Sunday Meditation: Whoever Has Ears Ought to Hear

For the Fifteen Sunday of Ordinary Time in Year A, Jesus begins His Parables Discourse, the third of five discourses in Matthew’s Gospel.  He begins the discourse with the Parable of the Sower.

In the July 2026 (Vol 28, No. 5) issue of the magazine Magnificat, Fr. Philip Nolan, O.P. in his editorial has this to say about this parable:

 

The sower, says Jesus, is the Son of Man (Mt 13:37).  In the beginning of time, the Son of Man the Word of the Father, brought life not merely to a barren landscape, but to a void of absolute nothingness.  All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be (Jn 1:3).  Then, after the influence of evil stunted the growth of that first gift of life, in the fullness of time the Son of Man, the Incarnate Word of the Father, graced with his footsteps the hills of Galilee and the streets of Jerusalem, scattering with abandon his words of new life for the people of his time and the people of every time.

This puts the Word that is being sown into perspective.  He is the Word that brought forth life in abundance from the beginning, and is the Word which saves life now.  What is being scattered is the Word and words are the communicative constituents that are transmitted and received.  As Jesus says in this passage, “Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

 

 

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.  Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood along the shore.

And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying:

“A sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path,

and birds came and ate it up.

Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil.

It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep,

and when the sun rose it was scorched,

and it withered for lack of roots.

Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.

But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit,

a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.

Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

 

The disciples approached him and said,

“Why do you speak to them in parables?”

He said to them in reply,

“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven

has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.

To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;

from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

This is why I speak to them in parables, because

they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.

Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:

You shall indeed hear but not understand,

you shall indeed look but never see.

Gross is the heart of this people,

they will hardly hear with their ears,

they have closed their eyes,

lest they see with their eyes

and hear with their ears

and understand with their hearts and be converted,

and I heal them.

 

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see,

and your ears, because they hear.

Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people

longed to see what you see but did not see it,

and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

 

"Hear then the parable of the sower.

The seed sown on the path is the one

who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it,

and the evil one comes and steals away

what was sown in his heart.

The seed sown on rocky ground

is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy.

But he has no root and lasts only for a time.

When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word  he immediately falls away.

The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word,

but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word

and it bears no fruit.

But the seed sown on rich soil

is the one who hears the word and understands it,

who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

~Mt: 13:1-23

 

 

I found Fr. Cajetan Cuddy’s explanation of this passage to be most insightful.  Other homilies focus on the sowing and the four soils, but Fr. Cajetan explores the element of hearing involved in the four types of reception. 

 

 

Fr. Cajetan:

The Gospel's opening line reads Jesus said to his disciples hear, hear the parable of the sower.  This parable and this dynamic of hearing serves as the gospel's meta context. The disciples hear Jesus.  And what do they hear? They hear a command to hear. Jesus commands them to hear the parable of the sower.  Our Lord then exposits, he explains, he unpacks the dynamics of hearing the word in each of the four disciplines. 

 

Thus, if we were to diagram, to frame, to outline this gospel, we could say that today's gospel comprises three degrees of hearing.  The disciples hear from Jesus, a command to hear, a parable, about hearing the word.  Hearing, hearing, hearing. This is the dynamic of today's gospel.  And each of the four seeds in the parable found in today's gospel, each of the four seeds hears the word. We note, however, what also attends or doesn't attend their hearing of the word.  The evangelical prepositions with and without With and without these prepositions, these words, play critical roles in today's gospel.  And perhaps most interestingly, the seed that's most significant is the second seed, the one, quote, sown on rocky ground.  Each of the other three seeds here's the word either with or without something else.  The first without understanding. The third with worldly preoccupations, the fourth with understanding.  Notice the withouts and the withs that punctuate these different scenarios vis-a-vis the seeds.

