natl marriage week-LINCOLN BIRTHDAY-Darwin
Sirach, Chapter 17, Verse 4
He put fear of them in all flesh, and gave them dominion over beasts and birds.
God has made us greater than the animals and lesser than the angels. Yet, God in his majesty gave us the power to co-create with Him the human race. Children are a gift they are to not to fear their parents like the animals do but children are to have holy fear of their parents which is to give them love and honor. Indeed, the family is a physical representation of the Holy Trinity. It is interesting to note that God started the human race through a family (Adam and Eve) and Christ’s first miracle was at the wedding in Cana which is traditionally the Gospel for the second Sunday in ordinary time or the second Sunday after Epiphany.
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” (Jn. 2:1-3)
Families are an essential part of God’s will for all of creation.
For as a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; And as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you. (Is. 62:5)
Here is a virtual Marriage Retreat. Join us by taking a few moments each day, together with your spouse, to reflect and pray. This retreat will help you further reflect on what makes marriage unique as established by God, between a man and woman, as the basis for family and society. For more instruction or inspiration, visit foryourmarriage.org or marriageuniqueforareason.org.
· Plan to do the retreats weekly; perhaps on the day of the week you were married.
· Enjoy a good home cooked meal together after your retreat; use a recipe for the saint of the day. Available at Catholicculture.org. Say Grace together and ask to the saint of the day’s intervention.
Lincoln's Birthday (1809) celebrates the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, one of the most popular presidents in United States history. It is a state holiday in some states on or around February 12. It's also known as Abraham Lincoln's Birthday, Abraham Lincoln Day or Lincoln Day.
“Character is Destiny” [3] is a book written by John McCain in it he highlights the 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, of the United States as an example of a man who demonstrates for us the characteristic of RESILIENCE. Resilience is the ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens.
Abraham Lincoln had known loss and grief all his life yet rather that than succumb to defeat; he somehow, always found a way to rise back up. He was inarguably a man of action. Although he was known to have chronic depression he never yielded and, in some way, resurrected from his melancholic states thinking, “To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better.” Lincoln rose to the highest office in the land after surviving a hard and poor childhood in the Indiana wilderness, a harsh father, little education, and deep loneliness. He survived the death of his brother, a sister, his mother, his first sweetheart, and his own children and his marriage to Mary Todd was troubled. As president he was considered dismal by most. How did Lincoln persist? He willed it. He was neither swift nor brilliant at work, but he was exhaustive; he continued. His resilience sprang from his deep conviction that America was, “the last, best hope of earth.” In the end he paid for his devotion with his life; so that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Evolution and the Catholic Church[5]
Early contributions to biology were made by Catholic scientists such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the Augustinian friar Gregor Mendel. Since the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859, the attitude of the Catholic Church on the theory of evolution has slowly been refined. For nearly a century, the papacy offered no authoritative pronouncement on Darwin's theories. In the 1950 encyclical Humani generis, Pope Pius XII confirmed that there is no intrinsic conflict between Christianity and the theory of evolution, provided that Christians believe that God created all things and that the individual soul is a direct creation by God and not the product of purely material forces. Today, the Church supports theistic evolution(ism), also known as evolutionary creation, although Catholics are free not to believe in any part of evolutionary theory.
The Catholic Church holds no official position on the theory of creation or evolution, leaving the specifics of either theistic evolution or literal creationism to the individual within certain parameters established by the Church. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, any believer may accept either literal or special creation within the period of an actual six-day, twenty-four-hour period, or they may accept the belief that the earth evolved over time under the guidance of God. Catholicism holds that God initiated and continued the process of his evolutionary creation and that all humans, whether specially created or evolved, have and have always had specially created souls for each individual.
Catholic schools in the United States and other countries teach evolution as part of their science curriculum. They teach the fact that evolution occurs and the modern evolutionary synthesis, which is the scientific theory that explains how evolution proceeds.
Character is Destiny[6]
John McCain pointed out in his book entitled, “Character is Destiny” that an understanding heart must be generous (Oseola McCarty), forgiving (Nelson Mandela), tolerant (Four Chaplains), full of mercy (Mother Antonia), faithful (Christian Guard at Hua Lo prison) and compassionate (Maximilian Kolbe). John now suggests for us that adding to our understanding heart we must strive to have a creative mind. A creative mind must be built on a thirst or curiosity in the mysteries of creation. John points out as an example of curiosity the renowned Charles Darwin.
McCain says of Darwin:
His curiosity and courage helped him to discover the history of nature, and start an argument that has continued for 150 years. A curious thing about the father of the theory of evolution is that he himself was an avowed agnostic, keeping to his scientific methods. The evolution of all life on earth, including man, was and still is, in some quarters, considered an affront to the belief that the progress of the human race over time bears the unmistakable sign of the divine spark in our nature. But why can we not be content in our faith with the understanding that God’s divine intelligence, which exists beyond time and space, and has left us to choose by the exercise of our free will whether to accept His grace or reject it, could have left nature to work its physical changes upon us? We have a second nature, a moral nature, that is not determined by ecological change but by the workings of our conscience. Is not our conscience and its effect upon our will enough confirmation for the believer that God, the Creator, has endowed us with the divine spark of His love to improve, if we so choose, our second nature in service to Him? It is enough, I believe, for anyone who can see in our struggle to be good a divine purpose, as we may still glimpse in the wonders of nature the divine intelligence that created it and set it all in motion. To believe and follow God is our choice. Not all will follow. Our principal belief is in our salvation not in this life but the next. Man, and nature, even at their cruelest, cannot deny us that, nor the gloriousness of His creation, a gloriousness that human qualities like curiosity have led us to appreciate with humility and awe. Time and the laws of nature do not expose the absence of God, Whose proofs are a matter for the heart to contemplate, a matter of faith.
Who in the Church Should Participate in Political Life?
Laymen should also know that it is generally the function of their well-formed Christian conscience to see that the divine law is inscribed in the life of the earthly city; from priests they may look for spiritual light and nourishment. . . . Since they have an active role to play in the whole life of the Church, laymen are not only bound to penetrate the world with a Christian spirit, but are also called to be witnesses to Christ in all things in the midst of human society.
Bishops, to whom is assigned the task of ruling the Church of God, should, together with their priests, so preach the news of Christ that all the earthly activities of the faithful will be bathed in the light of the Gospel. All pastors should remember too that by their daily conduct and concern they are revealing the face of the Church to the world, and men will judge the power and truth of the Christian message thereby.
(Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, no. 43)
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