The human brain is estimated to have as many as 500 trillion synapses, making it the most complex organism or machine imaginable. In addition to managing all our bodily functions and actions, the human mind is uniquely capable of conscience thought and rational thinking, also referred to as “reason.“ Does this complex mind of ours put us at the top of the hierarchy of all existence, or does it point to a greater reality, a spiritual reality who created us so wondrously?
Human reason is the incredible ability to be self-aware and it enables us not only to think and speak, but to search for meaning in our lives. Blaisé Pascal, the 17th century scientist-mathematician who invented the syringe and the barometer, built the first mechanical calculator, and developed probability theory still in use today, was also a Catholic philosopher whose writing has stirred the hearts and minds of millions who have taken the time to reflect on life’s truths. When contemplating the human capacity for reason Pascal warned that there are two false attitudes toward reason. The first is over confidence which often leads to skepticism, and the second is laziness or disinterest in discovering the truths about life. Discovering truth, according to Pascal, is achieved by avoiding these two pitfalls. Relying exclusively on human thought can result in overlooking the greater realities revealed by the complexity of the universe which reveals an even greater reality, a spiritual reality that stirs the human heart. Perhaps this is why we feel God’s presence when we behold the wonders of nature or the infinite expanse of the universe. The second pitfall is avoidance of the hard work of seeking truth, which often results in our being deceived by the lies and perversions of truth that pass for secular wisdom.
Centuries later, Ralph Waldo Emerson said something very similar, perhaps moved by reading Pascal’s Pensees. “God offers every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please -- you can never have both.” As it turns out, truth is often unpleasant, and pursuing it always requires courage. It’s easy to tune out and avoid the complications of facing truth. This is the basis of psychoanalysis: uncovering and facing the truths we’ve suppressed. Running from truth is almost always harmful to us in some way. “Forgetting our troubles” is often the pursuit of people who turn to alcohol, drugs, food, and other obsessive or addictive behaviors that damage our emotional and physical health. Symptoms of this abound in Western culture where 20% or more of the population is taking anti-depressant medication. Could it be that we’re running away from truth, and finding it too painful to face reality, or perhaps finding so little meaning and purpose in our lives?
So what does all this have to do with Pentecost? Think back to Jesus’ passion and death. Standing before Pilot, Jesus revealed the reason He had come into the world: “The reason I was born, the reason why I came into the world, is to testify to the truth. Anyone committed to the truth hears my voice.” (John 18:37). Pilot’s infamous reply was, “Truth! What is truth?” Clearly Pilot wanted nothing to do with such talk and literally washed his hands of any responsibility (Pascal’s second pitfall). Pilot was a politician. He wanted nothing to do with absolute truth, preferring instead the relativism in which truth is unknowable and constantly changing according to the whims of the ruling class or the most powerful. Absolute truth carries with it obligations and requires courage, so most politicians want nothing to do with it.
We crucified Truth in an attempt to silence it and avoid the obligations that come with it. This truth that Jesus came to give us, is almost too much to ask. Jesus knew this and said to His disciples, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when He comes, the Spirit of Truth will guide you in Truth.” (John 16:12)
We all know that the disciples were afraid for their lives, hiding from the authorities when the Holy Spirit came to them. Suddenly they were infused with courage and their minds were open to the Truth of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit were conferred upon the apostles and they are available to us as well, but not because of any action of our own. These gifts of the Holy Spirit are the actions of God Himself, changing us in ways that we are incapable of achieving on our own. These seven gifts enable us to recognize and embrace Truth, and to use it to guide our lives toward justice and peace of soul. Here they are:
Wisdom
Understanding
Counsel
Courage
Knowledge
Piety
Fear of the Lord
These gifts are conferred in the Sacrament of Confirmation, but like any gift, it’s us up to us to unwrap the present and use it. God will never force us to act, or to accept His many gifts. It is us up to us to use these gifts and to incorporate them in our daily lives, otherwise they remain unopened, forgotten, and unused. Without the aid of the Holy Spirit and the gifts He bestows on us, we lack the wisdom to recognize truth and the courage to seek God’s truth. Nor can we, on our own, discover the will of God, much less recognize the deceits of the devil or the threats to our salvation.
