The attack on marriage is really an attack on the human person, and his dignity, for the devil seeks to pervert our true purpose, to pervert God's holy design. For many of us, we cannot march in protests or write dozens of letters or call numerous times to urge legislators to vote for the Truth. But one thing we can all do is pray and fast. We have designated one day each week to fast for these intentions:

1. That marriage may be preserved, promoted, and understood as God's plan for creation.

2. For all marriages that they may reflect the love of the Trinity.

3. For broken marriages that Christ bring healing and conversion to the spouses' souls.

4. For those who are married, for the sanctification of their marriage and their spouse. For those who are single, for their future spouse and vocation.


Tuesday, November 8, 2011

The Pursuit of Happiness

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JMJ

"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. "
We have heard this excerpted quote from the Declaration of Independence so many times that we may have forgotten the magnitude of this statement and the way our present society eschews it though its laws and practices. There is a full frontal assault going on right now. The deaths of over 50 million unborn babies reveals the obvious attack on the right to life in our country.  The government's intrusion into church matters, parental rights, and healthcare decisions hamper our liberty.  Here are a few examples:
  • The government recently argued a case in front of the Supreme Court that it had the right, via the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, to decide if a pastor of a Church should be reinstated.
  • New York has recently mandated comprehensive "sex-ed" for their public schools, with "community groups such as Planned Parenthood" teaching it.
  • Nurses at a New Jersey hospital are filing a legal suit for forcing them to choose between their jobs or assisting with an abortion.  
  • Catholic entities and employers will soon be forced to provide contraception coverage in their insurance packages, which will result in dropping them altogether.
And what about the third right, the pursuit of happiness? What is the pursuit of happiness, if not the striving to reach eternal and true happiness in heaven?  Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, said in his book, The Spirit of Liturgy:
"When morality and law do not originate in a God-ward perspective, they degrade man, because they rob him of his highest measure and his highest capacity, deprive him of any vision of the infinite and eternal.  This seeming liberation subjects him to the dictatorship of the ruling majority, to shifting human standards, which inevitably end up doing him violence." (p.18-19)  
 We were made to "know, love and serve God in this world so as to happy with Him in the next." A government that encroaches upon liberties, and denies basic truths, deprive men from not only pursuing true happiness but also deny him the opportunity to understanding what that happiness is.  If he is not truly free to live out his natural calling, to seek His Maker and understand why he was made, he will not be able to experience the joys of knowing that an eternity of beatitude awaits him. 



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