Weekly Meditation July 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!