Our mission in the world is the same as it has always been, to build the Kingdom of God, which is a Kingdom of Love. Love cannot exist except between persons. For there to be love, we must first of all safeguard the liberty and integrity of the human person. We must provide an education that strengthens man against the noise, the violence, the slogans and the half-truths of our materialistic society. — Disputed Questions, p. 148 (Kindle version)
Christians can never, with a good conscience, yield to the lure of totalitarianism. Even when a political system promises a strong arm with which to defend the Church, if that arm ends in a mailed fist, and if the “protection” offered is that of a secret police and concentration camps, we cannot accept its protection. — Disputed Questions, p. 148
Verse of the day
Indeed, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
– Hebrews 4:12
Voice of the day
The basic claim made by the Bible for the word of God is not so much that it is to be blindly accepted because of God’s authority, but that it is recognized by its transforming and liberating power.
– Thomas Merton, “Opening the Bible” (1970)
Prayer of the day
Lord, let your Word change us and set us free, showing its power by how it transforms our hearts.
Love is a word that has been emptied of content by our materialistic society. In our world “love” is reduced to the infatuation celebrated in popular songs. Genuine love cannot be taken for granted, and least of all today. But we Christians seem to take it for granted. We seem to feel that we “love one another” and that we know very well what love is. We tend to act as if things were so well regulated by love in our own household that we could safely forget about it and go out to preach to others. Hence we are not worried about love, so much as about doctrine. (Disputed Questions, p. 143)
The history of the Church is a confusion of successes and apparent failures of Christianity…. The Church alone has never lost her way. But the thing that keeps her on the right way is not power, not human wisdom, not political dexterity, or diplomatic foresight. There are times in the history of the Church when these things became, for Christian leaders, stones of stumbling and sources of delusion. The thing that keeps the Church and the Christian on the right way is love. And this is necessary, because love is the highest expression of personality and of freedom. — Disputed Questions, pp. 141, 142 (Kindle)
As [Daddy] said in his book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, “We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. This may well be mankind’s last chance to choose between chaos and community.”
Let us choose community and, in Daddy’s words, “make of this old world a new world.” — Bernice King (source)
“If the 21st century wishes to free itself from the cycle of violence, acts of terror and war, and avoid repetition of the experience of the 20th century—that most disaster-ridden century of humankind, there is no other way except by understanding and putting into practice every human right for all mankind, irrespective of race, gender, faith, nationality or social status.”—Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 2003
“No one has much love for politics, but most of us do care about people. And I want to suggest that loving our neighbors as ourselves means we cannot ignore the local and national policies that affect their lives and their ability to thrive.”—Shane Claiborne, Rethinking Life: Embracing the Sacredness of Every Person
“Dear sisters and brothers, the so-called world of adults may understand it, but we children don’t. Why is it that countries which we call ‘strong’ are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so hard?”—Malala Yousafzai, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Lecture
Verse of the day
Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place.
– Jeremiah 22:3
Voice of the day
War is not healthy for children and other living things.
– Lorraine Schneider
Prayer of the day
God of justice, let us fight against war and oppression, to protect those who are most vulnerable.
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