“Leaving aside windy expositions on his behalf of some grand, post-liberal vision for a “virtuous” administrative state (spare me, please), the key quote of Vance’s that sticks in my mind is this: “I think our people hate the right people.”
Nothing constructive comes from hate. And nothing good is communicated through hate.
“Leaving aside windy expositions on his behalf of some grand, post-liberal vision for a “virtuous” administrative state (spare me, please), the key quote of Vance’s that sticks in my mind is this: “I think our people hate the right people.”
Nothing constructive comes from hate. And nothing good is communicated through hate.
A house divided, Lincoln quoted Christ saying, cannot stand. And Lincoln’s time in office was wholly consumed with a bloody war in which half the country elected to fight for the right to enslave their neighbors. It ended with a bullet in his head from a man who hated Lincoln for ending it.
Fast forward to today, what matters more than one man’s attempt on the life of a candidate is the context: an America in which people seem broadly resolved to hate their neighbors.
Until that changes, violence will find its inevitable place.”
Well-stated, Ed. We should pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Rosary for peace and reconciliation in our country and lead by example by loving our neighbors and all we encounter simply for who they are: our brothers and sisters in Christ. It was the love that our forefathers in faith had for each other that drew people to convert to Catholicism. We need to recapture that and radiate Jesus’ love to everyone God sends into our life each day. If we do that well, and Carlo Acutis and Mother Teresa offer two examples of how to do that well, we’ll both renew the Church and bring about peace and reconciliation in a world that is in desperate need of it.
There are so many people starved for love here in the USA, especially young men that seem lost and don’t have any sense of identity or belonging. We need to show them a better way to live by radiating Christ’s love to them.
Time, talent, and treasure. Divine mercy chapters and rosaries only require our time and personal piety. All too often, personal piety is still accompanied by “pick yourself up by the bootstraps”.
Many are PHYSICALLY hungry - not knowing from where their next meal will come. That renders their spiritual hunger quite moot.
Everyone points the finger at the (not usually accurate and root) causes of the fentanyl scourge. But feeding and sponsoring addicts in recovery - whether alcohol, narcotics, gambling or any other addiction - IS WHAT JESUS WOULD DO LIVING IN THE MARGINS. Sure he isolated and prayed to his Heavenly Father, but he did not have a rosary or pamphlet of the Divine Mercy Chaplet.
Oversimplifying what Ed said, we wear our Sunday best not in the margins and we hear the gospel. But do we live it as missionary disciples of the Lord Jesus? There is far more opportunity than just spending time in prayer and personal piety, praying that SOMEONE ELSE WILL BE THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
I agree with what you say. We need BOTH the actives and the contemplatives, and I wasn’t implying that we only need the contemplatives.
But there are also many who have all their material and physical needs met who are starved of real friendship and whose lives feel empty and meaningless. In my line of work, I encounter people like that all the time. All I’m saying is that there are people like that out there too: and they tend to drown the emptiness they feel in their lives through workaholism, heavy drinking, pornography, sleeping around, stuff like that.
It’s not just the physically poor who need our love, that’s all I’m saying.
And actually, I sponsor a little boy in Colombia through a Catholic ministry called Unbound so that he can go to school, and I am able to be pen pals with him and his family too as part of that. 🙂
> But do we live it as missionary disciples of the Lord Jesus?
While I had hoped to go to JesusCon in Indy with my daughter, I instead was sent to "my people" (whose conversion I desire: the St Paul the Apostle sense of one's people, except that mine are apparently "cosplayers") to pray the rosary in line at Tekko. As we were walking to the convention center in town a woman wearing a miraculous medal stopped us and we gave her money with which she was going to buy tacos (it was a street corner by a taqueria) and I hope they were good ones. But the rest of my time was indeed spent in prayer (the line was most of the way around the building, but it was mostly in shade and not too hot. Then we went in and went around the flea market long enough for another rosary or two.) So there are margins and margins... go where you are sent and do whatever is in front of you. I like giving people money for tacos because I understand that someone will be fed for a day. I do not know what good it does to pray a rosary for conversions and so when there is an opportunity to do something with concrete and immediate consequences, I don't want to underrate the vital importance of corporal works of mercy (without these, perhaps charity is dead in our hearts) but I also think in part I am being thrown a "look, just trust me" bone.
