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The call to conversion which sounded strongly at the start of
Lent is again heard today: "Come back to Yahweh, your God". In
the name of God, Hosea shouts, at the end of his book, this
consoling invitation to come back to God, the only source of
happiness. Israel has been unfaithful, insincere, rebellious, but
it is again invited through the prophet to come back to the
covenant with its God. Conversion is the work of the gratuitous
love of God because God loves, is compassionate. Words to be
carefully meditated on. In the Gospel, Jesus recalls, with the words of Deuteronomy, that the first commandment is the total and unconditional love of God. Quoting Leviticus Jesus adds that the second commandment of loving the neighbour is as important as the first one. For the Lord Jesus the fundamental commandment is to love God which is concretized in loving our neighbour. Here is the "true religion", the true worship of the Father, the true conversion. Lord, help me to love You with all my heart and my neighbour as myself and live this as something far more important than any sacrifice. |
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P R A Y I N G W I T H T H E C H U R C H
| INTENTION : |
That, with the committed help of all believers, the
scourge of poverty may come to an end, eliminating the
intolerable social and economic inequality in the world
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One might also say that poverty is the negation of economic and
social rights and that the poor who suffer from absolute poverty
are denied the most fundamental right which is the right to life.
The international community too is becoming progressively more
aware of the gravity of the problem and has declared solemnly to
fight and reduce extreme poverty by 2015. Besides, how can we not
realise the situation growing worse in spite of the increase in
available resources. The problem of unequal distribution of resources in its correct setting is an ethical one, since it is a problem of justice: the poor are in the first place victims of injustice. In the era of globalisation we can no longer tolerate a world in which the very rich live side by side with the poor, the property less who lack even the essentials with people who shamelessly waste what others desterately need. One of the more evident worrying consequences of this phenomenon is in fact the progressive increase instead of the decrease of inequalities, in both poor countries and rich countries, and between the North and South. Let us pray that the scourge of poverty may come to an end | |
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