For each of the gifts of the Holy Spirit there is an opposite value held up by the secular world that denies absolute truth:
The world’s wisdom is the pursuit of absolute autonomy, unrestrained by moral truth; Understanding is limited to human reason alone, ignoring the spiritual realities;
Courage is replaced by the mantra of avoiding anything that is unpleasant or inconvenient, whether it be a baby, a marriage, or a family obligation;
Knowledge is suppressed by perversions of truth that are so enticing to our senses and our laziness;
Piety is considered a weakness because the focus is on personal freedom and love of self not love of God;
Fear of the Lord is ridiculed and replace by the notion that there is no such thing as sin, dulling our senses to the moral absolutes which we fail to recognize.
Rejecting the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or letting them sit unopened puts us in peril of being deceived by the many enticements of the secular world, a world that is suffering and dying from its own egocentric self-absorption. Don’t be that person. Don’t stand idly by while Truth is crucified. Open your life to God and welcome the Holy Spirit and His gifts into your life. Do it today.: having a dread of sin and fear of offending God.: loving God as a Father and obeying him because of our love for Him.: enabling us to discover the will of God.: strengthening us to do the will of God in all things.: warning us of the deceits of the devil and dangers to our salvation.: enabling us to know more clearly the mysteries of life and faith.: desire for the things of God, and to direct our lives to His honor and glory.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Pentecost, Part One
As the Easter season comes to a close we celebrate two important events in the Life of Christ: His Ascension into heaven 40 days after Easter, and the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles 10 days later, or 50 days after Easter. Christians are familiar with these events, but may not realize that Pentecost was also celebrated by the Israelites for centuries before the arrival of Jesus. The Jewish feast of weeks (Shavuot) celebrates God giving Moses and the Israelites the Ten Commandments, 50 days (7 weeks) after their Exodus from Egypt.
Jesus short life and public ministry are the culmination of divine revelation and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. In the Exodus, God released His people from slavery and they were saved from the Angel of Death by the blood of the lamb sprinkled over their doorways. This was a great foreshadowing of the passion and death of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who saves us from the slavery of sin. He established a “new and eternal covenant” in His own Body and Blood, and in doing so, He fulfilled God’s promise of redemption despite that fact that God’s people were unable to adhere to the Sinai covenant which had given them the Mosaic law. Jesus did not replace or change God’s law, but perfected it in His self-sacrifice and in His new command to love one another as He loves us.
The word Pentecost means “50 days” the time between the Exodus and the reception of the Ten commandments, and between Jesus resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The New Covenant Jesus established on our behalf will never be broken because Jesus and the Holy Spirit are with us always in ways that was impossible prior to Jesus life, death and resurrection.
Sadly, our world seems to have forgotten all this, or cast it asides as the antiquated belief from the time when people believed in the reality of the spiritual life. Modern science and technology have replaced belief in the spiritual realm with the mistaken notion that all our problems can be addressed scientifically by one means or another, whether it be medical science, psychiatry, or the genius of mankind in establishing a Utopia where man’s reason prevails over all of societies problems. This was clearly the thinking of Marx, Lenin and the other founders of communism. They thought that belief in the spiritual realm held man back from his full potential and therefore needed to be rooted out, by force if necessary.
Nowadays it seems no force is needed, as our world has become increasingly secular and assumes that faith and reason are separate realms, and that religion is more often than not the cause of political and economic strife. In fact, the opposite is true. Faith without reason is sterile, because our faith reveals the real truths about life. Reason applied to faith enables us to understanding the meaning and purpose of life. Intellect without faith is subject to all sorts of misunderstandings. Pope Benedict recently commented on this situation, explaining that:
“Modern man is dazzled by technical efficiency and therefore forgets the essential question of meaning, thus relegating the transcendent dimension to insignificance. When meaning is lost and the transcendent forgotten, thought becomes weak and an ethical impoverishment gains ground. This techno-practical mentality generates a risky imbalance between what is technically possible and what is morally good, with unpredictable consequences.”
