DURING prayer this past week, I have been so distracted in my thoughts that I can barely pray a sentence without drifting away.
This evening, while meditating before the empty manger scene at the church, I cried out to the Lord for help and mercy. As quickly as a falling star, the words came to me:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit".
RESPECT for diversity and peoples is what the Christian faith teaches, no, demands. However, this does not mean “tolerance” of sin.’
…[our] vocation is to deliver the whole world from evil and to transform it in God: by prayer, by penance, by charity, and, above all, by mercy. —Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island
It is charity to not only clothe the naked, comfort the sick, and visit the prisoner, but to help one’s brother not to become naked, sick, or imprisoned to begin with. Hence, the Church’s mission is also to define that which is evil, so good may be chosen.
Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought. —POPE JOHN PAUL II