“…your joy might be complete.”
Jn 15:11
Thursday of Fifth Week of Easter
In recent homilies Bishop Patrick J. Zurek has put forth the Encyclical of Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, as the standard for love and unity in our diocese. Today, let’s reflect upon paragraph #205 in that regard:
CHAPTER SIX
DIALOGUE AND FRIENDSHIP IN SOCIETY
SOCIAL DIALOGUE FOR A NEW CULTURE
Building together
205. In today’s globalized world, “the media can help us to feel closer to one another, creating a sense of the unity of the human family which in turn can inspire solidarity and serious efforts to ensure a more dignified life for all…
Contemplation and action are not at odds, Pope Francis said.
The media can help us greatly in this, especially nowadays, when the networks of human communication have made unprecedented advances.
Carson Crosby receives first Communion from Father Augustine Asante at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Columbus, Texas, April 24, 2021. Crosby has a mitochondrial disease that prevents him from consuming food orally so a fraction of the host was dissolved in a small amount of distilled water. (CNS photo/Janet Jones, The Catholic Lighthouse)
The internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity.
Father Michael Kottar, a priest from the Diocese of Charlotte, N.C., gives a 2015 World Meeting of Families homily for pilgrims in Philadelphia from his diocese. Father Kottar was diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in 2021, an extremely rare and aggressive brain disease for which there is no effective treatment or cure.
This is something truly good, a gift from God”.[199]
Catholics and all people of good will are urged to contact their state senators and the Governor to support policy and legislative measures that uphold the safety and wellbeing of all persons in our communities and to oppose HB 1927.
Oppose HB 1927 and a culture of violence, Letter signed by Bishop Patrick J. Zurek and all Bishops of Texas
We need constantly to ensure that present-day forms of communication are in fact guiding us to generous encounter with others, to honest pursuit of the whole truth, to service, to closeness to the underprivileged and to the promotion of the common good.
As the Bishops of Australia have pointed out, we cannot accept “a digital world designed to exploit our weaknesses and bring out the worst in people”.[200]
Today my prayer is that we in the Diocese of Amarillo ” ensure that present-day forms of communication are in fact guiding us to generous encounter with others, to honest pursuit of the whole truth, to service, to closeness to the underprivileged and to the promotion of the common good” so that our “joy might be complete”!
