“This I command you: love one another.”
Jn 15:17
Feast of Saint Matthias, Apostle
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 #212 in that regard:
CHAPTER SIX
DIALOGUE AND FRIENDSHIP IN SOCIETY
SOCIAL DIALOGUE FOR A NEW CULTURE
The BASIS of Consensus
Consensus and truth
212. If something always serves the good functioning of society, is it not because, lying beyond it, there is an enduring truth accessible to the intellect?
I still can feel his body slip as if paralyzed and fall into my arms. I see his blood dripping onto his white pontifical cassock, staining my hands and clothes. I also hear a continual, fainter and fainter, repetition of the invocation, ‘O Mary, O my Mother!’”
Inherent in the nature of human beings and society there exist certain basic structures to support our development and survival.
“Our work is not restricted to Catholics. It extends to everyone irrespective of caste, creed or religion,”
Certain requirements thus ensue, and these can be discovered through dialogue, even though, strictly speaking, they are not created by consensus.
“Since its inception in 1965, the Texas Bar Foundation has awarded more than $22 million in grants to law-related programs,”
The fact that certain rules are indispensable for the very life of society is a sign that they are good in and of themselves.
The Holy Cross Speech team won the 1-A Speech Team Championship with 91 points.
There is no need, then, to oppose the interests of society, consensus and the reality of objective truth.
“The aim of Totus Tuus is to foster an encounter with Jesus Christ in children and youth and said their hearts on fire with love for him,”
These three realities can be harmonized whenever, through dialogue, people are unafraid to get to the heart of an issue.
We priests have longed for the day when the Churches will again be filled with the faithful.
From a Memo from Bishop Patrick J. Zurek Sent to All Diocese of Amarillo Priests in the Matters of Lifting the Covid-19 Dispensation
Today this “restless” and formally unrecognized catechist, asks Saint Matthias to pray that through dialogue in the Diocese of Amarillo we become unafraid to get to the heart of the issue of the UCA; that a “Quota” is a human calculation and a “Pledge” recognizes God’s ability to choose rightly. Only then will the UCA be inherently good and our priests can long for our Churches to be filled for reasons other than paying what’s been calculated by “life under the dome”; remembering that Jesus, “commanded”, not “demanded” us to Love.