We live in an age when forced sterilization still takes place in rural India and China, where the one-child policy has led to a lopsided imbalance between the sexes, and that in turn has resulted in huge increases in crime and human trafficking. The World Bank, collaborating with the United Nations Population Council and Planned Parenthood International, sends millions of dollars into countries where abortion is still illegal, and merely rename abortion “emergency contraception” even when it is performed with high powered suction. These are all examples of human reason unguided by faith and morality. Not only are these practices immoral, the consequences are completely overlooked or vehemently denied. Low birthrates will catch up with China and Japan in the next half century and the economic and political consequences will be catastrophic. The same thing is happening in Europe where they seem to take great pride in having shed their Christian roots and are well along in their efforts to create a secular society. Despite the dire implications of these flawed practices, most liberals in America advocate that we emulate these practices.
Greece and France have elected Socialists who will speed the process in those countries, despite what it will clearly do to their sustainability as nations. Socialism advocates for more central power in the government and the ruling class. The Nazi’s were “National Socialists” who believed that their enlightened thinking would perfect humanity by eliminating undesirables. In contrast, our church and the U.S. constitution both assert belief in the principle of ’subsidiarity.’ Under this concept, governance takes place at the lowest possible level, starting with the family, the township, city, county or state, and federal governance should be minimal. This preserves freedom, including the freedom to practice our religion. The so-called “progressive” movement is a return to socialism which promises to establish a perfect society because the ruling elite know what’s best for everyone and impose their ideas on everyone else. That’s what Lenin believed when he led the Bolshevik to implement Marx’s ideology; it’s what Hitler believed when he initiated world war to create a Utopia. Modern day progressives would have us shed our unhealthy belief in God and in the spiritual realm, and replace it with belief in central government and equality created by the redistribution of wealth. Our current president believes he knows what’s best for all of us, and despite his promise at the Notre Dame commencement speech to ensure a strong conscience clause in health care, he now demands that every employer provide chemical abortions, sterilization and contraception, even if these services violate the employers’ religious beliefs.
Now more that ever, we need to restore our belief in Pentecost, in the Real Presence of Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit. With their aide and a return to both Faith and Reason, we can reveal the truth and work toward putting our country back on the path to true freedom which can only be the product of justice based on an understanding of the meaning and purpose of life, and belief in the author of all life.
Jesus short life and public ministry are the culmination of divine revelation and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. In the Exodus, God released His people from slavery and they were saved from the Angel of Death by the blood of the lamb sprinkled over their doorways. This was a great foreshadowing of the passion and death of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who saves us from the slavery of sin. He established a “new and eternal covenant” in His own Body and Blood, and in doing so, He fulfilled God’s promise of redemption despite that fact that God’s people were unable to adhere to the Sinai covenant which had given them the Mosaic law. Jesus did not replace or change God’s law, but perfected it in His self-sacrifice and in His new command to love one another as He loves us.
The word Pentecost means “50 days” the time between the Exodus and the reception of the Ten commandments, and between Jesus resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The New Covenant Jesus established on our behalf will never be broken because Jesus and the Holy Spirit are with us always in ways that was impossible prior to Jesus life, death and resurrection.
Sadly, our world seems to have forgotten all this, or cast it asides as the antiquated belief from the time when people believed in the reality of the spiritual life. Modern science and technology have replaced belief in the spiritual realm with the mistaken notion that all our problems can be addressed scientifically by one means or another, whether it be medical science, psychiatry, or the genius of mankind in establishing a Utopia where man’s reason prevails over all of societies problems. This was clearly the thinking of Marx, Lenin and the other founders of communism. They thought that belief in the spiritual realm held man back from his full potential and therefore needed to be rooted out, by force if necessary.
