A tip of the hat to Father Mark Botzet for letting me post his homily from July 5, 2026.
I took the liberty of changing some punctuation so that it matches the style of this blog, then adding headings and paragraph breaks. Enough preface. Here’s Fr. Botzet’s homily.
Freedom and Focus
14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Fr. Mark Botzet
This Weekend the United States of America celebrates 250 years as a Nation.
With the signing of the declaration of independence, our founding fathers established this great country with a focus on God. Let us not forget that.
A country whose people would experience great freedom.
That freedom came at a great price.
And is often challenged by other countries in the world.
Remembering Zarchariah
This challenge of freedom has been going on for a long time. The Prophet Zechariah would only have dreamed of living in a great nation like ours. You see, God’s people were under the control of a foreign nation for 250 years.
Think about that. It is as long as we have been a nation. First, it was the Babylonians, next it was the Persians, then followed by the Greeks. Zechariah prophesies that there will be no more war, No more destruction, And lastly, no more being exiled from an invading country.
Zechariah talks about a new king that will make a new kingdom. This king does not ride in on a horse, instead he rides in on a donkey.
Symbolism
There is a meaning behind the horse and the donkey.
If this new king arrived on a horse it would reveal to us that he comes to rule like a warrior, conqueror, and with war.
The donkey on the other hand reveals a leader who comes with a peaceful nature.
Jesus
We all know that Jesus rolled into Jerusalem not on a horse, but on a donkey.
In the end we know that Jesus conquered the Romans by his peaceful nature. Dying on the cross and rising from the dead in the resurrection. Jesus’ teachings were not embraced at first, but the Romans would later embrace it.
The United States in Context
For the last 250 years the United States of America has held elections every four years for its president. A president that will hold office for four or eight years. Our nation has had a president that held it for longer. Compared to other countries when we change leaders it is done by a peaceful nature as power is exchanged.
We have seen this peaceful exchange challenged, but compared to what happens in other countries it is relatively peaceful. Even though our country has endured a revolutionary war and civil war in its early years.
A war, or exile, does not occur every four to eight years that would suppress all of the people in this great nation. We do not experience an invasion, conquering or war every four to eight years. We are a peaceful nation.
That is what Zachariah is talking about: a peaceful nature behind a great world power that is what God reveals to us in the coming of our savior Jesus Christ.
A Burden, But an Easy One
Jesus tells us to take up the yoke, “for my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. The burden that Jesus talks about is the Law. Jesus gives us the law that is to follow the ten commandments.
When we follow God’s rules and regulations they might at first appear as a burden.
But, when we obey the laws of the Lord we find the burden actually becomes light. We also find great peace. These laws and regulations opens us to experience our freedom. A freedom that comes at a price of being yoked to the law.
You see, when we do not follow the law we become enslaved and indebted to sin. Yet, if we hold on to our yoke we will live in the Spirit of God that gives us life.
Celebrating Our Liberty, Pursuing Happiness, Remembering God
Our freedom comes at a price. As we celebrate 250 years, let us remember that our founding fathers founded this nation on the principles that God gives us. Let us celebrate our freedom, our liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
And may we remember that our independence is not independence from God.
But that our nation trusts and depends on God.
A God whose only Son came in riding on a donkey not a horse.
A Son who did not conquer by war, Jesus our savior came in peace. Conquering our slavery caused by sin.
Dying on the cross, he revealed the resurrection and that death is not the end to life.
Celebrate, and Remember Priorities
Let us take up our yokes, follow God and his commandments.
We must increase our faith in God and his Church, as we celebrate 250 years of being a free nation. And the prophecy of Zachariah of a king coming in peace to establish a kingdom.
I want to leave you with these words of one of the Bishops—”Governments have come and gone. Presidents have been elected and unelected. Kings and queens have taken the throne, and they have been dethroned. And throughout the history of the Church, many governments have tried their best to destroy the Church… But the Church survived.”
The Church survived. Why is that? Because it kept its faith and trust in God.
May the United State of America survive another 250 years by keeping our faith and trust in God.
Catholic in America: a Layman’s Perspective
I’ve talked about being a Catholic and an American before:
I keep meaning to get back to this, but haven’t. About six months back, I was introduced to an ‘art’ site:
Better Kaul Vakil Using screens to bring us off the screen. Lets make art together.
It’s — no, you’re better off checking it out yourself.
You’ll find a small but varied set of pictures/paintings, videos, and an introduction to camera lucidia. That’s Latin for ‘light chamber/room’: a 19th-century gizmo that helped folks draw. Turns out there’s at least one way of using today’s tech and the 19th century principles to get similar results.
