Hi J of H friends, I hope that everyone is getting ready for a fun filled 150th Canada Day Birthday long weekend. I am sitting at the cottage staring out at the lake with rain pouring down and I thought it was a perfect time to step back and write to you all. I’ve been thinking and praying for you all lately and I have come across a lot of great material to share with everyone. Great talks I’ve listened to, passages from wonderful books I’ve recently read. I apologize in advance for this lengthy note to you all today. Today, I want to share with you a very interesting and powerful talk that I heard from author Scott Hahn, an internationally known Catholic theologian and author. His talk is on The Apostles Creed. He spoke about being at a Catholic conference and listening to pastor Rick Warren speak to the Catholic audience. Rick Warren is the author of the book I recommended you all read called “The Purpose Driven Life”. This book has sold over 10 million copies. Now before I tell you what Rick Warren said at this conference, I just want to tell you that what I send you all are just ideas and “food for thought”. I am not expressing my opinions here, but we all know it is always healthy to step back and reflect from time to time on the world we live in and how we want to form our own world views. I do have some followers on this page who have not been in my classes. So just take this all as stepping back from the culture and perhaps seeing the world from Catholic/Christian eyes for a moment. You may or may not agree with all or any of this, and that’s your call totally everyone. Scott Hahn said that when Rick Warren got up to speak he told the Catholics that what all Christians and the whole world needed was to get to know our Lord personally. He spoke about the Creed, he spoke about prayer, he spoke about the Our Father and he recognized how dire the need is for our culture today to have the Lord in our lives. Then he went on a litany on why we need God in our lives today. He said: “In today’s society, materialism is so idolized, immorality is glamourized, truth is minimized, sin is normalized, divorce is rationalized and abortion is legalized. On the internet and TV and in movies, crime is legitimized, drug use is minimized, comedy is vulgarized and sex is trivialized. Meanwhile, the bible is fictionalized, churches are satirized, God is marginalized and Christians are demoralized. The elderly are de-humanized, the sick are euthanized, the poor are victimized, the mentally ill are ostracized, and our children are tranquillized. Even in our families, our members are uncivilized, our speech is vulgarized, faith is secularized and everything is commercialized. Too often he said as Christians we are disorganized, our pastors are demoralized, our faith compartmentalized and so our witness is compromised. What do we need? Rick Warren says we need our worship to be re-vitalized, our differences to be minimized, our members to be mobilized, our marriages to be re-energized, the lost to be evangelized and and everyone to be re-evangelized.” And when Scott Hahn heard this litany, as well as myself, we were both mesmerized ! “Here it is,” says Scott Hahn, “a challenge to us as Catholic Christians. And also an expression of gratitude, for the Church and our tradition. The Creed, the liturgy, all of these things,” Scott Hahn is convinced, “that it can do today, what it did back then, in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries.” I do think that this litany from pastor Rick Warren may be a little harsh on our culture today, as there are definitely wonderful testimonies out there of the Lord’s goodness in the culture today, but it is definitely food for thought. Have a wonderful long weekend everyone. Happy 150th Birthday Canada. Bye for now, MJ.
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