Nowadays it seems no force is needed, as our world has become increasingly secular and assumes that faith and reason are separate realms, and that religion is more often than not the cause of political and economic strife. In fact, the opposite is true. Faith without reason is sterile, because our faith reveals the real truths about life. Reason applied to faith enables us to understanding the meaning and purpose of life. Intellect without faith is subject to all sorts of misunderstandings. Pope Benedict recently commented on this situation, explaining that:
We live in an age when forced sterilization still takes place in rural India and China, where the one-child policy has led to a lopsided imbalance between the sexes, and that in turn has resulted in huge increases in crime and human trafficking. The World Bank, collaborating with the United Nations Population Council and Planned Parenthood International, sends millions of dollars into countries where abortion is still illegal, and merely rename abortion “emergency contraception” even when it is performed with high powered suction. These are all examples of human reason unguided by faith and morality. Not only are these practices immoral, the consequences are completely overlooked or vehemently denied. Low birthrates will catch up with China and Japan in the next half century and the economic and political consequences will be catastrophic. The same thing is happening in Europe where they seem to take great pride in having shed their Christian roots and are well along in their efforts to create a secular society. Despite the dire implications of these flawed practices, most liberals in America advocate that we emulate these practices.
Greece and France have elected Socialists who will speed the process in those countries, despite what it will clearly do to their sustainability as nations. Socialism advocates for more central power in the government and the ruling class. The Nazi’s were “National Socialists” who believed that their enlightened thinking would perfect humanity by eliminating undesirables. In contrast, our church and the U.S. constitution both assert belief in the principle of ’subsidiarity.’ Under this concept, governance takes place at the lowest possible level, starting with the family, the township, city, county or state, and federal governance should be minimal. This preserves freedom, including the freedom to practice our religion. The so-called “progressive” movement is a return to socialism which promises to establish a perfect society because the ruling elite know what’s best for everyone and impose their ideas on everyone else. That’s what Lenin believed when he led the Bolshevik to implement Marx’s ideology; it’s what Hitler believed when he initiated world war to create a Utopia. Modern day progressives would have us shed our unhealthy belief in God and in the spiritual realm, and replace it with belief in central government and equality created by the redistribution of wealth. Our current president believes he knows what’s best for all of us, and despite his promise at the Notre Dame commencement speech to ensure a strong conscience clause in health care, he now demands that every employer provide chemical abortions, sterilization and contraception, even if these services violate the employers’ religious beliefs.
Now more that ever, we need to restore our belief in Pentecost, in the Real Presence of Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit. With their aide and a return to both Faith and Reason, we can reveal the truth and work toward putting our country back on the path to true freedom which can only be the product of justice based on an understanding of the meaning and purpose of life, and belief in the author of all life.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Mother's Day and the real meaning of Love
Mother’s day celebrates more than just the fact that each of us has a mom. We honor the many sacrifices every mother makes for her family. Mom’s are a reminder that the nature of true love is sacrifice. A mother’s love enables her to sacrifice her body and blood for the life of her child, and to sacrifice sleep, comfort, and convenience for the safety and well being of her infant. True love is far more than just a romantic feeling or physical attraction, it is the willingness to make sacrifices on behalf of the beloved. This is the love that God has for us, and that He made accessible to us when He created us in His image. This is the love Jesus has for us in sacrificing Himself for us, not just once on Calvary, but for all eternity where, despite our sinfulness, He suffers and dies for each and every one of us.
The scripture readings for Mothers Day describe the true nature of love, making it clear that all love is of God:
"Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins."
1 John 4:7-10
"This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one's life for one's friends.
This I command you: Love one another."
John 15:12,17
and your joy might be complete.” This joy is the product of our decision love the way God loves, by making a gift of ourselves to those we love. This kind of love involves risk because it makes us vulnerable and it comes at a price. To love as God loves means setting aside our selfish desires and forfeiting the false freedom of our desires for the true freedom to love as God loves. Only when we tame our selfishness can we love as God loves, but this is counter-cultural. The secular world in which we live holds up personal freedom as the key to happiness and joy, not self-sacrifice. This is why marriage is considered disposable, as are inconvenient children, and many other “inconvenient truths.”
