the call, knew in our hearts we too could fall: But on that Tuesday, thirteen years ago today, our hearts were chilled by a numbing fear; “Eloi, Eloi lema sabachthani?” “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” Synagogues, temples, mosques, and churches over flowed, instinctively we gathered on the right road; The Lord Above had no hand in this; this bore the mark of the Devil’s kiss: From sea to shining sea, from golden plains to purple mountains majesty; Resurrected from the ashes of complacency in righteous anger the Phoenix Call of Liberty: The day, the people, we will not forget, nor will we wallow in tears of regret; We will roll, we will remember those who died, we will roll; we will remember those who tried. We remember the words of our 16th President: “… 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.” Abraham Lincoln November 19, 1863 Such a violent and vicious end to so many lives brought home to all of us how fragile our existence really is. We are aware of the millions of years our universe has existed and its vast distances; human longevity in our time leads us to expect people to live to eighty or ninety. Yet the events of 9*11 and more daily things like death from cancer and auto accidents all remind us of what the Psalms call “the shortness of our days.” Luke’s Gospel asks us to balance the value we put on this life with its quickly passing character. We should, Paul says “make use of the world as though not using it, for the world as we know it is passing away.” Our grief and joys, our plans and ambitions, our pleasures and our buildings, we cannot simply despise or ignore them. But our faith tells us to look beyond them. Does any one of us ever find the perfect balance of the present and eternity? Probably not; we go from one emphasis to the other. But still the final word has to be that of Jesus: even though we are poor, hungry, hated and insulted, even though we weep for those taken from us and the heroes who sought to help them, we are blest in God’s eyes. We are citizens of a world that cannot be bought, collected or touched, but which lasts forever.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 18:54:02 +0000
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