There. That’s pretty much all I’ve got to say about it today.
A big tip of the hat to Viral Vakil, for introducing me to this site, and for putting it together.
I’d say more, but seriously: check it out yourself.
Robert Edge Pine & Edward Savage’s “Congress Voting Independence”.1 (ca. 1784-1788)
United States Semiquincentennial “America250” logo.
Two and a half centuries back, quite a few English subjects who were living in colonies strung along North America’s east cast had become fed up.
Thoroughly.
Like pretty much anything else involving humans, it’s complicated.
It wasn’t just paying tax on tea, or government-mandated stamps on all paper goods and legal documents. Even having to buy tea exclusively from the British East India Company might have been tolerable.
1776
Enlightenment-era folks reading Voltaire in Madame Geoffrin’s salon, as imagined by Lemonnier. (1812))
What really set them off was having zero representation in the British Parliament.
That, and divisive ideas about self-governance, individual liberty, and natural rights.
That’s why, two and a half centuries ago today, some of the worst troublemakers signed a document we call the Declaration of Independence.2
Looking back with twenty-twenty hindsight, I think it was a good idea.
It helps that I’m an American and grew up in the Sixties, when many folks were realizing that something being legal doesn’t mean it’s right. Also, I’m part-Irish and know about history. Being cautious at best about distant rulers is part of my heritage.
Besides, I know that, for all its faults, America is a good place to live. We’re not all in the top five percent in terms of wealth, but we enjoy a remarkable degree of freedom in what we may do or say.
Now, back to 1776 and all that.
Were all the English subjects in those 13 colonies so fed up that they thought telling their legal rulers to take a hike was a good idea? No.3
Has “the last great experiment, for promoting human happiness” been a complete and unqualified success? In my opinion, no. George Washington described America that way in a letter. I’ll share a longer excerpt a bit later.
19th Century
Alfred Gale’s anti-abolition broadsides (ca. 1865) via Library of Congress.
Detail, Constantino Brumidi’s “The Apotheosis of Washington”, U.S. Capitol rotunda. (1865)
During the 19th century some Americans got — overenthusiastic — about this country and its founders.4
But we weren’t any more homogeneous then than we are now. Some Americans seemed convinced that others were trying to destroy their country.
What various Americans thought “our country” was and should be: that’s another topic for another day. Topics.
Those differences of opinion — again, none of this is simple — boiled over in our only major armed internal conflict. Depending on who’s talking, it’s The Civil War, War Between the States, War of the Rebellion, War for Southern Independence, or simply The Recent/Late Unpleasantness.5
We were still sorting out some of the mess that made when I was growing up. By then, Americans had accumulated even more experiences.
20th Century
“…You don’t have to talk. This large person is making socialists faster than you can make them!” (1911)
Some folks having more than they need while others don’t have enough isn’t unique to America, the 20th century, or any other time or place.
It’s not a problem, or shouldn’t be. Everyone, each person, has the dignity that comes with being human. But we’re not all alike, and aren’t supposed to be. Each of us has needs that others can fill, while being able to fill the needs of others. This is a good thing. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1934-1938)
War
Urukami Roman Catholic Cathedral, Nagasaki, Memorial service. (November 23, 1945)
America played a major part in the 20th century’s two global wars. These days, we call them World War I and World War II. My father suggested that they could and should be seen as a single conflict: “The Colonial War”. I think he’s right.6
Times: Good and Changing
Herb Block’s “Say, what ever happened to ‘freedom-from-fear’?” (August 13, 1951) (During McCarthyism)
America had good times, at least economically, after World War II. I remember the trailing edge of that, and the common sentiment that this was a good place to live.
I also remember the problems we had.
Then came the Sixties. Those were interesting times.
Our oldest daughter said that a childhood and youth spent within a couple blocks of a college campus affected my viewpoints. She’s right. So did having parents who were librarians.
At any rate, in my youth I thought many if not most of the social reforms being made were good ideas. I’m not entirely pleased about how some turned out, but I still think trying to make our society more tolerant was a good idea.
The frothing ‘patriots’ of my youth were, I think, sincere in their belief that their country was in peril from communism, Catholicism, and other foreign ideas. At least I hope they were, for their sake.
Today’s right sort have different slogans and quirks. But I see the same zeal, determination, and apparent inability to consider the possibility that they might not be entirely in the right.
This isn’t the America I grew up in. But we endured the Fifties and Sixties, and I think we’ll endure the present nonsense. We may even learn a thing or two.
