A discourse of thanksgiving for one’s native country on the 18 of September 1948, anniversary of Chilean independence

We praise you O God! We have just intoned a hymn of thanksgiving to our Creator for the blessings received by our country, on this new anniversary of our independence.

When we contemplate our beautiful land (Cf. Sant 1,16) for us the loveliest in the universe, our austere mountains that invite us to seriousness of life our fertile fields, our azure skies that invite us to prayer, the souls of our Chilean brothers and sisters intelligent, hard working, valiant, forthright and loyal, how could we fail to raise a fervent act of thanksgiving to the One from whom all blessings come.

How could we fail to raise our voices as we remember our history laden with divine blessings that have made us a worthy, honorable nation? How can we fail to thank God for what some might even lament as unfortunate, the land’s resistance to yielding up its riches? In the north, the nitrate in the midst of the desert; in central Chile, farm lands between harsh mountains where it has been necessary to bore holes in order to find water for crops; the virgin forests of the south that have had to fall to make way for the means of communication and to open up new lands; in the stormy territories of the south swept by harsh winds our cattle and livestock graze; under the sea lies our coal and even there, at the ends of the earth, in the eternal snows, there are riches, that God has confided to Chile, and that can bring well-being to man, riches that are guarded by our flag and by our fellow citizens, who are preparing a new page in our history.

A nation, more than its lands, mountains or seas; more than its language or its traditions, Chile is a mission to be accomplished. And God has confided to Chile this mission of generous effort, a spirit of enterprise and adventure and a respect for man and his dignity that has become concretized in our laws and democratic institutions.

Courageous effort and adventure brought Chile to collaborate even in the liberation of our neighbor nations, to achieve military feats that seemed impossible, even to the forcible extraction of secrets from deserts and mountains. And all these conquests carried out in a spirit of juridical respect for men, translated into institutions, into civil and social laws that have been a model on the continent and in the world. How can we fail to give thanks to God for so many blessings!

But our cry of thanksgiving to God has yet another sense: it is mixed with repentant sorrow for a task only partly fulfilled, our nation raises its voice to ask the help of heaven in the fulfillment of the mission confided to it, to be faithful to that mission which God has willed to imprint upon the austerity of our mountains and fields.

Our primitive austerity is disappearing: money has brought a fever for luxury and pleasure. The spirit of adventure, of the great national adventures, is growing ever weaker in the bureaucratic tussle that replaces the great struggle against nature. Human fraternity that was so present in the minds of our liberators and palpable in one of their first decisions to free all slaves, now suffers appalling failures as we see many thousands of our brothers left in their illiteracy, without technical education, evicted from their lands, living in hovels unworthy of human habitation, without the slightest hope of giving their children some inheritance of culture, and well-being to assure a better life; the gifts that God has given to provide prosperity and joy in life are being used to provide for the extravagances of a few; social legislation has been inspired but almost ineffective while social insecurity continues to be a terrible threat faced by workers, employees and the elderly.

Chile has a mission on the continent and in the world: a mission of courageous effort, of austerity, of democratic fraternity, all inspired by the spirit of the Gospel. And this mission is threatened by all the compelling power of a comfortable and indolent life, its lethargy, apathy and egoism.

We wish to fulfill the mission of Chile; we will sacrifice ourselves for it. Our forefathers gave us a free nation; it is up to us to make it great, beautiful, more humane and fraternal. If they were great on the battlefield, it is up to us to excel in our efforts to build a nation.

But this mission has not been accomplished because our spiritual energies have been weakened, because Christian virtue has languished, because the religion of Jesus Christ in which our nation and each of us was baptized, has not been preserved, because our youth, sunk in pleasure, does not have sufficient generosity to embrace the hard life of the priesthood and the principles of social action. It is necessary, before anything else, to once again stir all the moral energies of the nation afloat and steady: in order to restore the nation’s sense of responsibility, fraternity, self sacrifice, all of which have been weakened to the extent that its faith in God, in Christ and in the spirit of the Gospel have suffered deterioration.

And with what joy I repeat these ideas in Chillan, the birthplace of O’Higgins, a man filled with moral values because of his faith, the same spirit that filled Prat, the most valiant Chilean and deeply fervent Christian, dying with the scapular of the Virgin about his neck; the spirit of each of our forefathers and that of our humble and valiant soldiers; the spirit of our mothers and our grandmothers who formed us in respect for God, in the love of Christ and his Mother, in austerity, courageous effort and fraternal charity.

We have sung the words: We praise you O God! And we must repeat those words continually, asking God to protect our dear nation; that He bless those who govern and strengthen its people in their efforts to be faithful to the mission He has confided to them.