The American Legion of Pawling, NY puts together one of the most reverent and beautiful Memorial Day ceremonies I've ever seen. I have been honored and blessed to be a part of these remembrances each year I've served in this community. This year I offered the following invocation:
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son
and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Father in heaven, we gather this day in
remembrance of those brave men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice,
laying down their lives in death, in order to protect and to secure the
freedoms we enjoy in this great nation. Today we remember that freedom is not
free, but that it has been bought with a costly and precious price. Help us, we
pray to remember this truth every day of our lives that we may treasure and
value freedom and seek and act to secure it of others ourselves.
In Your immeasurable love for the world, you
have revealed that the greatest love possible is for a man to lay down his life
for his friends, his brothers, and his neighbors. Such love was the motivation
for the sacrifice of those we remember this day: Love of liberty and love of
country, but even more the love of mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, daughters
and sons, and the love of countrymen known and unknown, of all colors, classes,
and creeds, both the aged and the unborn. Love is sacrifice, for love always
gives and love always thinks more of another than oneself.
Father, we thank you for your love and for
their love. We thank you for each one of them and for their sacrifice. We thank
you for the freedoms you have procured for us through them. And we thank you
for blessing us in this great nation with your providence even as we pray that
you would make us a rich blessing to others.
Comfort this day and every day those families
who mourn the deaths of those who have died for us. Move us to respect, revere,
honor, remember, and thank them for their sacrifice. May we never take them for
granted, but enjoy and share and guard the liberties that they fought and died
to protect.
Help us, we pray, to honor those who have
sacrificed their lives for us to also sacrifice ourselves for others,
especially in words and deeds of mercy, compassion, and love so that the naked
are clothed, the hungry are fed, the homeless find shelter, the sick are
provided treatment, and life at every moment is valued and protected. Make us
to be your words of comfort, your hands of service, and your heart of mercy.
In the + Name of your love poured out on us
all, Jesus. Amen.
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