Weekly Meditation
Please join us and the spiritual community throughout the world as we ponder the same words and share in the same prayers each week.
Fill out the form below to receive your free weekly meditation from Catholic Extension President Emeritus, Bishop William R. Houck.
July 2009
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Weekly Meditation July 27, 2009
Posted: 7/27/2009
We all want peace and we frequently pray for peace. We Catholics at Mass exchange a greeting for the peace of Christ with those around us. When we do that with honesty we are also pledging to do what is needed to promote peace. The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) of the II Vatican Council speaks about the promotion of peace in paragraph 78. Let these truths take hold in our hearts and wills.
Peace is not the mere absence of war or the simple maintenance of a balance of power between forces, nor can it be imposed at the dictate of absolute power. It is called, rightly and properly, a work of justice. It is the product of order, the order implanted in human society by its divine founder, to be realized in practice as men hunger and thirst for ever more perfect justice.
Again, the human will is weak and wounded by sin; the search for peace therefore demands from each individual constant control of the passions, and from legitimate authority untiring vigilance.
Peace is therefore the fruit also of love; love goes beyond what justice can achieve. Peace on earth, born of love for one's neighbor, is the sign and the effect of the peace of Christ that flows from God the Father.
All Christians are thus urgently summoned to live the truth in love, and to join all true peacemakers in prayer and work for peace.
Gaudium et Spes # 78 -
Weekly Meditation July 20, 2009
Posted: 7/20/2009
Those of us who are old enough will today clearly remember where we were on July 20, 1969, 40 years ago when the people of the world came together dramatically as the Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin stepped onto the moon. Our excitement was at a high pitch for sure but it was tempered by the anxiety that it would be successful, the astronauts would be OK and have a safe return to our "beautiful blue and white earth" floating out in space. Neil Armstrong will always be enshrined in history as the first man to walk on the moon and we will treasure his memorable words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
We human beings must be grateful and proud of what our space program has achieved for our world. What great gifts and powers God has given to men and women! The Apollo 8 astronauts six months earlier orbited the moon and on Christmas day read to the world verses from Genesis. Frank Borman concluded with these words: "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you--all of you on the good Earth."
"O Lord, our Lord, how glorious is your name over all the earth! You have exalted your majesty above the heavens....When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place-What is man that you should be mindful of him; or the son of man that you should care for him? You have made him little less than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him rule over the works of your hands, putting all things under his feet...O Lord, our Lord, how glorious is your name over all the earth."
Psalm 8:1, 4-7, 10 -
Weekly Meditation July 13, 2009
Posted: 7/13/2009
On July 7 Pope Benedict XVI's 3rd encyclical was published entitled "Charity in Truth." The Church and indeed the world are blessed by the person and ministry of Pope Benedict XVI, the Successor of St. Peter. He is gifted by God in so many ways. Through his teaching and example he regularly shares that giftedness with us. He loves Jesus, proclaims his gospel values to the world and urges us, also, to develop an intimate friendship with Jesus.
We will have ample time in the future to reflect on his new encyclical--Charity in Truth. Today, however, I offer a selection from a new little book, "Pope Benedict XVI-Prayers." He prayed this prayer during his public audience on November 12, 2008.
Marana Tha
Come, Lord Jesus! Come in your way, in the ways that you know. Come wherever there is injustice and violence. Come to the refugee camps, in Darfur, in North Kivu, in so many parts of the world. Come wherever drugs prevail. Come among those wealthy people who have forgotten you, who live for themselves alone.
Come wherever you are unknown. Come in your way and renew today's world. And come into our hearts, come and renew our lives, come into our hearts so that we ourselves may become the light of God, your presence. In this way let us pray with St. Paul: Marana, Tha! "Come, Lord Jesus!" And let us pray that Christ may truly be present in our world today and renew it. Amen.
USCCB Publication May 2009 -
Weekly Meditation July 6, 2009
Posted: 7/6/2009
As we move through the summer after our 4th of July weekend celebrating our independence and freedom as Americans, we will enhance our responsible citizenship by deepening our understanding of and embracing the wisdom in several of our special documents. Reflect from time to time with sincerity and gratitude on a few excerpts:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."
Declaration of Independence
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom---and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Abraham Lincoln
Gettysburg Address
"True freedom is a wonderful gift from God, and it has been a cherished part of your country's history. But when freedom is separated from truth, individuals lose their moral direction and the very fabric of society begins to unravel. Freedom is not the ability to do anything we want, whenever we want. Rather, freedom is the ability to live responsibly the truth of our relationship with God and with one another."
Pope John Paul II
Address to Young People
St. Louis, 1999
Live the truth in private and public, in civic and religious life so that we Americans will help realize what we so frequently ask: God bless America!
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