Tuesday
The Catholic Calendar for Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Saint Callistus, pope and martyr
Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Romans 1:16-25
Psalm 19:2-5
Luke 11:37-41
A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:
You cleanse the outside,
but inside you are filled with plunder and evil. (see Luke 11:39)
In our first reading, St. Paul tells us that all creation shows forth the greatness and glory of God; but our human eyes, impaired by sin, refuse to accept what is so evident. Humanity, by enthroning itself in the position belonging to God and dispossessing Him from our minds and hearts, is suffering dire consequences. To fill man's inner void, his emptiness caused by God's absence, each age creates new idols to worship, strange gods (such as money, power, sex) that open him to impurities and degradations.
The truth of these words is being played out in our times, thanks to our "judicial experts" who have perverted our nation's Constitution (USA) so as to make it palatable to liberal tastes. They now interpret "separation of church and state" to mean that God must be eliminated from the human equation, completely removed from the public's eyes. The writers of our Constitution fully acknowledged God and His natural law; however, their original intention was to also insure religious freedom by preventing the imposition of one state religion on our people. They merely wished to prevent the great harm once wrought by the religious persecutions in their English homeland, not promote atheism.
Today, God's Commandments have been placed in a courthouse back room behind locked doors; this allows us to draft laws that are contrary to what should be the premises behind all laws--love, truth, leading to respect for human life and assurance of justice for all. Now, under the protection of law, we can cheat, lie, covet, kill and commit adultery, to name but a few of our newly claimed "rights."
If we read today's Gospel in its unabbreviated form, we find Jesus condemning the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and having divorced the Law from God's love and truth, turning it into a set of meaningless human rules. Truly, history does repeat itself.
O merciful Father,
enlighten us to see that Your Commandments express the most
basic principles underlying the formation of a just,
orderly and peaceful society. Amen.
- Marie Bocko, ocds (mlbocko at borg dot com)
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