"Where there is no vision, the people perish." (Proverbs 29:18).
"The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require, particularly today, that economic choices do not cause disparities in wealth to increase in an excessive and morally unacceptable manner, and that we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone. All things considered, this is also required by 'economic logic'. Through the systemic increase of social inequality, both within a single country and between the populations of different countries (i.e. the massive increase in relative poverty), not only does social cohesion suffer, thereby placing democracy at risk, but so too does the economy, through the progressive erosion of 'social capital': the network of relationships of trust, dependability, and respect for rules, all of which are indispensable for any form of civil coexistence." (Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in veritate, No. 32).
President Obama is not up to the task of authentic leadership. The foolish man cannot lead because he relies on his own intelligence. Our Lord told St. Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church, that "You cannot imagine how foolish people are. They have no sense of discernment, having lost it by hoping in themselves and putting their trust in their own knowledge. O stupid people, do you not see that you are not the source of your own knowledge? It is my goodness, providing for your needs, that has given it to you."
Our Lord has told us that we can do nothing without Him. President Obama has not believed this. And we've all witnessed the fruits. He has turned his back on Almighty God and His Commandments, promoting abortion and homosexuality, evils which threaten to undermine society. Several years ago, President Obama said that President Lincoln possessed a wisdom and humility in his approach to government. And I couldn't agree more. Let's listen then to what he had to say on March 30, 1863, when he issued a historic Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day:
"...it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord: And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.."All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessing no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace..."
While you're relaxing on yet another vacation Mr. President, why not prayerfully meditate on these words?
We are reaping the fruit of unrighteousness as a nation now. We removed God from education and the public square. But St. Gregory of Nyssa said that, "Truly barren is profane education which is alway in labor but never gives birth. For what fruit worthy of such pangs does philosophy show for being so long in labor? Do not all who are full of wind and never come to term miscarry before they come into the light of the knowledge of God? They could as well become men if they were not altogether hidden in the womb of barren wisdom."
ReplyDeleteThis is a point lost on our foolish generation.