Đầy tớ

Chúng tôi là những đầy tớ vô dụng. Chúng tôi chỉ làm việc theo bổn phận đấy thôi (Lc 17,10b)

Telling the Story of Jesus
The Church is called to announce the Good News of Jesus to all people and all nations. Besides the many works of mercy by which the Church must make Jesus' love visible, it must also joyfully announce the great mystery of God's salvation through the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The story of Jesus is to be proclaimed and celebrated. Some will hear and rejoice, some will remain indifferent, some will become hostile. The story of Jesus will not always be accepted, but it must be told.
We who know the story and try to live it out, have the joyful task of telling it to others. When our words rise from hearts full of love and gratitude, they will bear fruit, whether we can see this or not. (Nouwen G)

Bao dung

Dù nó xúc phạm đến anh một ngày đến bảy lần… thì anh cũng phải tha cho nó (Lc 17,4)

The Authority of Compassion
The Church often wounds us deeply. People with religious authority often wound us by their words, attitudes, and demands. Precisely because our religion brings us in touch with the questions of life and death, our religious sensibilities can get hurt most easily. Ministers and priests seldom fully realize how a critical remark, a gesture of rejection, or an act of impatience can be remembered for life by those to whom it is directed.
There is such an enormous hunger for meaning in life, for comfort and consolation, for forgiveness and reconciliation, for restoration and healing, that anyone who has any authority in the Church should constantly be reminded that the best word to characterize religious authority is compassion. Let's keep looking at Jesus whose authority was expressed in compassion.

Hơn

"Thầy bảo thật anh em: bà goá nghèo này đã bỏ vào thùng nhiều hơn ai hết (Mc 12, 43)

Going to the Margins of the Church
Those who are marginal in the world are central in the Church, and that is how it is supposed to be! Thus we are called as members of the Church to keep going to the margins of our society. The homeless, the starving, parentless children, people with AIDS, our emotionally disturbed brothers and sisters - they require our first attention.
We can trust that when we reach out with all our energy to the margins of our society we will discover that petty disagreements, fruitless debates, and paralysing rivalries will recede and gradually vanish. The Church will always be renewed when our attention shifts from ourselves to those who need our care. The blessing of Jesus always comes to us through the poor. The most remarkable experience of those who work with the poor is that, in the end, the poor give more than they receive. They give food to us. (Nouwen G)

Nghèo

Ai trung tín trong việc rất nhỏ, thì cũng trung tín trong việc lớn; ai bất lương trong việc rất nhỏ, thì cũng bất lương trong việc lớn. Anh em không thể vừa làm tôi Thiên Chúa, vừa làm tôi Tiền Của được. (Lc 16,10.13)

Becoming the Church of the Poor 
When we claim our own poverty and connect our poverty with the poverty of our brothers and sisters, we become the Church of the poor, which is the Church of Jesus.
Solidarity is essential for the Church of the poor . Both pain and joy must be shared. As one body we will experience deeply one another's agonies as well as one another's ecstasies. As Paul says: "If one part is hurt, all the parts share its pain. And if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy" (1 Corinthians 12:26).
Often we might prefer not to be part of the body because it makes us feel the pain of others so intensely. Every time we love others deeply we feel their pain deeply. However, joy is hidden in the pain. When we share the pain we also will share the joy.

Who Are the Poor?
The poor are the center of the Church. But who are the poor? At first we might think of people who are not like us: people who live in slums, people who go to soup kitchens, people who sleep on the streets, people in prisons, mental hospitals, and nursing homes. But the poor can be very close. They can be in our own families, churches or workplaces. Even closer, the poor can be ourselves, who feel unloved, rejected, ignored, or abused.
It is precisely when we see and experience poverty - whether far away, close by, or in our own hearts - that we need to become the Church; that is, hold hands as brothers and sisters, confess our own brokenness and need, forgive one another, heal one another's wounds, and gather around the table of Jesus for the breaking of the bread. Thus, as the poor we recognise Jesus, who became poor for us.

Đền thờ

Các ông cứ phá huỷ Đền Thờ này đi; nội ba ngày, tôi sẽ xây dựng lại (Ga 2,19)

Meeting Christ in the Church
Loving the Church does not require romantic emotions. It requires the will to see the living Christ among his people and to love them as we want to love Christ himself. This is true not only for the "little" people - the poor, the oppressed, the forgotten - but also for the "big" people who exercise authority in the Church.
To love the Church means to be willing to meet Jesus wherever we go in the Church. This love doesn't mean agreeing with or approving of everyone's ideas or behavior. On the contrary, it can call us to confront those who hide Christ from us. But whether we confront or affirm, criticize or praise, we can only become fruitful when our words and actions come from hearts that love the Church. (Nouwen G)

Tha thứ

Giữa triều thần Thiên Chúa, ai nấy sẽ vui mừng vì một người tội lỗi ăn năn sám hối (Lc 15,10)

Forgiving the Church
When we have been wounded by the Church, our temptation is to reject it. But when we reject the Church it becomes very hard for us to keep in touch with the living Christ. 
When we say, "I love Jesus, but I hate the Church," we end up losing not only the Church but Jesus too. The challenge is to forgive the Church. This challenge is especially great because the Church seldom asks us for forgiveness, at least not officially. But the Church as an often fallible human organization needs our forgiveness, while the Church as the living Christ among us continues to offer us forgiveness.
It is important to think about the Church not as "over there" but as a community of struggling, weak people of whom we are part and in whom we meet our Lord and Redeemer. (Nouwen G)


Woe to the Republic!
Over at HotAir, they're talking about what the election means. Ed Morrissey mentions last night proved 2010 was the anomoly, that 2008 and 2012 represent the new norm, realignment to the Left. But I don’t see this as a realignment towards the Left. I think it is a realignment AWAY from the Right. I think Americans are relatively sane in regards to big government. But they simply don’t trust Republicans and are even frightened of them.
While the Democrats use it as an excuse to pretend their Leftist agenda is awesome despite public disapproval, I think it is very true for the GOP. I think the Republicans have a messaging problem.
Some more thoughts:
Romney is a great guy and I think he would have been a good president. But he played right into voters’ fears by being a rich white guy and he didn't do enough to transcend that stereotype.
The President went small in the campaign. Romney went big. But not big enough. In retrospect, Romney should have made this election not about the economy, but a referendum on the Future. Right or Left? Small government or Big government? Fiscal sanity or Fiscal disaster?
Romney should have made it clear that a vote for the President was a vote to embrace and cement the new norm of greater entitlement and regulation of society, which America can no longer afford.
To put it simply, Romney failed to message how high the stakes were in the election. Every nation gets the government it deserves.

-- Joseph de Maistre, Lettres et Opuscules