Principle and Foundation

You and I forget that
HUMAN BEINGS ARE CREATED
To praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by means of doing this to save their souls.

The other things on the face of the earth are created for the human beings, to help them in the pursuit of the end for which they are created.

From this it follows that we ought to use these things to the extent that they help us toward our end, and free ourselves from them to the extent that they hinder us from it.

To attain this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things, in regard to everything which is left to our free will and is not forbidden. Consequently, on our own part we ought not to seek health rather than sickness, wealth rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, a long life rather than a short one, and so on in all other matters.

Rather, we ought to desire and choose only that which is more conducive to the end for which we are created (SE 23).

I think I need to re-evaluated my life and recommit myself differently.  What about you?

Translation by George E. Ganss, ST, The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius.

MAGA?

As a Christian my faith demands that I show love and care to God and to people and creation.  "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might..." “and your neighbour as yourself.”  The parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’  paints out who is my neighbour.

My neighbours includes the poor, the weak the powerless, the disenfranchised, the marginal, those hated and despised in society.  The person who doesn’t look like me, who thinks differently than me. They are the drug addict, homeless, the uneducated, the person on benefits, the illegal immigrant, people of different religious persuasions, sexual orientation, different understanding of gender, race or culture.  My faith demands and commands not tolerance but love, and not just a little bit but “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might…”

In recent weeks and months media has been awash with hateful rhetoric, sentiments and actions.  I have seen one nation of whom history ought to have taught them better commit ethic cleansing on another.  And what did the political leaders of the developed world do, next to nothing, Token shaking their heads verbally at most.  I have witnessed a dictatorship invade and wage war on another nation in an act of empire building.  Enormous lose of life and pain.  Dreadful.  In the United States the present incumbent of the presidency, has criminalise immigrants, cancelled diversity programs, abandoned the Paris Climate Agreement, Withdrawn from the World Health Organisation, expressed interest in taking over Panama, Greenland and Canada, condemned the International Court of Justice, closed US AID.  He also seems to wish to start a disastrous trade war with his allies using tariffs, which will cause awful poverty, depression and recession.

The phrase often attributed to Edmund Burke comes to mind "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".

In the light of what I see and hear in the media, what should I do as a Christian?

Shake my head at the TV?  Write a strongly worded letter to my MP, or the US Ambassador?  Pray for those negatively?  Pray for the paddlers of hate, instigators and perpetrators?

What should I do?

Do nothing?  Then evil triumphs.

I am virtually powerless.

I do have the freedom of where I spend my $$.  

I can inform myself of where my money is going when I spend it and make informed decisions to limit my $$ going to supporters of MAGA, Trump, Elon,  Netanyahu.  I will buy locally grown and manufactured where possible.  I will move away from US based Tech companies, move to Linux and European based Tech.  I prefer French wine, German beer and cars and English Pork Sausages.