 

But it's the second scenario. The second is the only seed framed in terms of both a with and a without.  The one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy, but he has no root.  In other words, he is without root and lasts only for a short time, with joy, but without root, the paradoxical and distinguishing complexity of the second seed.  So evidently this second seed understands something. Of the word it hears.  If it lacked all understanding, there would be no basis for its initial joy.  The seed rejoices precisely because it does understand to a degree.  What it lacks, however, is root. And thus the joy of its, the seeds, the second seeds, limit under understanding, limited understanding is short-lived.  In contrast, the fourth seed. Who hears the word and understands it, bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirty fold.  This final seed who hears and understands is rooted.  So now we see as we progress through the gospel, in addition to the theme, the dynamic of hearing, we also have the theme and dynamic of understanding.  And the theme and the dynamic of rootedness.  Understanding and rootedness are essential attributes in the contemplative life in the theologian's contemplation.  As we know, understanding implies a certain intimate knowledge.

 

Notice what Fr. Cajetan points out.  In the first soil, “the seed sown on the path is the one

who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it.”  In the second soil, “the seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. But he has no root [without] and lasts only for a time.”  In the third soil. “the seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then [with] worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit.”  In the fourth soil, “the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it.”  The soil metaphor is related to the dynamic of hearing.

For the pastoral homily I’m going to turn to a Franciscan Friar, Fr. Jonathan St. André, TOR of Franciscan University of Steubenville.

 

 

Fr. Jonathan:

In the gospel for the 15th Sunday in ordinary time, we hear the marvelous parable of the sower and the seed. It's a beautiful parable that I think uh has so much to instruct us in in our tradition and spirituality. And actually, it's a parable that was close to St. Francis of Assi's heart. I've got my writings of St. Francis here, which are dogeared and beat up because I love reading them. And in his early rule chapter 22 in a section in admonition to the brothers he actually includes this parable in its entirety and gives some commentary on it. St. Francis writes, "We have nothing else to do but to follow the will of the Lord and to please him. Let us be careful that we are not earth along the wayside or that which is rocky or full of thorns." In keeping with what the Lord says in the gospel, the word of God is a seed.  So Francis of Assi is really imploring us, cautioning us, asking us, what kind of earth are you? How are you going to be receiving the seed of the word of God?

 

And I think if you're like me and you're honest and you look at your own heart, you look at your own soul, you look at your own spiritual life, that you are all of those different kinds of earth in the parable.  Sometimes parts of our heart are the wayside and the seed, the word of God, the message that we hear hits our heart, but it's too shallow. It can't really take root. Sometimes it's the rocky ground and we're all gung-ho and we're excited to move forward in faith and follow Jesus and then the trials come and it's like okay things slip away, slide away, we pull back. Sometimes it's the ground where the thorns have grown alongside the word and they choke out the word and the thorns in the scripture passage really relate to the allure of the world the temptations also anxieties for many of us we're just we get so anxious about many things that it can choke out the truth of God's word in our life so the constant pursuit of the spiritual life is to ask what kind of earth am I for the word for the seed that is the word?

 

So, at different moments in our lives we can be any of the four soils.  The Word of God as seed is constantly being sown, and our hearts have the capacity to plant the seed in any of the four ways.  May our hearts be of rich soil more often than not.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “But blessed are your eyes, because they see,

and your ears, because they hear.”

 

 

This is a lovely hymn that matches today’s Gospel perfectly, “Seed, Scattered and Sown.”

 

 

Seed, scattered and sown,

wheat, gathered and grown,

bread, broken and shared as one,

the living bread of God.

 

Vine, fruit of the land,

wine, work of our hands,

one cup that is shared by all;

the Living Cup, the Living Bread of God.

 

Is not the bread we break,

A sharing in our Lord?

Is not the cup we bless,

The blood of Christ outpoured?

 

Lovely.

 

Literature in the News: Pope Leo XIV Quotes Gandalf

As many of you know on May 25^th, Pope Leo published his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on the cautions and moral use of artificial intelligence (AI).  The encyclical established the Catholic Church’s social teaching on the use of AI, especially in regard to human dignity and the common good.  Let me say up front, I have not read the encyclical but I have read summations and excerpts.  The details of the encyclical are not the concern of this post.  What I do what to point out is the starting quote within the document.