21st Century
St. Mary’s in Melrose, Minnesota, a few miles down the road: torched in 2016. (WCCO (June 2016))
In a way, the 21st century is more of the same for America.
We’ve been involved in more wars: which, this time around, our government called “wars”; a refreshing change of pace from the embarrassing euphemisms of my youth.
Walt Kelly’s Deacon Mushrat and Simple J. Malarky. (1953)
We’re still on a long learning curve, dealing with a society where everyone’s not on the same page. It hasn’t been and is not easy.
Some Americans have been striving mightily to preserve their freedom of speech, while being upset when others express opinions they don’t like.
The current situation isn’t exactly like the mess we call McCarthyism,7 but I see strong parallels. In both cases, we have self-described defenders of democracy and freedom using their positions of influence and authority to muzzle folks with the ‘wrong’ opinions. And, in the long run, failing. That’s how I see it, at any rate.
I’ve gathered that freedom of religion is a divisive topic. That, again, is not new. What’s changed are the quirks of folks who aren’t comfortable with the idea, and their slogans.
America, Two and a Half Centuries and Still Learning
“Uncle Sam — It’s all right! There’s no fighting! The noise you hear is just my family celebrating!” (1902)
I admit it. I like being an American. I haven’t always been happy about what’s happening in my country, or decisions our ‘better sort’ make.
But I like it here, and think that America is much more than the folks who sit in executive offices, convince enough voters to put them in office, and look good on screen.
This country has a great deal going for it: natural resources; folks with get-up-and-go who got up and went here, and their descendants; navigable rivers and good harbors.
But I think that the remarkably smart and savvy bunch we call the Founding Fathers made a huge difference. That was what this culture calls a “lucky break”.
I’ll wrap this up with a few things George Washington, John Adams, and Abraham Lincoln said; with a (brief) comment or two.
George Washington and “the Great Experiment”
“…Although, neither the present age or Posterity may possibly give me full credit for the feelings which I have experienced on this subject; yet I have a consciousness, that nothing short of an absolute conviction of duty could ever have brought me upon the scenes of public life again. The establishment of our new Government seemed to be the last great experiment, for promoting human happiness, by reasonable compact, in civil Society. It was to be, in the first instance, in a considerable degree, a government of accomodation as well as a government of Laws….” (Letter, George Washington (New York) to Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham (England).(January 9, 1790)8 [emphasis mine]
The United States is still a great experiment: a largely successful one, I think.
Some of the basic — and in the late 17th century disturbing — ideas shaping our government are that:
A government’s power comes from the consent of the governed
Checks and balances prevent autocratic rule
The rule of law applies: notthe whims of some individual or well-connected group
Those ideas are still disturbing, particularly to folks who aren’t getting what they want.
Now, I said “largely successful”. I’ve been paying attention for about a half-dozen decades, and know my homeland’s history. America isn’t perfect. For that matter, neither were the Founding Fathers.
John Adams and “the Roman Catholic religion”
“Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion? The art of lawgiving is not so easy as that of architecture or painting. New York and Rhode Island are struggling for conventions to reform their constitutions, and I am told there is danger of making them worse. Massachusetts has had her convention; but our sovereign lords, the people, think themselves wiser than their representatives, and in several articles I agree with their lordships. Yet there never was a cooler, a more patient, candid, or a wiser deliberative body than that convention….” (John Adams to Thomas Jefferson (May 19, 1821) via National Humanities Center) [emphasis mine] [the NHC has apparently taken down or blocked that particular document (July 1, 2026)] [see John Adams, Wikiquote]
More than two centuries later, “the Roman Catholic religion” is — well, we’re not running rampant over this fair land. But we’re definitely here. So is “a free government”.
I don’t think the concern John Adams expressed is reasonable. But I’m a Catholic and I wasn’t brought up as an Englishman.
I wasn’t brought up as a Catholic, either. Ironically, ranting one-hundred-percent-American-Good-Christian radio preachers helped set me on a path that led me to becoming a Catholic. And that’s another topic. Several, actually.
Abraham Lincoln and Human Nature
“…Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we will have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged….” (“On Democratic Government” ; Response to a Serenade, November 10, 1864; Abraham Lincoln (November 10, 1864) via Project Gutenberg) [emphasis mine]
I think Lincoln’s right. We’ve got something like five millennia of written records. I see no indication that human nature has changed.
Our languages, customs, and every other aspect of our societies keep changing.
But the basics, the qualities that make us human? We’ve got the same sort of fools, knaves, heroes and just-plain-folks that we’ve always had. And we still, most of us, have the same feeling that we could and should do a whole lot better.
