A Patriotic Mood

How my family fell in love with the United States

07/02/2022

Is 66:10-14c Thus says the LORD:  Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad because of her,  all you who love her;  exult, exult with her, all you who were mourning over her!  Oh, that you may suck fully of the milk of her comfort, that you may nurse with delight at her abundant breasts! For thus says the LORD: Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent. As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms, and fondled in her lap;  as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you;  in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort. When you see this, your heart shall rejoice and your bodies flourish like the grass; the LORD's power shall be known to his servants.

It may surprise you to know that not all immigrants immediately fall in love with America. Obviously, some do, who come here fleeing dire and desperate circumstances and they cannot wait to set foot on American soil, and kiss the ground. But not everyone arrives like that. This is July 4th weekend, and everyone is in a patriotic mood, so let me share with you how my family fell in love with America, and got into the patriotic mood ourselves. It was not love at first sight, but we very much love this land today.

My family immigrated to the United States in 1976, when I was seven years old, my older brother was nine, and my little sister was five. That makes me the well-adjusted middle child. My parents’ original intention in immigrating to the U.S. was not to settle here forever or permanently. Like many immigrants from developing countries, like India, people would leave to work overseas in foreign first-world countries and make a lot of money. After several years of hard work, saving every penny, and never taking a vacation, we fully planned to go back “home” to India. That was Plan A.

But things started to change when we went back to India as teenagers for a two-week vacation. It was summer time, the temperature was always above 110 degrees and not every place we visited had air-conditioning, very few did. All the chocolate ice cream in New Delhi can’t keep you cool when it’s 115 degrees and humid! At several intervals the three kids had meltdowns faster than the ice cream, and we cried: “We want to go home!”

It suddenly hit my parents that while they considered India their “home”, the three children fully felt the United States was our “home”. So, Plan A became Plan B, that is, my parents would live here in the United States until they retired. Once they had plenty of retirement funds, they would build a comfortable home in India and return there to live their golden years. That was Plan B.

And so, my brother grew up and became an engineer and later a businessman. My sister studied communication and English and works for the Church. And you know most of my story. Eventually, my siblings started having children: my brother has 4 and my sister has 5, because they were trying to pick up my slack. And of course, there is nothing better than grandkids for grandparents. Grandchildren are their whole world, and they would move half-way around the world to be with them.

And that’s when it hit my parents again: why would they want to live in India while their precious grandchildren were growing up here in the United States? They realized that Plan B needed to become Plan C, and finally they accepted that America was their true and lasting home. And they would one day be laid to rest in American soil, their homeland. This July 4th weekend I will go to watch fireworks at my parents’ home in Springdale. And my family feels as patriotic as everyone else. But for us patriotism was a process.

If you study the Scriptures closely, you can notice a process of patriotism unfolding in those pages, from Genesis to Revelation. Throughout the Old Testament the Chosen People felt a deep patriotism for the land of Israel, the Promised Land. They never felt it more keenly than when they were in Exile, like my parents felt exiled and longed to go home to India when we first came to the U.S.

But in the New Testament, Jesus teaches his followers that the real Promised Land is in heaven, not on earth. In other words, the Promised Land of Palestine needed to change into the Promised Land of Paradise. Plan A of the Old Testament had to become Plan B of the New Testament. The people of the Bible had to go through a process of patriotism until they finally saw heaven as their true home.

My friends, where are you in that process of patriotism. What do I mean? Well, our true homeland is not America, but the Catholic Church, and the Church is heaven’s embassy on earth. Some people come to the Catholic Church desperate to reach its shores and feel like kissing the ground when they become Catholic. Just think about the excitement of new converts on Easter and the joy they feel to receive Holy Communion and Confirmation.

But for most of us it is a long, slow process of letting go of all our ties to earth and its excitements and desire to go home to heaven more than live on earth, like my parents gradually loved America more than India. Sometimes we want to be more American than be Catholic. But St. Paul was at the end of the process of patriotism when he said: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain…My desire is to depart and to be with Christ, for that is far better” (Phil 1:21, 23).

Where are you in that process of patriotism? As we shoot fireworks, spend time with family, enjoy and extra day of vacation, and give God thanks for this great land, don’t forget where your true homeland is.

Praised be Jesus Christ!