Holy Spirit Parish

Dear Holy Spirit Parish:

            “What God has joined, let no man separate.”

                                                                                                            (Mark 10:9)

The divorce rate among men and women is frightenly high at around 50%. But there are other divorce rates even higher.  The divorce rates between the rich and the poor, advanced nations and developing nations, between humankind and the rest of creation seem nearly 100%.  Could we not say of these other divorces: “What God has joined let no man separate?”

In this week’s article on Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship the US Bishops address the second core principle in Catholic Social Teaching:  The Common Good. They define the Common Good as “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.”

After emphasizing last week that everyone has a right to life and freedom, they go on this week to say that people also have duties and responsibilities to one another and to the earth.  Divorce quickly happens when a person focuses on their rights and ignores their duties and responsibilities.  I quote again a couple of my favorite paragraphs of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: #1936-1937:

On coming into the world, man is not equipped with everything he needs for developing his bodily and spiritual life.  He needs others.  Differences appear tied to age, physical abilities, intellectual or moral aptitudes, the benefits derived from social commerce, and the distribution of wealth.   The “talents” are not distributed equally.

These differences belong to God’s plan, who wills that each receive what he needs from others, and that those endowed with particular “talents” share the benefits with those who need them.  The differences encourage and often oblige persons to practice generosity, kindness, and sharing of goods..

Or in a few words, we have the duty and responsibility to help each other find the fulness of life.   This “obligation to practice generosity” is our invitation to experience the life of God:  generous, life giving, love.

Of the divorce between rich and poor the Bishop’s write: “We must place at the center of all political, social and economic activity the human person, who enjoys the highest dignity, and respect for the common good.”   Or said again, morally there is a “preferential option for the poor.”  We must measure our economic policies and elect our public officials by the impact they have on the poor.  In protecting religious freedom, they are saying my right to believe what I choose to, cannot be divorced from my duty to respect the right of others to do the same.  And our right to private property cannot be divorced from our duty to uphold the rights of future generations to do the same by protecting the earth.

Next weekend Fr. Joe Hirsch, the pastor of Casa Hogar Orphanage in Lima Peru, a mission of our Diocese, will be inviting us to experience God’s generous, merciful, redemptive way of life even more fully.  He comes to heal a divorce.

Fr. Steve

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