Veritatis Splendor

“If Veritatis Splendor is not for Catholics only, neither is it a papal scolding of wayward, willful sinners.  John Paul II is too experienced a pastor to think that the polymorphous perversities of the late twentieth century are very original.  They aren’t, as a brisk reading of Genesis, concentrated on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, will readily attest.  There is something new in the late twentieth century, though---the inability of educated people to make moral sense to one another.”  Witness to Hope by George Weigel

JMJ

The realities of the present age reveal to all mankind of the consequences and effects of original sin innate in man the moment he is created.  The polymorphous perversities of this century is nothing new as the stories of the Old and New Testament reveal to all who read the history of Christianity.  We face a new challenge in our day in age that reflects the inability of man, even those who are educated in nature, to find morality among the circumstances of a society and culture that has based truth against its very self through the lies that compromise the very dignity of what he is created for.  The inability to reach the transcendence of a humanity beyond the commercialization and materialism of a mentality that seeks refuge in the idolism of a lost identity in the very dignity of Man made in the image and likeness of God.  A mentality that has disfigured the identity of Man as beings that lack the conscientious reality of what is good and what is evil; what is not of God and what is of His Divine and Most Glorious Hand of Redeeming Love.  There is the effort of Man to bring to reality the saving power of a Living God when he encounters in himself a morality that identifies him as an heir of the Kingdom of Eternal Redemption.  A morality that is based on the essential Truth of Man made in the image and likeness of an Omnipotent and Eternal Father lived in the fullness of a life created for what is Eternal through the daily and ordinary tasks of the day.  The divinization of what is common to the sight of man and yet extraordinary; as every detail of his existence is sanctified and redeemed through the merits of the Only Begotten Son, Christ, Redeemer and Savior of All Mankind.  The reality that all of humanity is made in the image and likeness of God is being challenged in a most profound way through the blindness of a western world that is misguided through a law system that compromises the dignity of man and eliminates the very essence of identity founded on the reality that there is good and there is evil.  The reality that distinguishes between what is right and what is wrong.  It has been compromised to the degree that the tranquility of Man found in God has been seized by a culture that inhibits the very nature of Man to reach the heights of the truest essence of Truth so that he may live the fullness of life made in the image and likeness of a God who loves him and created him into being.  The challenge facing our culture today reaches even those who are intellectually educated and fully capacitated to reason and yet unable to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong.  The inability to see Truth as it is compromised through a culture that has been blinded from the true reality of himself made in the image and likeness of God.  

Eternal Word of the Father, Only Begotten Son of God, Christ, my Savior and Redeemer, the love You bestow on Man continues to be a source of refuge and strength in a culture and world that has forgotten and compromised the very essence and dignity of Man.  We face a new challenge in this age that is misguided and in need of Your Wisdom to form the very inner conscience of the soul towards a deeper knowledge of the essential truths created to distinguish the morality of what is good and what is evil.  A morality that is clearly defined through a well formed conscience founded in the Magisterium of the Church and the essential truths proclaimed in the Doctrine of the Faith.  Grant us the grace to proclaim these truths in our daily actions and our fidelity to Our Holy Mother Church so that the very Splendor of Truth may reign in every human heart created in the image of Your very likeness, O Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Three Divine Persons, One God.  O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not our petitions but in your mercy hear and answer me.  Amen.