One of the reasons so many find pornography appealing is that it demands nothing from us, but promises the freedom to experience pleasure with no risks, no entanglements, no consequences. But the true consequence of such selfishness is that we diminish ourselves and our ability to establish deep and meaningful relationships because we fall victim to the lie that we deserve pleasure on demand with no risk, no self-sacrifice, no commitment. It is impossible to love another person when we are self-absorbed with our personal freedom, convenience, and pleasure. In the modern worldview, marriage is only a matter of convenience and self-fulfillment, and love is nothing more than a reaction to our desires. No wonder marriage is on the decline and birth rates so low.
As the Easter season winds down, we are called to ponder the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection at many levels, including the very important example it holds for defining the real meaning of love. As St. John points out, “…love is of God. Whoever is without love is without God, for God is Love.” If you want to know God, learn to love as He loves. In doing so, you are likely to discover that real joy is the result of authentic, self-giving love in which the sacrifices are outweighed by the joy that goes beyond all understanding.
The scripture readings for Mothers Day describe the true nature of love, making it clear that all love is of God:
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins."
1 John 4:7-10
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one's life for one's friends.
This I command you: Love one another."
John 15:12,17
and your joy might be complete.” This joy is the product of our decision love the way God loves, by making a gift of ourselves to those we love. This kind of love involves risk because it makes us vulnerable and it comes at a price. To love as God loves means setting aside our selfish desires and forfeiting the false freedom of our desires for the true freedom to love as God loves. Only when we tame our selfishness can we love as God loves, but this is counter-cultural. The secular world in which we live holds up personal freedom as the key to happiness and joy, not self-sacrifice. This is why marriage is considered disposable, as are inconvenient children, and many other “inconvenient truths.”
One of the reasons so many find pornography appealing is that it demands nothing from us, but promises the freedom to experience pleasure with no risks, no entanglements, no consequences. But the true consequence of such selfishness is that we diminish ourselves and our ability to establish deep and meaningful relationships because we fall victim to the lie that we deserve pleasure on demand with no risk, no self-sacrifice, no commitment. It is impossible to love another person when we are self-absorbed with our personal freedom, convenience, and pleasure. In the modern worldview, marriage is only a matter of convenience and self-fulfillment, and love is nothing more than a reaction to our desires. No wonder marriage is on the decline and birth rates so low.
As the Easter season winds down, we are called to ponder the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection at many levels, including the very important example it holds for defining the real meaning of love. As St. John points out, “…love is of God. Whoever is without love is without God, for God is Love.” If you want to know God, learn to love as He loves. In doing so, you are likely to discover that real joy is the result of authentic, self-giving love in which the sacrifices are outweighed by the joy that goes beyond all understanding.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
National Suicide?
“Only a man of faith can understand the present world situation; he alone appreciates that it is not the clash of conflicting political systems, but a moral judgment on the way men think and live.”
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
In last Sunday’s gospel Jesus proclaimed that He is the vine and we are the branches. In Him is Life and cut off from Him, we lack vitality and the very essence of life which is the love of God and the willingness to make a gift of ourselves for the love of another. After all, God created us gratuitously, infusing in us a divine spark which enables us to think and to love. Apart from God, we rely on ourselves and are deprived of the truth of all existence. Separated from God we are apt to pursue our selfish impulses, and be deceived by our own emotions and the lies and deceptions which appeal to our instincts and selfish desires. Over time, our impulses take control of our lives and we become blind to the light of truth, mistakenly choosing the false hope of happiness in the pursuit of personal freedom and happiness.
