In 2015 Evangelical Pastor Rick Warren spoke at Catholic World Meeting of Families… He said this…
“In today’s society, materialism is idolized, immorality is glamorized, truth is minimized, sin is normalized, divorce is rationalized, and abortion is legalized,” bestselling author Warren said. “In TV and movies, crime is legitimized, drug use is minimized, comedy is vulgarized, and sex is trivialized. In movies, the Bible is fictionalized, churches are satirized, God is marginalized, and Christians are demonized. The elderly are dehumanized, the sick are euthanized, the poor are victimized, the mentally ill are ostracized, immigrants are stigmatized, and children are tranquilized. In families around the world, our manners are uncivilized, speech is vulgarized, faith is secularized, and everything is commercialized.”
Christians are often disorganized and demoralized, and their faith is compartmentalized, and witness compromised. “So what do we need? We need to revitalize our worship, minimize our differences, mobilize our members, and evangelize the lost, and we need to re-energize our families.”
So let us come together as One this 2017 to set the World ablaze with the fire of Christ love. Amen
Archive for December 31, 2016
What are the traits of true believers of and in Christ? Who calls themselves Christian not just in name but are Christians by their actions? Are they quick to gossip and find fault in others? Are they life giving in their words and their deeds or do they make others feel empty after encountering them.
No one in a state of grace, who has received Jesus in the Eucharist and dwelled on His living Word can ever say they have not been transformed, living and loving in His light. For having received His peace, love and joy we are compelled to share the joy of the Gospel with others.
Jesus my Lord and my God, let me carry Your light into the new year. Now and forever. Amen
First reading
1 John 2:18-21
Children, these are the last days; you were told that an Antichrist must come, and now several antichrists have already appeared; we know from this that these are the last days. Those rivals of Christ came out of our own number, but they had never really belonged; if they had belonged, they would have stayed with us; but they left us, to prove that not one of them ever belonged to us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and have all received the knowledge. It is not because you do not know the truth that I am writing to you but rather because you know it already and know that no lie can come from the truth.
Gospel
John 1:1-18
In the beginning was the Word:and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him. All that came to be had life in him and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower.
A man came, sent by God.
His name was John. He came as a witness, as a witness to speak for the light, so that everyone might believe through him. He was not the light, only a witness to speak for the light.
The Word was the true light
that enlightens all men; and he was coming into the world. He was in the world that had its being through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him. But to all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to all who believe in the name of him who was born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man but of God himself.
The Word was made flesh,
he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father,full of grace and truth.
John appears as his witness. He proclaims: ‘This is the one of whom I said: He who comes after me ranks before me because he existed before me.’
Indeed, from his fullness we have, all of us, received – yes, grace in return for grace, since, though the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
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