Friday, September 10 : Saint John-Paul II

When God created humankind, man and woman, God told them: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Gen 1:28) That is, so to speak, God’s first commandment, which is connected with the very order of creation. Thus, human work corresponds with God’s will. When we say, “Thy will be done,” let us also include these words about the work which fills every day of our life. We become aware of the fact that we are in accord with that will of the Creator when our work and the human relations that it brings with it are penetrated with the values of initiative, courage, trust, solidarity, which are so many reflections of our divine resemblance… The Creator gave the human person the power to subdue the earth. Thus, he asks him to bring the area that has been entrusted to him under control through his own work, to exercise all his abilities so as to be able to develop his own personality and the whole community in a good way. Through his work, the human person obeys God and responds to God’s trust. That is not foreign to the request in the Our Father: “Thy kingdom come.” The human person acts in such a way that God’s plan might be realized, aware of having been made in the likeness of God and thus of having received from God his strength, his intelligence, his aptitudes for bringing about a community of life through the disinterested love he has for his brothers and sisters. All that is positive and good in the life of the person develops and connects with his true goal in the kingdom of God. You chose your motto well: “Kingdom of God, human life,” for God’s cause and the human cause are connected with one another. The world is advancing towards the kingdom of God thanks to God’s gifts, which make human dynamism possible. In other words, to pray that God’s kingdom might come is to stretch out with all one’s being towards that reality, which is the ultimate goal of human work.

maronite readings – rosary,team