Coincidentally, Sunday morning the vice president of the United States proclaimed his support for gay marriage, indicating that, although he is Catholic, his position on the issue has evolved. When questioned about this change, he credited a popular sit-com, “Will and Grace” for his enlightened view of homosexuality. Apparently the vice president takes his moral guidance from Hollywood, rather than his church. It’s interesting that the name of the show is also two terms that are so important to our discovery of the real truth about life. Our will, and the grace of God. While the show may have portrayed homosexuality as harmless and attractive, it belies the fact that it violates natural law, as revealed in the truth of our bodies. By asserting our “will” and rejecting the “grace” of God we fail to recognize the truth of our bodies and the truth about homosexuality. The gay rights agenda is about more than simply granting legal rights and status to homosexuals, it redefines marriage which is the sacred union of man and woman for the purpose of creating a family and the continuation of our species. Gay marriages cannot produce new life, and in fact they are more likely to result in emotional and physical harm. Nor is gay marriage the proper setting to raise children, whose gender identity is likely to be confused.
On Monday this week, the Secretary of Education also announced his support for gay marriage and explained that it is the position of the current administration that the Defense of Marriage Act should be repealed. The president has already directed the Attorney General to prepare legal action for just that purpose. It’s no wonder that marriage rates are at an all time low in the world and in our country, and that birth rates have plummeted. Despite the fact that the future of the world and of our nation depend on families and children, we continue to deconstruct marriage while holding up the paramount importance of personal freedom to pursue happiness by any means, even when those means are contrary to human nature, common sense and the common good.
We are methodically cutting ourselves off from the source of life and of love. We are like branches without a vine and we bear little or no fruit. The great historian Arnold Toynbee studied twenty-one civilizations which have vanished and concluded that sixteen of them collapsed from within because their society decayed and lost its moral compass. Nations are not murdered, more often than not, they commit suicide. When marriage and families are discouraged and children are regarded as a threat to personal freedom, the vitality of a nation is destroyed. Our president recently commented that if one of his daughters went the prom and made a bad decision, he would not want her “punished with a baby.” In his view, babies are a punishment. No wonder he defines “women’s health” as prevention of fertility and the avoidance of children, even if it means taking birth control pills that contain class one carcinogens.
Last weekend also saw the election of socialists in Greece and France. Both leaders were swept into office by an overwhelming majority of dissident voters who are angry about the loss of government sponsored social benefits. The new president of France has promised to lower the retirement age back to 60. The current retirement age of 62 was one of the “austerity measures” taken by the former president, in an effort to slow down government spending. The Greek electorate are even more fired up and refuse to accept similar austerity measures, despite having taken 200 billion euros in bailout money from Germany and Denmark where the retirement age is 67. They apparently intend to default on this debt and will probably pull our of the European Union as a result. At the root of these problems is not just the failure of tax and spend ideology, but the rapid decline in birthrates which has resulted in fewer workers and a steadily growing elderly population which cannot be supported by a smaller tax base.
This is the same direction America is headed as long as we continue to downplay marriage and family. Last week the unemployment rate dropped to 8.2%, despite employment declining. It dropped because the number of people in the workforce is lower (the denominator), compared to the number actually employed. The 50 million children whose lives were ended by abortion are missing from the workforce, and the parents who aborted them are now approaching retirement age, wondering who’s going to pay the taxes to support their Medicare expenses and social security payments.
Before dropping out of the presidential race, Rick Santorum promised to make family and life issues his number one domestic priority. He knows what so many of us seem to have overlooked: the vitality of our nation, its economy, and its future depends on families. There will be not be enough families and children if marriage is deconstructed into a civil accommodation for the purpose of personal convenience and pleasure, rather than the sacred institution for the fulfillment of our destiny as men and women created to live the very love of God by participating in the creation of new life. The love of God and the sacrifices demanded by marriage and parenthood are the true source of happiness. This is how we remain connected to the vine of life.
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
In last Sunday’s gospel Jesus proclaimed that He is the vine and we are the branches. In Him is Life and cut off from Him, we lack vitality and the very essence of life which is the love of God and the willingness to make a gift of ourselves for the love of another. After all, God created us gratuitously, infusing in us a divine spark which enables us to think and to love. Apart from God, we rely on ourselves and are deprived of the truth of all existence. Separated from God we are apt to pursue our selfish impulses, and be deceived by our own emotions and the lies and deceptions which appeal to our instincts and selfish desires. Over time, our impulses take control of our lives and we become blind to the light of truth, mistakenly choosing the false hope of happiness in the pursuit of personal freedom and happiness.
