Friday, June 25, 2021

2 Chronicles, Chapter 19, Verse 5-7

⁵ He appointed judges in the land, in all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city, ⁶ and he said to them: “Take care what you do, for the judgment you give is not human but divine; for when it comes to judgment God will be with you.⁷and now, let the FEAR of the Lord be upon you. Act carefully, for with the Lord, our God, there is no injustice, no partiality, no bribe-taking.”

This was what Jehoshaphat said to the judges that he was appointing. Reform always includes justice. The Holy Spirit calls us to be just and merciful to human needs. Today pray for those who are in need and may not ask for help. Today, look for and act to address the real needs of all humans.

Hierarchy of Needs^{^[1]}

A team of researchers at Arizona State University, led by evolutionary psychologist Douglas Kenrick, has noticed that most people really like being parents. Despite the challenges of child-rearing, Kenrick reported that the warmth, the love, the creativity, the sense of purpose and belonging—all of these factors and more make parenting the most enjoyable of all activities. Kenrick’s team reported this breaking news, which is just a ho-hum factoid to loving parents, in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. Kenrick and his group proposed a revision to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which takes into account our deepest biological drives. In the new Need Hierarchy, Maslow’s fifth tier need Self-Actualization has been supplanted at the top by a motivation which Maslow hadn’t even mentioned: Parenting.

What Is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs….and Do I Need It?

In my undergraduate days at the University of Michigan, the darling of the Psych Department was Abraham Maslow. A psychologist and motivational researcher, Maslow believed that humans’ most basic needs are inborn; and he developed his acclaimed Hierarchy of Needs in the 1950s to explain how these needs motivate us all. According to Maslow, our most basic needs for survival (food, water and shelter) must be satisfied before we can turn our attention to higher-level needs such as influence and personal development. If there is a threat to our lower-level needs (a house fire, for example, or job loss or nationwide famine), we will no longer be concerned about higher-level needs but will instead focus on rebuilding the base of security that we require.

Maslow’s five-tier Needs Hierarchy ranked the categories of needs, bottom to top, as follows:

· Biological and Physiological needs – air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.

· Safety needs – protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.

· Belongingness and Love needs – work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.

· Esteem needs – self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.

· Self-Actualization needs – realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

In the 1970s, behavioral scientists slipped in two additional categories after Esteem needs:

· Cognitive needs (knowledge and meaning), and

· Aesthetic needs (appreciation and search for beauty, form).

And in the 1990s, scientists took one more step toward a benevolent view of Need Hierarchy by topping Self-Actualization with an even higher need, the need for Transcendence. Once an individual achieved personal potential (Self-Actualization), scientists claimed, he or she would then seek Transcendence by helping another to achieve Self-Actualization—for example, through volunteer work in a disadvantaged community. What has emerged now, though—based on research studies conducted in 2010—is a new understanding that devoted parents find the deepest satisfaction in shaping the hearts and souls of the children who have been entrusted to their care. While non-parenting adults may expect the rigors of child-rearing to be an impediment to happiness, the opposite is true: Those who have actually experienced the joy of giving selflessly to a helpless infant achieve a level of wellbeing that is unmatched in human experience. Those who patiently teach a toddler to tie her shoes, or help a middle schooler to make friends in the classroom, report greater satisfaction than do those whose focus is personal fulfillment through career, marriage or other adult relationship. Next in the pyramid, according to Kenrick and team, is Mate Retention– a marriage which lasts– and before that comes Mate Attraction (finding that special person). It would appear that all of our deepest longings derive from the complex biological urge to reproduce.

St. William of Monte Virgine, Abbot[2]

William was born in Vercelli, Italy, in 1085. His parents died when he was a baby. Relatives raised him. When William grew up, he became a hermit. He worked a miracle, curing a blind man, and found himself famous. William was too humble to be happy with the people’s admiration. He really wanted to remain a hermit so that he could concentrate on God. He went away to live alone on a high, wild mountain. No one would bother him now. But even there he was not to remain alone. Men gathered around the saint, and they built a monastery dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. Because of William’s monastery, people gave the mountain a new name. They called it the Mountain of the Virgin.

Things to Do:

· William's pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James the Apostle in Spain was the turning point of his life. Is it not easily possible for you to make a pilgrimage to some holy place in your neighborhood now during the summertime? First of all, however, are you familiar with the relics in your own parish church? Remember that any visit to a church is a pilgrimage to the grave of a saint!

· Read more about the life of St. William here and the monastery he founded, Monte Vergine.

Today is my Stepson Ryan Patrick’s birthday. He was a US Paratrooper who suffered knee problems as a result of his service and now serves as a critical care nurse continuing to serve. It is my hope someday to be able to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James, like St. William, with Ryan. I ask your prayers.

Daily Devotions

· I will not delude you with prospects of peace and consolations; on the contrary, prepare for great battles. Be vigilant.

· Offering to the sacred heart of Jesus

· Drops of Christ’s Blood

· Iceman’s 40 devotion

· Universal Man Plan

· Operation Purity

· Rosary