“Hear my voice, O God, as I complain,
guard my life from dread of the foe.
Hide me from the band of the wicked,
from the throng of those who do evil.”
Here’s my recommended 4th of July reading: today’s piece by NYT columnist Charles Blow entitled “The Hijacked American Presidency,
The good news is I am at the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony for the week.
TEMECULA, CA
Hi, Heather. "America, the Beautiful" was the opening hymn at our (Methodist) church yesterday. I stood, but I didn't sing.
Cousin Kirk
Wow – that homily is hard to believe. I think you are right that we should "judge righteous judgment," or at least take note when the well is unrighteously dry, first of all so we don't forget what normal is, and start denying our need for the fountain of living water.
Sometimes people need a cup of cold water… in the face. The Church is supposed to teach the nations, not the other way around. And I think that means, at the very least, being _prepared_ to give up our tax breaks, our air-conditioning, and our pew varnish to stand up for divine and natural law. A and I are celebrating today by visiting the Spanish Camp and the grave of Dorothy Day. Thinking of you, -Matt
Thanks, folks. As I replied to a reader who privately emailed this morning:
America–our landscape, our people–IS beautiful. It wasn't the song in and of itself that bothered me (although as St. Francis of Assissi said, "Do you think God cares only for Italy?"). It was the priest's (and often the Church at large's) failure to distinguish between the "American" values of success, property, money and prestige and the very different values of a follower of Christ. If we have nothing to offer the person who is is hungering and thirsting for righteousness other than the values idolized by secular culture, how are we going to evangelize! And how are we to encourage the very fallen, very weak lost lambs such as myself to live lives of inner poverty, chastity, humility, charity and obedience?"..
I'm struggling to fit the words "Trump himself (is) the offense"… "everything that springs from him (is) the offense," and now paraphrasing, everyone who supports any part of his agenda, because it's his, is the offense into the fullness of charity.