Coincidentally, Sunday morning the vice president of the United States proclaimed his support for gay marriage, indicating that, although he is Catholic, his position on the issue has evolved. When questioned about this change, he credited a popular sit-com, “Will and Grace” for his enlightened view of homosexuality. Apparently the vice president takes his moral guidance from Hollywood, rather than his church. It’s interesting that the name of the show is also two terms that are so important to our discovery of the real truth about life. Our will, and the grace of God. While the show may have portrayed homosexuality as harmless and attractive, it belies the fact that it violates natural law, as revealed in the truth of our bodies. By asserting our “will” and rejecting the “grace” of God we fail to recognize the truth of our bodies and the truth about homosexuality. The gay rights agenda is about more than simply granting legal rights and status to homosexuals, it redefines marriage which is the sacred union of man and woman for the purpose of creating a family and the continuation of our species. Gay marriages cannot produce new life, and in fact they are more likely to result in emotional and physical harm. Nor is gay marriage the proper setting to raise children, whose gender identity is likely to be confused.
On Monday this week, the Secretary of Education also announced his support for gay marriage and explained that it is the position of the current administration that the Defense of Marriage Act should be repealed. The president has already directed the Attorney General to prepare legal action for just that purpose. It’s no wonder that marriage rates are at an all time low in the world and in our country, and that birth rates have plummeted. Despite the fact that the future of the world and of our nation depend on families and children, we continue to deconstruct marriage while holding up the paramount importance of personal freedom to pursue happiness by any means, even when those means are contrary to human nature, common sense and the common good.
We are methodically cutting ourselves off from the source of life and of love. We are like branches without a vine and we bear little or no fruit. The great historian Arnold Toynbee studied twenty-one civilizations which have vanished and concluded that sixteen of them collapsed from within because their society decayed and lost its moral compass. Nations are not murdered, more often than not, they commit suicide. When marriage and families are discouraged and children are regarded as a threat to personal freedom, the vitality of a nation is destroyed. Our president recently commented that if one of his daughters went the prom and made a bad decision, he would not want her “punished with a baby.” In his view, babies are a punishment. No wonder he defines “women’s health” as prevention of fertility and the avoidance of children, even if it means taking birth control pills that contain class one carcinogens.
Last weekend also saw the election of socialists in Greece and France. Both leaders were swept into office by an overwhelming majority of dissident voters who are angry about the loss of government sponsored social benefits. The new president of France has promised to lower the retirement age back to 60. The current retirement age of 62 was one of the “austerity measures” taken by the former president, in an effort to slow down government spending. The Greek electorate are even more fired up and refuse to accept similar austerity measures, despite having taken 200 billion euros in bailout money from Germany and Denmark where the retirement age is 67. They apparently intend to default on this debt and will probably pull our of the European Union as a result. At the root of these problems is not just the failure of tax and spend ideology, but the rapid decline in birthrates which has resulted in fewer workers and a steadily growing elderly population which cannot be supported by a smaller tax base.
This is the same direction America is headed as long as we continue to downplay marriage and family. Last week the unemployment rate dropped to 8.2%, despite employment declining. It dropped because the number of people in the workforce is lower (the denominator), compared to the number actually employed. The 50 million children whose lives were ended by abortion are missing from the workforce, and the parents who aborted them are now approaching retirement age, wondering who’s going to pay the taxes to support their Medicare expenses and social security payments.
Before dropping out of the presidential race, Rick Santorum promised to make family and life issues his number one domestic priority. He knows what so many of us seem to have overlooked: the vitality of our nation, its economy, and its future depends on families. There will be not be enough families and children if marriage is deconstructed into a civil accommodation for the purpose of personal convenience and pleasure, rather than the sacred institution for the fulfillment of our destiny as men and women created to live the very love of God by participating in the creation of new life. The love of God and the sacrifices demanded by marriage and parenthood are the true source of happiness. This is how we remain connected to the vine of life.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)