Dear Parishioners,

Our faith teaches that when God chose to be born of the Virgin Mary, the physical Incarnation event changed and uplifted our human nature forever. Jesus from the beginning of his life took to himself everything we experience about being

human. This means that Jesus experienced and felt all the emotions and desires, except sin, that you and I experience. The other side is that we are able to love and experience on a higher human level than those who lived before the Incarnation.

Sadly, society is choosing to no longer follow the teachings of Christ. We have seen before in history what happens when modern, educated societies begin to turn inwardly, thinking only of themselves, excluding all those who do not think the same, or those who look different, or pray differently. Within just two decades Germany, which was an enlightened,

technological country of the time, turned to an individual who became their messiah and promised the people the world.

Our country has been given so much by God, which also means we have a God-given duty to look out for others. If we want our country to go back into isolation of the early 1900s, the world will be a much more dangerous and evil place.

Our own country will no longer be a beacon of God’s love to the world.

Today in our country, on the streets of our own city, we see people speeding and driving recklessly with little regard for others. Almost weekly there is some type of shooting in our country because someone does not agree with the religious

practices or with the politics of a particular individual.

Prayer, whether in schools, government meetings, even in churches, means nothing if we do not practice the love and

mercy that Jesus teaches. St. Paul, in his letters to the Christian communities he founded, constantly wrote about caring

for others. In Luke’s Gospel on this past Thursday, Jesus presented the principles of Godly conduct: mercy and

forgiveness, unconditional giving, and to avoid judgment and condemnation.