Magnifica Humanitas contains a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic novel, Lord of the Rings.    More specifically it quotes from a piece of dialogue from one of its main characters, the character who represents wisdom and moral rectitude of the wizard, Gandalf the Grey.  After his sacrificial act of saving the fellowship at the expense of his life, Gandalf will later in a “resurrection” of sorts, return as Gandalf the White, the name change reflecting a process of purification.  But as “Gandalf the Grey” he symbolizes a man of wisdom.  Indeed, grey has long been associated with wisdom and prudence, alluding to the ancient Greek “grey-eyed” goddess of wisdom, Athena.  But I think it also associates with those of us in a particular age group of grey-haired or grey-bearded.  (Ha, that’s one of the few benefits of reaching my age!)  Where I work we sometimes refer to the experience “old-timers” as “the grey beards.” 

With that context, let’s turn to the quote:

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

There has been several commentaries in the public domain on why Pope Leo chose this quote.  I’m going to draw on two.

James T. Keane in writing in the Catholic magazine, America, “Why Pope Leo’s new encyclical quotes Gandalf: Literary images of hope and faith in ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ “ first offers surprise:

Of all the startling things one might find in a papal encyclical, a quote from J. R. R. Tolkien might take the cake. It’s not the first time a novel has made an appearance in such a format, as The Brothers Karamazov showed up in Pope Francis’ “Dilexit Nos,” but who would ever have thought The Lord of the Rings would appear in a magisterial document?

But there it is—a quote from Gandalf right smack in the middle of the text…As for the horrifically mixed metaphor, blame Tolkien, not the pope.

Ha!  The mixed metaphor he refers to is the “tide” metaphor which opens the quote with the tilling of soil as to the solution the tides present.  That is a mixed metaphor but Tolkien has put the quote into the mouth of Gandalf, so it would follow common speech patterns of dialogue rather than formal prose.  But even in formal prose, I personally do not find mixed metaphors problematic per se.  They become problematic if they confuse or contradict.  I don’t find that to be the case here.

Also interesting is that Pope Francis had used a quote from a novel, The Brothers Karamazov.  Over the years I had found Pope Francis to have a very good knowledge of literature.  I think recall the Holy Father quoting Dante and Borges and Cervantes.  There are others I’m sure but my memory is faulty.  He actually wrote a letter on the use of literature in the formation of priests and religious.  I published my reading of it here.  Pope Francis also had an Apostolic Letter commemorating the passing of Dante Algheri, and I published two posts on reading through it, here and here.  I don’t know if Pope Leo is as knowledgeable of literature as Pope Francis, but he is following in his footsteps on drawing from classic literature. 

Kean provides the context of Leo’s Magnifica Humanitas to show how the Tolkien (through Gandalf) quote is relevant.

Paragraph 90 [of Magnifica Humanitas] gives us the most important question: “We are called to reflect on the great ‘construction sites’ of our era and ask: What are we building?” Throughout “Magnifica Humanitas,” the two images he uses to represent the choice before us are of the Tower of Babel from Genesis and Nehemiah’s slow reconstruction of Jerusalem from the Book of Nehemiah: The first story tells of the thoughtless arrogance taken on by a humanity that sees its own glorification as the goal of existence; the second tells of the humble and painstaking act of constructing something holy, brick by brick. You can guess which one our Augustinian pope prefers.

So, concerning artificial intelligence, the central subject matter of the encyclical, Pope Leo is not innately opposed to AI, but he calls into question the manner of its use and the implications of its purport.  Pope Leo uses two opposing Biblical images to present the possibilities.  With AI, we could be building a Tower of Babel, a prideful challenge to God’s providence.  Or we could be rebuilding Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple from the Babylonian siege.  The first is degradation of human dignity; the second is working with God for the building of human institutions.  Kean consolidates Pope Leo’s thesis.

