October is an important month in our parish and national history. We celebrate our Church building and the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus.

Yesterday on October 10th, 119 years ago, ground was broken for the first Church of Saint Margaret of Antioch. Msgr. Mooney, the Vicar General of the Archdiocese, blessed the cornerstone. Our first church was wooden and cost around $1500 to build. In 1901, Archbishop James Corrigan dedicated the Church. Originally, St. Margaret’s was a mission church of St. Joseph, Spring Valley until June 24, 1923. Our first resident pastor was Fr. Charles Woods. The fire that destroyed the original Church in 1929 saddened his tenure as pastor. It would be left to his successor, Fr. Cornelius Hayes, to build the brick church we have. Our church was dedicated on October 17, 1931.

History is important and to know our own history is more essential. Forgetting one’s history is a very dangerous thing. Understanding where you came from makes understanding of whom you are now possible. Ignorance of history is to put oneself at the mercy of anyone who can and will invent history in order to impose his or her thoughts or ideology on everyone else.

Certainly Nazism, Socialism, Communism did precisely that. First gather up the intellectuals, the writers, the poets, etc., then gather the history books and get rid of them all. The past means nothing; it is only the present that counts and the future glory, of which will never come. I cringe when I hear people say why do we have to study history, it’s the past, who cares. Clearly, we have seen the damage, the lack of knowledge of history has caused our nation these past few months, as we are tearing down our past.

Tomorrow is Columbus Day and I can’t figure out why, (other than the great disdain for Western culture and Christianity) there is such animosity against Columbus. Was he perfect, like all of us the answer is no. And just like us, he is a person of his time. Is he guilty of all the crimes against humanity that he is being charged with? Of course not. It’s called revisionist history. I revise history to fit into my ideology. The curse of today’s thought is that like truth itself, history is relative to me, “It’s my truth, and it’s my history.” Of course, that is a fatal error that leads to destruction and even death.

Why do we celebrate Columbus? President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who established Columbus Day as a federal holiday in 1937, described the real reason in his 1940 celebratory statement:

The courage and the faith and the vision of the Genoese navigator glorify and enrich the drama of the early movement of European people to America. Columbus and his fellow voyagers were the harbingers of later mighty movements of people from Spain, from Columbus’s native Italy and from every country in Europe. And out of the fusion of all these national strains was created the America to which the Old World contributed so magnificently.

This year when we contemplate the estate to which the world has been brought by destructive forces, with lawlessness and wanton power ravaging an older civilization, and with our own republic girding itself for the defense of its institutions, we can revitalize our faith and renew our courage by a recollection of the triumph of Columbus after a period of grievous trial.

The promise, which Columbus's discovery gave to the world, of a new beginning in the march of human progress, has been in process of fulfillment for four centuries. Our task is now to make strong our conviction that in spite of setbacks that process will go on toward fulfillment.

Was Columbus a saint, we don’t know of course, but what I do know and was taught in second grade that I was to detest my sins above all the sins of others.


Happy Columbus Day, and thank God for his courage!