A Word from Your Pastor - July 5

Dear Parishioners:

This weekend we celebrate the wonderful gift of our United States of America as a nation dedicated to the principles of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”  We express our gratitude for those who put their own lives, fortunes and sacred honor on the line for the freedoms which we all enjoy.  At the same time, we pray earnestly: “God bless America!”  As a nation and a culture, we are facing new challenges.  There is a spirit in the air that denies the inner meaning of life, liberty and happiness.  We have to open our hearts to the deeper truths, as did those who fought for our country at its beginnings and throughout its history.  Can we allow what was won at such a cost to be lost?

Recently, it was my privilege to preach at the Watterson Baccalaureate Mass.  In my homily, I quoted Victor Frankl, a survivor of several concentration camps in World War II.  When he spoke to audiences in the United States, he would tell them that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast ought to be complemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast of our nation.  As we exercise our rights and freedoms, we need to realize that we also have a duty to recognize consequences to our actions and our responsibility to those around us and those yet to be born.  This is a timeless truth.

Our Catholic Faith calls us to be free in the fullest and truest sense of the word.  We are free when we submit our bodies, minds and spirits, our hearts and our souls to God and to all that He has revealed.  God’s Word and the Truths of our Faith open us to a greater freedom, a liberty that this world does not understand.  May we who are part of these United States and members of the Catholic Church live in freedom and may we commit our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to the task of living in the light of Truth.  The world is counting on our witness.  The Church is speaking hard truths, but living by the Truth that comes from God is what we are pledged to do.

Focolare Word of Life for July 2015

Take courage; I have conquered the world.  (John 16:33).

http://www.focolare.org/en/news/category/parola-di-vita/