Family Reflection Video: Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds

By: Father Willy Raymond, C.S.C. on November 9th, 2016

Family Reflection Video: Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds

The title of my reflection today comes from a phrase President Abraham Lincoln used in his second inaugural speech in 1865 during the American Civil War. This powerful yet brief speech (only 701 words)inspires us today, the day after this historical 2016 election, as it invokes God and prayer.

I will close using the same words that President Lincoln used to close that inaugural speech over 150 years ago.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

May God bless our country, its leadership and our new president-elect.

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About Father Willy Raymond, C.S.C.

Father Wilfred J. Raymond, C.S.C. (Father Willy), a native of Old Town, Maine, is the eighth of 12 children. He joined the Congregation of Holy Cross in 1964 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1971. He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Stonehill College in 1967 and a master’s in Theology from the University of Notre Dame in 1971. He served in ministry at Stonehill College (1979-1992), Holy Cross leadership (1994-2000), National Director of Family Theater Productions, Hollywood (2000-2014), and President of Holy Cross Family Ministries (2014-2022). In addition to English, he is conversant in French and Spanish. He remains a diehard fan of the Boston Red Sox, even though he has served as Chaplain for the Los Angeles Dodgers.