Original Unity

September 10, 2024

Hi!  How is each and every one? Last Sunday, September 8, was Mama Mary’s birthday.  How did you celebrate her birthday?  A group of friends went on an excursion to Liliw, Laguna, another group went for a pilgrimage to Our Lady in a newly constructed Church along Calamba, Quezon City, another one went to a farm in Morong, Rizal and after lunch prayed with the staff the Rosary to Our Lady and another group of young students prepared food boxes for the poor families in Sampaloc, Manila area. Doubtless, Our Lady must be happy and smiling at these daughters of hers who in any way they can show her the love and affection that is due her.

 I found another article on the virtue of justice in opusdei.org.  It is a question and answer format that is very enlightening; it certainly answers questions in our mind and gives us suggestions on how to practice the virtue in carrying out our daily life’s duties and activities especially in our daily work and relationships.

Let us now continue with the chapter we started on our divine longing for justice  (From Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 6).

The Root of Our Longing

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us that those who hunger and thirst for justice will be blessed (Mt 5:6).  “Justice” refers to the work of making things as they should be, as God intends them to be, in our lives, our relationships, and the world at large. 

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor.  Justice toward God is called the “virtue of religion.”  Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good (CCC, no. 1807).

In short, justice is the right order that exists between people and the world when everything and everyone is given their due and behaves as they ought.  Like all the divine longings, our divine longing for justice—the foundation for our natural expectation that everything should work infinitely better than it does—was given to us at the dawn of creation. 

Recall that Original Unity is the state of being that existed between God and Adam and Eve before the Fall.  In that time, St. John Paul the Great reminds us (with apologies to Douglas Adams), life, the universe, and everything were in perfect order.  There was complete harmony between God and his creation.  Life was just.

After the Fall, things became decidedly unjust.  Righteousness was disrupted.  Nature was unhooked from grace.  Men and women were at odds (Gn 3:12-14).  People turned radically against each other (Gn 4:8).  Nation turned against nation (Gn 11:1-10).  Even the earth fought our efforts to till the soil (see Gn 3:17).

But despite the fact that we have grown used to everything rebelling against us, somewhere deep inside we remember that we once had more.  We once had order.  We once had peace.  We once had justice. Despite knowing that everything is hopelessly out of whack, we long for the return to the harmony that existed when God, humankind, and the world were at peace with one another.

Are you following the visit of the Holy Father in Asia, Indonesia, Papua, New Guinea, and East Timor as of today? Amazing how the crowd rejuvenates the Holy Father. Meanwhile, in Ecuador the 53^rd International Eucharistic Congress begins. Isn’t that wonderful? So many good things are happening and surely we can drown evil by an abundance of good.  

Let us challenge ourselves by making it a daily resolution to sow good inside ourselves and outside.  Let love for God, for others and for ourselves for love of God enable us every hour of the day to desire the good, to think of what good we could do and to do each and every good thing we could during the day with the right intention. It is just and right to offer to God many things that happen during the day. Things that make us happy, thank you Lord.  Things that go against our liking, thank you Lord; things annoying, disturbing, unpleasant, uncomfortable due to differences in upbringing, education, manners, attitudes, behavior, actuations, etc. Talk to Our Lord and our Lady about them and tell them you want to accept everything freely, totally, faithfully and fruitfully. You will see how at the end of the day, everything works for the good for you.

At this point I am inspired to share with you the Oratio Imperata for Peace

Oratio imperata for Peace (Prayer for Peace) 

God our Heavenly Father, Lord of peace and justice, we humbly come before you during this time of escalating geopolitical tensions in our part of the world.

Through the years you have sustained our faith in you as a nation. It is our faith in Your Divine providence that has made us survive the countless natural and human-caused calamities that have come our way in our history as a people. Spare us, Lord, from the horrors of war. Hear our pleas as we cry out to You. Have mercy on us, Lord; rescue us from the malevolent forces that influence world leaders. For we believe, that “…our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12).

We pray for our leaders entrusted with making crucial decisions for our nation. We place all our hopes in You, seeking Your forgiveness and mercy for the times when our fears and suspicions have tainted our perceptions with ethnic biases and prejudices verging on raicism. 

We earnestly pray Lord, that you “make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred let us bring love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy.”

Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. AMEN.

Our Lady, Queen of peace, pray for us.

St. Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

St. Lorenzo Ruiz, pray for us.

St. Pedro Calungsod, pray for us.

(Diocesan patron)…, pray for us.

Suggested time of prayer is right after receiving communion or after Mass. Otherwise, any time during the day.  

See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,                    

Guadalupinky