What are we building? What are the great construction sites of our era? A tower to the heavens, the A.I. enthusiasts tell us, whether you want it or not. It can’t be stopped. Perhaps not, “Magnifica Humanitas” concedes, but it certainly doesn’t have to be a folly that destroys human solidarity forever. It could be a new work of a magnificent humanity, holy and built on the ideas and images and labors of a humanity that seeks more than simply efficiency or profit.

Could it be possible that artificial intelligence would be holy and transcend efficiency or profit?  Highly unlikely.

Joseph Pearce, writing in the National Catholic Register, “Why Pope Leo Quoted Tolkien’s Gandalf,” has a little different perspective on Pope Leo’s quote of Gandalf.

Essentially, Gandalf is saying that localism is the only effective response to globalism. None of us, as individuals, as mere pint-sized hobbits in a world of great and largely dark powers, can defeat the power of global corporations and the invasive technology that they are trying to impose upon us. “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world.”

On the other hand, we are called “to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set.” We are only called to attend to the times in which we live and to work to make the world in which we find ourselves a better place by loving and serving those around us. It is pointless worrying about how evil our own time is and equally pointless to vainly wish that things were different.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” Frodo complains to Gandalf.

“So do I,” Gandalf replies, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Other than Pearce’s touch of contemporary ideology (“localism is the only effective response to globalism”), he is identifying that Gandalf is stating that resolving the immediate needs of your neighbors will cure what is wrong with the world at large.  If everyone paid attention to one’s neighbors, the aggregate attention would bring about the Kingdom of God.  And it’s not the geographic restrictions that Pearce identifies.  He sees Gandalf’s quote temporally as well.

No, we cannot choose the time in which we are born. We might wish to have lived, as Frodo does, in more peaceful and virtuous times, unravaged by war and wickedness, but that is not for us to decide. What we do need to decide is what to do with the time that is given us in the times in which we find ourselves. In the words that Pope Leo quotes, Gandalf tells us that we cannot stop all the wars and all the wickedness, we cannot “master all the tides of the world,” but we can decide to fight wickedness where we find it in our own small sphere of influence, “uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.”

In the context of the situation, Pearce sees Gandalf’s quote as containing a moral directive to Frodo.

Our calling, our responsibility, is to be good and faithful stewards of the good things we’ve been given and to be good and faithful servants of the Lord our God and of those who are our neighbors in the Shire in which we live, and of those who will be born after us.

And so, this I think is where Pope Leo is coming from.  Artificial Intelligence requires a moral responsibility to not use it in a prideful, self-centered way, and to consider the benefits to the common good that it could contain as a glorification of God. 

 

Matthew Monday: Father’s Day 2026

I’m only now getting the chance to post on our annual Father’s Day, father/son adventure.  This is an annual event we do for Father’s Day.  We do some “adventure” together, just the two of us.  I first wrote about this in 2014 when Matthew was four years old.  And if you’re interested, you can scroll through all the annual Father’s Day adventures using this link. 

This year we decided to hike and explore one of Staten Island's many parks, a lesser known park called Wolf’s Pond.  It’s not a very large park, but it’s eclectic.  It has woods and hiking trails as one would expect with fresh water ponds but it also runs up to the Raritan Bay, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean.  So it also has ocean front and beach.  Here is a map of the park.

I don’t think any of the hiking tails are more than two miles, so that should give you a perspective.  The long tear-drop shaped pond on the southwest corner is Wolf’s Pond, and you can see that only a sliver of land separates it from the bay.  Major hurricanes have caused the ocean water to breach into the pond and kill all the fresh water pond life.  Several times in the last century they have had to fix the damage and restore normal pond life.

The real adventure of this day was not so much the hiking and exploring, but the drive.  Matthew has his driving permit and been taking driving lessons.  The adventure was for him to drive us there and back.  Not using highways, which he has not learned to do yet, it’s about a ten mile drive through the streets.  I took one picture of him driving.

I will say he drives pretty well in the streets, but I have to say he needs work on his parallel parking and managing parking lots.  But we went there and back with no problems.

Here are some pictures of Matthew on the hiking trail.

