As members of the Body of Christ we are united with every other Catholic throughout the world. Catholics number 1.390 Billion people or 17.7 % of the world’s population. A total of 2.4 billion people (including Catholics) out of 8.2 billion people are Christian. That means of course that 5.8 billion people, for one reason or another, have not explicitly embraced Christ.
In his September 26th column in the Catholic Sun, Bishop Lucia calls our attention to reflect on the Church’s Social Teaching - which the Church has been building upon for generations. As we begin Respect Life Month, it is important that we know the Catholic Church’s consistent ethic of life. I encourage you to read the Bishop’s entire column which can be found on the Syracuse Diocese website: “To hope and Act with Creation” What follows is his summary of Church teaching on the consistent ethic of life.
“Take a deep breath… now do a real one.” This is the advice from a bride’s little sister when I asked her and members of the wedding party “Do you have any advice for the bride and groom?” This past weekend, I celebrated my sixth of eight weddings this wedding season. And the line “Take a deep breath… now do a real one” was advice I took before writing this bulletin article.
After teaching high school for six years and working in higher education for almost 25 years, late summer and early autumn seem to draw my attention to new beginnings: the beginning of school, the beginning of college football, nature’s display of her most beautiful array of color. From one day to the next, this time is filled with the excitement of new life experiences and the bright promise of special things to come.
After a long week of work, we may not feel that human labor is a gift from God, but it is important to recall that indeed it is a divine gift. In the beginning, human labor was created by God for us who were created in His image and likeness. In the midst of the work of creation by the hand of God, humanity was called to take responsibility for all of creation:
declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. However, this title honoring Mary as Queen appears in the writings of the early Church Fathers and we reflect on this title when praying both the fifteenth decade of the