What we do with that feeling? I’ve talked about that before, a lot:
The Vatican/Holy See recognizing that the SSPX/FSSPX/Lefebvrists/Lefebvrians is not officially part of the Roman Catholic Church isn’t all that surprising.
I’m sharing excerpts: one from an AP article, another from Vatican News. There’s more detail and links in the Vatican News piece.
“…The Vatican responded aggressively Thursday to a traditionalist group that consecrated bishops without the pope’s consent, declaring the Society of St. Pius X had formally broken with the Catholic Church. It also excommunicated its bishops and priests, and warned its faithful that they too face the harshest sanctions in the church.
“By declaring a schism and extending sanctions to potentially thousands of Catholics…
“…The society, known by its acronym SSPX, celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and opposes the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, which it considers to be rife with heresies and errors … has been a thorn in the Vatican’s side for five decades because it claims to be even more Catholic than the Holy See….”
“Excommunication decreed for Lefebvrian episcopal ordinations” Vatican News (July 2, 2026) “A document signed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, defines the rite celebrated on 1 July as an ‘act of a schismatic nature,’ with an explanatory note providing details of the grave canonical sanction of excommunication.”
“The bishops of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, Alfonso de Galarreta and Bernard Fellay—respectively principal consecrator and co-consecrator—and the newly consecrated bishops Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, and Marc Hanappier have incurred ‘ipso facto’ the ‘latae sententiae’ excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See for having carried out ‘an act of a schismatic nature’: the ‘episcopal consecration of four presbyters, without pontifical mandate and against the will of the Supreme Pontiff.’
“This was stated in a decree released on July 2 and signed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and countersigned by the two Secretaries of the same Dicastery.
“The decision came twenty-four hours after the solemn ceremony celebrated in Écône, Switzerland, on the morning of July 1, 2026.
“The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s decree establishes that, in the act of carrying out the consecration, both the consecrators and those consecrated incurred the prescribed excommunication….”
In a way, I get it.
Back in 1970, here in America, we were seeing a fair amount of screwball DIY liturgical stunts done “in the spirit of Vatican II”. I wasn’t a Catholic at the time, but even from the outside they seemed silly.
For someone who had grown up in a parish that’d been considered old-fashioned in 1900, “in the spirit of Vatican” antics could have felt — deeply offensive.
I don’t know why or how many priests and bishops actually bought into the “spirit of Vatican II” nonsense. I suspect part of the problem was that American culture was going through a ‘let’s review old habits’ cycle.
Another — let’s face it. Church documents are written in academese: in Latin, then translated into other languages. They’re not easy reading. It’d be a whole lot easier to pick up one’s favorite magazine or newspaper, and see what the reporters and editors said the documents said. Easy, yes. Accurate, maybe not.
I haven’t talked about the Piux X outfit before, but I have said a few things about the Church and making sense:
So far, I’ve had two ‘one of those weeks’ in a row. Our youngest daughter tells me there’s been a lot of tree and grass pollen in the air lately, so that may account for it.
Anyway, a homily I heard two weeks back and posted last week asked two questions:
“…What are you doing to pass on and give to the younger generation?
“Are you going to share your life story?
“Your vocational calling of how you met and allowed God to work in your lives….” (“Our Vocational Calling” Focus on Listening to God for Our Vocational Calling > Disciples, Then and Now > Sharing Our Stories, Fr. Mark Botzet)
Those are good questions. Teaching kids skills, telling them what to do and what to avoid; those are good ideas.
But I think sharing our stories; what we’ve experienced and how we were affected — that strikes me as a very good idea indeed.
There’s nothing wrong with teaching skills and rules. But stories — telling stories is how we show WHY the skills and rules matter.
“Every thing’s got a moral, if only you can find it.” “Alice in Wonderland”, the Duchess. (1866)
That doesn’t mean I think concocting ‘and the moral of this story is’ narratives is necessarily a good idea.
But sharing what we’ve learned with the next generation, that does make sense:
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Life, the universe and my circumstances permitting. I'm focusing on 'family stories' at the moment. ("A Change of Pace: Family Stories" (11/23/2024))
Blog - David Torkington
Spiritual theologian, author and speaker, specializing in prayer, Christian spirituality and mystical theology [the kind that makes sense-BHG]
I was born in 1951. I'm a husband, father and grandfather. One of the kids graduated from college in December, 2008, and is helping her husband run businesses and raise my granddaughter; another is a cartoonist and artist; #3 daughter is a writer; my son is developing a digital game with #3 and #1 daughters. I'm also a writer and artist.
