In the United States of America, the 4th of July is a secular holiday. In my home, the 4th of July is my youngest son’s birthday. In the Roman Church, the 4th of July is the optional memorial of Saint Elizabeth of Portugal.
At first glance this may seem to create a spirit of competition between the three candidates for celebration, but I don’t experience the day in that fragmented sort of way—at least not this year. I have taken time to reflect on all three of these themes and doing so has been enriching to and for me. Each theme has meaning, value, limitations, and even dangers.
I woke up this morning with my son on my mind. It was time to sing “Happy Birthday” and experience the fatherly joy of seeing a just-turned-three-year-old bask in the first moments of his special day. We went to the movies; for him, it was the very first time. We ate pizza for lunch and had an ice cream cake for dessert this evening.
As you can see, today is most intimate to me as the anniversary of my son’s birth. This recalls the day he was born: when all other meanings of the day were erased from my heart and mind by the pure joy of his arrival. As time passes, I suspect this day will fade into routine, as all things surely must do. But what is personal is also divine: surely there nothing secular about the baptism of physical birth.
At the same time, I have lived all of my life in a nation-state, and most of it in the United States of America. I belong to this particular geopolitical tribe. But, first and foremost, I am a child of God and a son of our Mother Church. So many houses, so much dwelling!
This takes my mind to the beautiful folklore of Queen Elizabeth of Portugal. I’ve always found her story compelling because it recalls the virtue of Monica, Augustine’s mother, from the Confessions. They both are lauded for being faithful to God while being married to abusive, impious husbands—in Elizabeth’s case, a king.
Saint Elizabeth was a quiet, devout woman who not only led a pious life: she also tirelessly championed the cause of the poor and the disenfranchised. All of this regardless and in spite of her scandalous husband.
In a way, this is how I feel today: we all all wives today. We are called to be holy in the midst of the scandal of our tense relationships to our respective nation-states. (And surely all nation-states are riddled in scandal.)
When taken together—the secular, the personal, and the divine—I find the joy of loving my son is the praxis, the orthopraxy, of the virtues of Saint Elizabeth, immune to our vexing relationship to the abuses of secular politics.
Through the intimacy of love for a person, we find our way to God, without wringing our hands over our broken times.
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