True Hope

J.M.J. + O.B.T. + M.G.R.*

In our Ecclesial Team formation program we are working through the Holy Father's Spe Salvi encyclical (November 30, 2007) and Benedict XVI is gifting himself as a true leader should—both as a teacher (doctor of philosophy) and a good shepherd. Today, our culture seems incapable of communicating TRUTH, and true HOPE (verses false hope) through a language and culture that has taken profoundly important CATHOLIC words and twisted and misused them for secular agendas and corporate prophet, oppps I mean profit.

I have spent many months now pondering how we could see a new vitality radiating from the words LIGHT, LIFE and LOVE. Well you could add HOPE to the casualty list along with FREEDOM and LIBERTY. And what about that "great SOUL music?"

In this regard I see the current U.S. Presidential campaign as crucial.

We could use another Martin Luther King who had a True Dream and called it straight; he even predicted that he would not get to the mountain top with his people. The well-polished Obama is no Martin Luther King. Neither is Hillary a St. Francis Cabrini. Hillary's "health care" is the window dressing for a wholescale abdication of personal rights and responsibilites in favor of an agenda that favors genetic and social engineering (Planned Parenthood and Gay Lobby). With either of these two at the helm of the USS Columbia, we will see the "Culture of Death " accelerate in the areas of euthanasia and embryonic destruction of human life for medical purposes. We will see the "Dictatorship of Relativism" institutionalized in the White House.

Core Values? Not with these two. More like core vices. And since we are talking about vices, when will VIRTUE ever reemerge from the death grip of VIRTUAL REALITY?

Sadly our choices are sliming down. I don't like McCain (although I love him) and Huckabee has not impressed me enough to support his run. Strange how HOPE ARK is his hometown, just like Bill Clinton. Is there a message being sent?

I hope God's words from Moses' mouth on the banks of the Jordan River from yesterday's Mass are heeded. He laid out the situation with stark simplicity, very clearly in Deuteronomy 30.

Here, then, I have today set before you life and prosperity, death and doom.

If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.

If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods,

I tell you now that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land which you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.

I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land which the LORD swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

Will God in his great mercy send the Great Warning Light that many are anticipating?

I guess Guadalupe, Lourdes and Fatima are not enough.

What if we saw Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity in the clouds?

Is her image CATHOLIC enough to convince the skeptics of the fact that the Fullness of TRUTH has been deposited in the hundred thousand tabernacles (just a guess) that dot this big blue marble?

I HOPE SO!

Sincerely yours in Jesus and Mary,
Mike Rizzio, SOLT

Imitate Mary
Become like Jesus
Live for the Triune God

Seek the Light of Our Lord Jesus Christ
See you on the High Ground!

If you have a few minutes please go to the following sites
and see what I have been compelled to work on since 2004.

http://soltlaity.org/breadoflife.htm

http://soltlaity.org/slideshow.htm

I will attempt to answer any and all inquiries at jmjriz@aol.com.

+++

* - J.M.J. + O.B.T. + M.G.R. stands for: Jesus, Mary and Joseph;
O Beata Trinitas; St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael