A Memorial Day Worth Living

Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of summer. The air smells like barbecue. Kids run barefoot through freshly cut grass. The patio gets swept, the lawn chairs dragged out, and someone always forgets the mustard.

It’s the kind of weekend we crave—laid back, sunny, full of life.

But if we’re willing to pause, to actually taste this weekend, we might discover something more. Something sacred.

Because underneath all this joy and play is a deeper story—a story of lives given, freedoms won, and beauty preserved through sacrifice.
This weekend is not just for remembering. It’s for receiving.

Wonder Is the Beginning of Seeing

Christopher West writes in Eating the Sunrise, “If we lose our ability to see the world with wonder, we lose our ability to see it at all.”

Wonder isn’t naive. It’s not reserved for children. Wonder is how we wake up to the deeper reality beneath the surface of things. It’s how we learn to see the world—not as raw material to be used—but as a gift waiting to be received.

The firefly, the face of someone you love, the rhythm of a meal—all of it is crying out: this moment matters.
These aren’t just fleeting pleasures. They are theophanies—encounters with the divine breaking into the everyday. Glimpses of God’s presence right here in the physical world.

So when you taste watermelon juice on your tongue, hear the sizzle of the grill, or see sunlight spilling through the trees—pause. Breathe. Receive.
This weekend isn’t about changing your plans. It’s about changing your vision.
Let beauty interrupt you. Let gratitude slow you down. Let wonder guide the way.

Freedom Always Points to Love

We’ve all heard it: “Freedom isn’t free.” It’s not just a line—it’s a truth written into every human story.

Freedom always requires sacrifice. Not just on the battlefield, but in the heart.

What makes freedom beautiful is not that we get to do whatever we want—but that we’re free to do what we were made for: to love. To give. To receive. To become a gift.

As St. John Paul II often said, quoting Vatican II: “Man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of self.”

The men and women we remember this weekend didn’t give their lives for an idea—they gave them for our freedoms. For your right to worship. To laugh. To love. To choose what is good and live what is true.

And that means our gratitude can’t just be felt—it must be lived.

Live the Gift

“To eat the sunrise is to recognize the world not as raw material to consume, but as a banquet to receive. A gift. A sign. A theophany.”
—Christopher West, Eating the Sunrise

This is the Mass.

It’s not a merely a metaphor. It’s the moment where heaven kisses earth. Where the same love that fuels your backyard joy is offered—body, blood, soul & divinity—at the altar.

When you bring your weekend to the Mass —your rest, your laughter, your ache, your memory—you don’t leave Memorial Day behind. You enter it fully.

To participate in the Mass is to live the gift.
It’s to say yes to love that gives itself away. Yes to freedom expressed through the body. Yes to the God who became flesh and remains with us in bread.

So yes—laugh. Barbecue. Play cards late into the night. Hug your kids. Call your parents. Wear sunscreen. Chase the dog across the lawn.

But do it all with a heart wide open.

Because this isn’t just a long weekend. It’s a gift.

And the best way to honor the ones who gave everything… is to live it.

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Want to go deeper this weekend?

We invite you to read the bonus chapter from Eating the Sunrise by Christopher West. It’s a beautiful meditation on wonder, the ache, and the invitation to see the world again with reverence. You can read it here.