“We have walked with pleasure for many a mile and we have smiled and smiled, and learned nothing.  But what a vista of the mystery which lies in the heart of the world’s redemption was unveiled when we, as a people, walked with sorrow!  People become more united in sorrow than in pleasure.  Across the nation, citizens were enjoying theaters, sports, parties, cocktails, and a thousand and one pursuits of eros in which the ego satisfies itself under the guise of a love of another.  Then all these disparate and separate enjoyments, like scattered drops of mercury, suddenly came together in one center – the broken heart of America.  There were no longer political parties, business competitors, grasping fingers – there was beating only one heart.  It is well to be proud of our country, but if the memory of a death means anything, we will no longer boast as if the peacock were our national symbol, saying: ‘I am an American,’ but, in the full consciousness that our symbol is an eagle mounting ever upwards, we will say: ‘May I be worthy to be an American.’”
Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Power of Love)