Here are some pictures of Wolf’s Pond.

The Canadian geese had monopolized this but there were ducks and turtles and people fishing.  It’s actually a very lovely park for those who live by here.

Once you come out of the woods, you can see ocean.

We explored a remote area of the shore for a bit as well. 

There was lots of fallen trees, washed-up stuff from the ocean, and a seaweed stinky smell.  It was not somewhere you wanted to hang out. 

That’s yours truly, with his camera. 

I should mention, Wolf’s Pond Park has a very nice memorial to those who fought in the Battle of the Bulge.  I took several pictures, but I’m only going to share one.

On the way home, I had Matthew stop at what I thought was an upscale pizza place.  It turned out to be an expensive Italian restaurant.

Matthew wound up getting a prime rib that was enough for three servings and I had cavatelli in a Bolognaise sauce.  Delicious!  We took home the left overs.

Finally, a father and son picture.

Matthew is good at selfies.  I’m not. 

 

 

Sunday Meditation: He That Gives You Rest

There are two halves to today’s Gospel, but with a subtle interconnection.  For the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year A, Jesus first offers a prayer to the Father where He reveals the Father/Son relationship and then invites those listening into the heart of that relationship.

I think it would be helpful to read the entire chapter eleven of Matthew’s Gospel to understand the context of today’s passage.  Jesus has been preaching across the Galilean cities, and in some which He names He is rejected.  And so He thanks the Father for having revealed to children what the “wise” rejected.  What was revealed?  That there is a relationship between Father and Son.  In a sense, Jesus is exposing Himself as the child with the innocent heart.

Then Jesus turns to us and invites us as children to share His Passion.  His Passion?  He says to share His yoke, and isn’t it supposed to be easy?  Just last week we heard from the previous chapter in Matthew, that “whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”  Can Jesus have changed His mind from one chapter to the next as to whether one needs to suffer with Him or one needs have their burden lifted?  These are not mutually exclusive.

 

 

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

At that time Jesus exclaimed:

"I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,

for although you have hidden these things

from the wise and the learned

you have revealed them to little ones.

Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.

All things have been handed over to me by my Father.

No one knows the Son except the Father,

and no one knows the Father except the Son

and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him."

 

"Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,

and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,

for I am meek and humble of heart;

and you will find rest for yourselves.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden light."

~Mt: 11:25-30

 

For the exegetical explanation, I’m going to turn to Raymond Ruan.  I don’t know who Raymond Ruan is.  His YouTube channel says he’s from Singapore and he has been publishing these exegetical videos since 2011.  The voice does not sound it belongs to a man, so I think he has a reader.  But I don’t know.  I have watched some of his videos and found them very good.  This one is excellent, and so I embed it.

 

 

Raymond Ruan:

We dive a little deeper into what's happening when Jesus prays to the father. We have two panels here. Panel one shows the high Christology. When Jesus says that all things have been handed over to me by my father, he is showing us his exclusive eternal relationship with God the father. He is the pre-existent son.  Moving to our next slide, we dive a little deeper into what's happening when Jesus prays to the father. We have two panels here. Panel one shows the high Christology. When Jesus says that all things have been handed over to me by my father, he is showing us his exclusive eternal relationship with God the father. He is the pre-existent son.  On this slide, we see how beautifully the whole Bible ties together. What we call the symphony of scripture. We have three images here. First, the meek king from Zechariah 9 who rides on a beast of burden to banish the warrior. Jesus fulfills this by ruling with breathtaking gentleness instead of military power.  The blueprint of discipleship. Here we have the greatest image of Jesus washing his disciples feet. His words are profound, but his life is the greatest lesson he offers. He teaches us how to bear the weight of human existence through radical love.

