In the Psalm of today’s Mass we hear the Psalmist express regret for “going astray”, for turning his back on God, for forgetting the God who created and sustains him (Psalm 119).
Today, as we honor Abraham Lincoln, we take Lincoln’s own words as a reminder to not allow ourselves to fall victim to that same forgetfulness.
Here is an excerpt from Lincoln’s March 30, 1863 National Fast Day proclamation:
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”
Today we are thankful to President Lincoln for these words of wisdom and for all he did to help preserve our nation. And today we are also thankful to God for the wisdom that he imparts to us and all that he does to preserve us.