Vulnerable for Others

Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus–God who became human. The incarnation is real. It is so real that we become Jesus. We grow in wisdom, age and grace and come into more complete union with Abba God just as Jesus did. The Eastern Fathers and Mothers believe that Jesus became human so that we might become divine. Wow! Powerful stuff!

During our Christmas Eucharistic celebration on Christmas Eve, our pastor, Father George Kloster, reminded us that Jesus was vulnerable at his birth and at his death. I might add throughout his life because the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head. Continue reading

Health Care and Gospel Values

Beginning our discussion of the rights of the human person, we see that everyone has the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are suitable for the proper development of life; these are primarily food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and finally the necessary social services. …  Therefore a human being also has the right to security in cases of sickness, inability to work, widowhood, old age, unemployment, or in any other case in which one is deprived of the means of subsistence through no fault of one’s own.
–John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, 11 (Emphasis added)

John XXIII wrote Pacem in Terris in the midst of the Cold War after witnessing the near collapse of civilization and the destruction of the planet in the Cuban Missile Crisis. In fact, he arranged for a copy of the encyclical in Russian to be delivered to Nikita Khrushchev, the Russian premier. John XXIII was determined to do whatever he could to avert such crises in the future. Continue reading