An Opportunity For Prayer & Action

March 2012

Breaking the Spiral Of Silence The current administration’s effort to force religious institutions to adopt practices that violate their conscience is perhaps the biggest threat to religious liberty in our nation’s history. It should spur every serious Christian into action. We don’t want you to be just the signer of a petition; we need you to be actively engaged in this battle. Here’s how: We’ve prepared a powerful DVD, “Breaking the Spiral of Silence,” with interviews and appeals by a broad spectrum of Christian leaders; Sammy Rodriguez, Harry Jackson, Eric Metaxas, Robby George, Timothy George, and I. We are setting aside April 28 for the first showing of this video across the country. And we’re asking you to be an ambassador, to sign up now to receive the DVD and to premiere it in your home or church to as many friends as you can assemble. Will you please join us? The DVD will equip you and your friends to articulate the reasons why religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and traditional marriage are so important--not just from the standpoint of our Christian faith but for the right ordering of society. We need nothing less than a movement of Christians organizing across America. Here’s what you can do now: · Hold a Breaking the Spiral of Silence event in your home or church (host fee is $24.95 for churches, $9.95 for homes). Register at www.breakingthespiralofsilence.com. Urge each person who attends to get it for their friends · Brief others on these issues. Use every occasion to talk about it in the coming months. This issue is not going to go away. We will either beat back the administration’s mandate or religious freedom will be undermined. There’s no in-between. · Recruit active Christians to network in this movement. As a host you will receive one-page briefs on life, marriage, and religious liberty for your church or home gathering, along with tools to help you engage your community. When people watch the DVD in your home or church, ask them to sign the Manhattan Declaration. We will follow up and get them involved. This is the way movements are fueled. If you show the video to ten people and equip them to defend these issues, they in turn can take your DVD or purchase another one and show it to their friends. Groups of ten can very rapidly multiply and impact the whole country. We are never going to be able to get a fair shake in the national media. Politicians are dodging the issue. We can win this fight, but we have to create strong public pressure. Now that people are beginning to understand this is a fight for religious liberty, the polls are turning our way. So we need you to be more than a name on a petition; we need you to be an activist, an ambassador. Please sign up. It is vital we defend religious freedom—along with the sanctity of life and traditional marriage. These three foundational principles are the foundations of a healthy society, and of the freedoms we enjoy. Please reply today. Register at www.breakingthespiralofsilence.com. Yours in His Service, Charles W. Colson The Manhattan Declaration is a non-partisan statement of conscience in defense of human life, traditional marriage and religious freedom.

Reconciliation

25 MARCH 2012. Today's celebration of the fifth Sunday of Lent provides us an opportunity to experience a glimpse into the the humanity of Christ in the same way that we often suffer--He was troubled--and in a number of ways provides an opportunity to consider the gift of the sacrament of reconciliation.

In today's Gospel reading from the Gospel of Saint John, we hear that Jesus is "troubled" because He knows the time for His passion and death is at hand, so that He may rise from the dead, but His human self--as we all do--wants to avoid pain and hurt. Listen to Christ's words from the mass today:

Some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover Feast
came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,
and asked him, "Sir, we would like to see Jesus."
Philip went and told Andrew;
then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
Jesus answered them,
"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world
will preserve it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me,
and where I am, there also will my servant be.
The Father will honor whoever serves me.

"I am troubled now. Yet what should I say?
'Father, save me from this hour?'
But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.
Father, glorify your name."
Then a voice came from heaven,
"I have glorified it and will glorify it again."
The crowd there heard it and said it was thunder;
but others said, "An angel has spoken to him."
Jesus answered and said,
"This voice did not come for my sake but for yours.
Now is the time of judgment on this world;
now the ruler of this world will be driven out.
And when I am lifted up from the earth,
I will draw everyone to myself."
He said this indicating the kind of death he would die.

Jn 12:20-33 (NABRE). No less human than any of us are, but unlike us in every way: fully divine, Jesus knows that He has been sent to reconcile humanity to the Father and save us from sin. And, He knows that to do this He must suffer and die so that He may rise again.

Today we see that Christ is troubled. His humanity tells Him to run from the hurt and pain that lies ahead in His passion. But, being God and, thus, united with the Divine Will by His nature, He is perfectly obedient to the Father and submits Himself to the suffering of the passion and crucifixion.

Our reconciliation to the Father, has been bought for us by the most precious blood of our Lord spilled on the cross. How can we any less seek to reconcile ourselves in our every moment to Christ and His bride the Church?

We sin. This is certainly because we are human.

But, our humanity is not merely of a fallen nature--our humanity has been given to us in the image and likeness of God the Creator. In each of us we are united with the Divine, being created in His image, and in possessing an everlasting soul. This soul is the most precious part of each of us. It shares in the very nature of the Divine, being itself eternal. But, our humanity, imperfect as it is, requires reconciliation because we suffer from sin.

It is this sin that drew Christ to us. Consider the Last Supper. As Christ feels the anxiety of all that is about to come to pass, and as he knows that His Disciples are about to desert Him, deny Him, and betray Him, He still "yearns" to share that meal with them. Not in spite of their sin, but because of their sin. He seeks to reconcile them to Himself and reconcile all humanity, even as He is troubled in all that is about to come to pass.

What a wonderful love that Christ has! What a wonderful gift that the Church has given us, through the grace of God, to also be reconciled in our time today through the sacrament of reconciliation. As each of us attends faithfully to confession, we are absolved of our sin by Jesus Himself, in the person of the priest, and forgiven by the community of believers. How necessary. How beautiful.

Today, 25 March, is also the commemoration of the St. Dismas, the repentant thief crucified with our Lord. If only we could hear those words that Christ spoke to St. Dimas from the cross: "[T]oday you will be with me in Paradise." (Lk 23:43)

But, we do have the opportunity this day to reconcile ourselves and hear the words of Christ spoken to us in the person of a priest: "I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." How necessary. How beautiful.