I am sure many people remember the movie “Saving Private Ryan”. Set at the time of the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944, it is a graphic portrayal of the violence and horror of war. The story follows Captain John Miller and his men as they search for a young soldier, Private James Ryan. Ryan’s three brothers have been killed in action and the army chiefs want Ryan found and returned safely to his family who have already suffered loss beyond belief.
Many of Miller’s men are killed in the search for Ryan and in helping Ryan’s platoon to stop the German Army from capturing a vital bridge. After fierce fighting, the German soldiers have been defeated and Captain Miller himself lies dying on the bridge.
In a poignant scene Miller beckons Ryan to come to him. With his last breath Miller whispers: "James... earn this. Earn it." As Miller dies, the movie brings us back to the present and to a much older James Ryan standing over Miller’s grave in a military cemetery in France. As he stands there, Ryan asks his wife to reassure him that he has lived a good life. Has the life he has led been good enough to repay the debt he owes Miller and his squad for their enormous sacrifice?
In a little over a month from now we will celebrate Anzac Day. On that special day we will remember, honour, thank and pray for those who fought to defend our nation and the many who made the ultimate sacrifice. As Christians, however, we are called to make a bigger commitment than a single day of remembrance. We best honour and thank our Service men and women by living lives that strive to earn the sacrifice they made. We need to love, respect and care for one another every day. We need to live lives that are positive, uplifting and enriching to all those with whom we come into contact. We need to strive to achieve our full potential and to be the very best people that we can be, not just when we feel like it but all the time. When we live our lives in this way we honour all those who have made sacrifices for us. When we live in this way, the sacrifices that others have made on our behalf are never in vain.
I remember watching a story on the ABC TV program Stateline that dealt with three young men who took on the arduous trek along the grueling Kokoda Trail. The men in their late teens spoke of their journey as a life changing experience. One of the men, Stephen, explained how extremely difficult it had been for him both physically and emotionally to walk this trail that his grandfather had fought on in WWII. He said he could not imagine how the young soldiers had even carried their heavy packs, weapons and equipment over the dense terrain, let alone how they had fought fierce battles as they went along. His thoughts at the end of his ordeal were profound.
He asked the question: “Do we deserve their sacrifice?” He went on to say: “Our generation must live in a way to make their sacrifice worthwhile. Our generation must live in a way that would make them proud.”
Let us pray that we can all live in such a way.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Respect
A few weeks before he was elected pope, Cardinal Ratzinger said at the funeral of Luigi Giussani, founder of the renewal movement known as Communion and liberation, “Christianity is not an intellectual system, a collection of dogmas, or a moralism. Christianity is instead an encounter, a love story, an event.”
At the heart of Christianity is Jesus’ commandment of love – “love one another as I have loved you”. Putting this commandment into action every day, as we are expected to do requires of us a deep respect for human life and indeed for all of God’s creations. Respect for one another as human beings is essential if any of the other Gospel values we claim to live by are to be allowed to flourish.
This respect we speak of cannot be some sort of ethereal act of being nice to people when we choose to be. This respect requires that we choose to empathise with every person we come into contact with. This respect requires that we can put ourselves in the other person’s shoes and appreciate how they feel. This is a tall order but there are ways by which we can train ourselves to be better at respecting others.
Day in and day out, situations arise where we have the opportunity to either uplift people or to put them down. When we choose each time to lift people up and make them feel good about themselves, make them feel appreciated, make them feel loved, we are exercising our respect for other people, our love of one another.
We are all the less for those times when someone makes a snide remark to a friend about another person’s short-comings, or makes some insidious comment about someone out loud at a gathering or meeting, or uses someone’s mistake or misfortune as a source public amusement. We can easily laugh such happenings off as a joke, as some light-hearted fun. Do we ever stop to think what gives us the right to make such a comment? Do we ever stop to think about how that person would feel if or when they hear these remarks? Do we care? We should. In fact, there is something very hard-hearted and wrong about us if we don’t. The whole community loses a little bit of vitality, a little bit of energy, a little bit of goodness every time someone utters a needless negative about another human being.
People have faults. People do stupid things. People make mistakes. People have arguments and fights with one another. People sometimes need to be “told” or disciplined or dressed down. I am not suggesting that we can eliminate these things. They are all part of the human condition. I am suggesting that we can eliminate those unnecessary, negative, banal and often churlish comments that pop out the instant the thought comes into our heads. I am suggesting we can eliminate entirely the “put-downs” and the “belittling” and the “verbal bullying” that sometimes occurs in every community. It is unhealthy, unchristian and unnecessary. A smidgin of self-control and a pinch of empathy is all it takes!
What a wonderful place our world would be if we all chose to actively show our respect and love for one another every day.
At the heart of Christianity is Jesus’ commandment of love – “love one another as I have loved you”. Putting this commandment into action every day, as we are expected to do requires of us a deep respect for human life and indeed for all of God’s creations. Respect for one another as human beings is essential if any of the other Gospel values we claim to live by are to be allowed to flourish.
This respect we speak of cannot be some sort of ethereal act of being nice to people when we choose to be. This respect requires that we choose to empathise with every person we come into contact with. This respect requires that we can put ourselves in the other person’s shoes and appreciate how they feel. This is a tall order but there are ways by which we can train ourselves to be better at respecting others.
Day in and day out, situations arise where we have the opportunity to either uplift people or to put them down. When we choose each time to lift people up and make them feel good about themselves, make them feel appreciated, make them feel loved, we are exercising our respect for other people, our love of one another.