 

In Jewish tradition, a rabbi would invite disciples to take up the yoke of his teaching. Jesus invites us to tether ourselves to his divine wisdom. But there is also the yoke of Calvary.  Jesus says we must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily. We can't embrace his teaching while rejecting his suffering.  So here is the paradox. How can a yoke that includes the agonizing weight of the cross be considered easy?  Grace meets demand. The mechanics of the shared yoke. Here are the answers to the question by showing us the mechanics of the shared yoke. Look at the human reality. A radical demand plus human frailty equals crushing despair. Without grace, carrying our daily cross is impossible.  But look at the reality of grace.  Jesus doesn't just assign us a burden and walk away. He steps into the harness beside us. As the reflection from Epriest notes, when two people are yoked together, they are united in all they do. They are never alone. Christ always takes the heavy side of the beam. The cross remains real, but because grace bears the weight, the burden becomes wonderfully light.

 

We will all experience suffering.  But yoked with Jesus, the suffering becomes lighter.  When we enter the Sacred Heart of Jesus we receive His rest.

For the pastoral homily, I’m going to turn to the Order of Preachers in India, specifically, Fr. Pratik Pereira O.P.

 

Fr. Pratik:

Dear brothers and sisters, in today's gospel passage, we are invited into a deeply personal moment in the ministry of Jesus. To understand the weight of his words, we have to look at what was happening around him. Jesus had just finished preaching in the cities of Galilee where many had rejected his message. In response, Jesus turns to prayer. He praises the father for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom of God not to the wise but to children. Jesus is not dismissing intelligence here. Rather, he's teaching a profound theological truth. God is not a puzzle to be solved by human cleverness. God is a person to be known through love, humility, and a childlike trust. Jesus states clearly that no one knows the father except the son and no one knows the son except the father. This means that we cannot climb our way up to God through our own human efforts or sheer willpower. True knowledge of God is always a gift freely given to us by Jesus.  The relationship between the father and the son is one of perfect intimate love. And Jesus invites us directly into that inner life of God.

 

The image of a yoke is also deeply practical. A yoke was a wooden frame placed over the necks of a pair of oxen so they could pull a heavy load together. Crucially, a yoke is never meant for a single animal. It is designed for two. When Jesus says, "Shoulder my yoke," he's not asking us to carry a new set of heavy rules on our own. He's inviting us to harness ourselves to him. He's saying, "Let me walk right beside you. Let me pull the heaviest part of the weight." The rest that Jesus promises is not a life free of responsibilities, trials, or duties. Instead, it is a rest for our souls born from a security of knowing that we are never walking alone and that our worth is not [music] tied to how perfectly we perform.

 

Jesus then reveals his own character describing himself as gentle and humble in heart. This is the only place in the entire gospel where Jesus explicitly describes his own inner heart. He does not demand compliance through fear or intimidation. He draws us close through gentleness. His humility is the antidote to our pride and anxiety because he is gentle. We do not have to hide our weaknesses, our failures or our exhaustion from him. We can bring our messy burdened lives directly to him confident that he will meet a savior that each one of us will meet a savior who welcomes us with open arms rather than judgment.

He is gentle, so we must be gentle.  He is humble of heart, so we must be humble of heart.  He is childlike, so we must be childlike.  Lessons we need to internalize.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones.”

 

 

Finally I have not posted on the 250^th anniversary of our July 4^th Declaration of Independence.  It’s a remarkable milestone in our history. I think a worthy hymn for this occasion is “My Country Tis of Thee.”

 

My country, 'tis of Thee,

Sweet Land of Liberty

Of thee I sing;

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrims' pride,

From every mountain side

Let Freedom ring.

My native country, thee,

Land of the noble free,

Thy name I love;

I love thy rocks and rills,

Thy woods and templed hills;

My heart with rapture thrills,

Like that above.

 

Let music swell the breeze,

And ring from all the trees

Sweet freedom's song;

Let mortal tongues awake;

Let all that breathe partake;

Let rocks their silence break,

The sound prolong.

 

Our fathers' God to Thee,

Author of liberty,

To Thee we sing.

Long may our land be bright,

With freedom's holy light,

Protect us by Thy might,

Great God our King.

 

That prayer at the end, “Protect us by Thy might,/Great God our King,”  is worth praying at every patriotic event.