“Leaving aside windy expositions on his behalf of some grand, post-liberal vision for a “virtuous” administrative state (spare me, please), the key quote of Vance’s that sticks in my mind is this: “I think our people hate the right people.”
Nothing constructive comes from hate. And nothing good is communicated through hate.
A house divided, Lincoln quoted Christ saying, cannot stand. And Lincoln’s time in office was wholly consumed with a bloody war in which half the country elected to fight for the right to enslave their neighbors. It ended with a bullet in his head from a man who hated Lincoln for ending it.
Fast forward to today, what matters more than one man’s attempt on the life of a candidate is the context: an America in which people seem broadly resolved to hate their neighbors.
Until that changes, violence will find its inevitable place.”
Well-stated, Ed. We should pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Rosary for peace and reconciliation in our country and lead by example by loving our neighbors and all we encounter simply for who they are: our brothers and sisters in Christ. It was the love that our forefathers in faith had for each other that drew people to convert to Catholicism. We need to recapture that and radiate Jesus’ love to everyone God sends into our life each day. If we do that well, and Carlo Acutis and Mother Teresa offer two examples of how to do that well, we’ll both renew the Church and bring about peace and reconciliation in a world that is in desperate need of it.
There are so many people starved for love here in the USA, especially young men that seem lost and don’t have any sense of identity or belonging. We need to show them a better way to live by radiating Christ’s love to them.
Time, talent, and treasure. Divine mercy chapters and rosaries only require our time and personal piety. All too often, personal piety is still accompanied by “pick yourself up by the bootstraps”.
Many are PHYSICALLY hungry - not knowing from where their next meal will come. That renders their spiritual hunger quite moot.
Everyone points the finger at the (not usually accurate and root) causes of the fentanyl scourge. But feeding and sponsoring addicts in recovery - whether alcohol, narcotics, gambling or any other addiction - IS WHAT JESUS WOULD DO LIVING IN THE MARGINS. Sure he isolated and prayed to his Heavenly Father, but he did not have a rosary or pamphlet of the Divine Mercy Chaplet.
Oversimplifying what Ed said, we wear our Sunday best not in the margins and we hear the gospel. But do we live it as missionary disciples of the Lord Jesus? There is far more opportunity than just spending time in prayer and personal piety, praying that SOMEONE ELSE WILL BE THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
I agree with what you say. We need BOTH the actives and the contemplatives, and I wasn’t implying that we only need the contemplatives.
But there are also many who have all their material and physical needs met who are starved of real friendship and whose lives feel empty and meaningless. In my line of work, I encounter people like that all the time. All I’m saying is that there are people like that out there too: and they tend to drown the emptiness they feel in their lives through workaholism, heavy drinking, pornography, sleeping around, stuff like that.
It’s not just the physically poor who need our love, that’s all I’m saying.
And actually, I sponsor a little boy in Colombia through a Catholic ministry called Unbound so that he can go to school, and I am able to be pen pals with him and his family too as part of that. 🙂
I love Unbound!
> But do we live it as missionary disciples of the Lord Jesus?
While I had hoped to go to JesusCon in Indy with my daughter, I instead was sent to "my people" (whose conversion I desire: the St Paul the Apostle sense of one's people, except that mine are apparently "cosplayers") to pray the rosary in line at Tekko. As we were walking to the convention center in town a woman wearing a miraculous medal stopped us and we gave her money with which she was going to buy tacos (it was a street corner by a taqueria) and I hope they were good ones. But the rest of my time was indeed spent in prayer (the line was most of the way around the building, but it was mostly in shade and not too hot. Then we went in and went around the flea market long enough for another rosary or two.) So there are margins and margins... go where you are sent and do whatever is in front of you. I like giving people money for tacos because I understand that someone will be fed for a day. I do not know what good it does to pray a rosary for conversions and so when there is an opportunity to do something with concrete and immediate consequences, I don't want to underrate the vital importance of corporal works of mercy (without these, perhaps charity is dead in our hearts) but I also think in part I am being thrown a "look, just trust me" bone.