We are all the less for those times when someone makes a snide remark to a friend about another person’s short-comings, or makes some insidious comment about someone out loud at a gathering or meeting, or uses someone’s mistake or misfortune as a source public amusement. We can easily laugh such happenings off as a joke, as some light-hearted fun. Do we ever stop to think what gives us the right to make such a comment? Do we ever stop to think about how that person would feel if or when they hear these remarks? Do we care? We should. In fact, there is something very hard-hearted and wrong about us if we don’t. The whole community loses a little bit of vitality, a little bit of energy, a little bit of goodness every time someone utters a needless negative about another human being.
People have faults. People do stupid things. People make mistakes. People have arguments and fights with one another. People sometimes need to be “told” or disciplined or dressed down. I am not suggesting that we can eliminate these things. They are all part of the human condition. I am suggesting that we can eliminate those unnecessary, negative, banal and often churlish comments that pop out the instant the thought comes into our heads. I am suggesting we can eliminate entirely the “put-downs” and the “belittling” and the “verbal bullying” that sometimes occurs in every community. It is unhealthy, unchristian and unnecessary. A smidgin of self-control and a pinch of empathy is all it takes!
What a wonderful place our world would be if we all chose to actively show our respect and love for one another every day.
Rumours
“Hey mate, did you hear what Sally Hotstuff got up to with Jonny Hopeful at the party the other night? Well apparently bla, bla, bla, yadda, yadda, yadda.” Lola Loudmouth has launched another rumour rocket and this one is so good poor little Sally probably won’t recover. Wicked Lola can now sit back and watch it fly via word of mouth, mobile phone, MSN, email, Facebook, Twitter and so on. She can rest assured that her few seconds worth of malicious gossip will cause maximum shock, pain and awe because she knows it will spread far and wide.
Who knows what Sally and Jonny actually got up to? If the truth be known, they may have been outside discussing differential calculus. The truth? Who needs that? Certainly not Lola. She’s so jealous of Sally she just wants to bring her down a peg or two. Yeah, stretch the truth a bit. That’ll teach her a lesson. What a hoot!
But wait; does Lola deserve all the blame? What about the busy little bees who buzz about spreading the story? Without them, there is no rumour. But how were they to know the story wasn’t true? Here’s a thought. The bees could check the validity of the story? They could buzz around and ask a few other people what they saw. If Lola ends up being the only source of the juicy story, in a Christian community, the bees would keep their mouths shut. If after careful checking, the story seems to be true, the bees need to decide what possible good can come from spreading the story. If the answer to that question is “no good at all, only pain and humiliation”, then again in a Christian community I would suggest the story should not be told.
Whether it is intentional or not, most rumours hurt someone. They cause humiliation. They cause pain. They destroy reputations and lives. For these reasons, telling rumours about someone is considered harassment at the very least and at its worst it constitutes serious bullying. Rumours that are spread via national telecommunications networks (phones & Internet) may also be criminal depending on what is said. Rumours and those who spread them are negative elements that our community could well do without. Good people do not start or spread rumours.
Catholic Schools accept their role in educating students in Christian values and socially responsible behaviour. We are here to support parents in educating their children in the right way to live in relationship with others. We must work together to ensure that our children are taught to think for themselves and not just believe whatever they hear. We must work together to ensure that our children are taught why it is wrong to start or spread rumours. We must work together to ensure that our children are taught the value of always seeking and speaking the truth. Let’s work together as a community to eradicate rumours from our school. Let’s stop telling rumours or malicious stories about people!
Who knows what Sally and Jonny actually got up to? If the truth be known, they may have been outside discussing differential calculus. The truth? Who needs that? Certainly not Lola. She’s so jealous of Sally she just wants to bring her down a peg or two. Yeah, stretch the truth a bit. That’ll teach her a lesson. What a hoot!
But wait; does Lola deserve all the blame? What about the busy little bees who buzz about spreading the story? Without them, there is no rumour. But how were they to know the story wasn’t true? Here’s a thought. The bees could check the validity of the story? They could buzz around and ask a few other people what they saw. If Lola ends up being the only source of the juicy story, in a Christian community, the bees would keep their mouths shut. If after careful checking, the story seems to be true, the bees need to decide what possible good can come from spreading the story. If the answer to that question is “no good at all, only pain and humiliation”, then again in a Christian community I would suggest the story should not be told.
Whether it is intentional or not, most rumours hurt someone. They cause humiliation. They cause pain. They destroy reputations and lives. For these reasons, telling rumours about someone is considered harassment at the very least and at its worst it constitutes serious bullying. Rumours that are spread via national telecommunications networks (phones & Internet) may also be criminal depending on what is said. Rumours and those who spread them are negative elements that our community could well do without. Good people do not start or spread rumours.
Catholic Schools accept their role in educating students in Christian values and socially responsible behaviour. We are here to support parents in educating their children in the right way to live in relationship with others. We must work together to ensure that our children are taught to think for themselves and not just believe whatever they hear. We must work together to ensure that our children are taught why it is wrong to start or spread rumours. We must work together to ensure that our children are taught the value of always seeking and speaking the truth. Let’s work together as a community to eradicate rumours from our school. Let’s stop telling rumours or malicious stories about people!
Peace On Earth
July 20 2009 marked the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon. I can vividly remember the awe and excitement as I sat in my Year 4 classroom and watched the first moon walk in black and white. It was mind blowing to see people walking upon another world. The plaque that Armstrong and Aldrin left on the moon reads:
"Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969, A.D.
We came in peace for all mankind."
We came in peace for all mankind! Ironic that at the time, the Vietnam War was raging and violence, oppression and inequity were rife here on Earth.
For many people who were much older than I at the time, the moon landing seemed to symbolise the hope for a brighter future. Surely, they thought, if we can put a man on the moon, we can do anything. We can solve all the disagreements and inequities around the world and create a lasting peace.
So, what happened? Today, we still ask the same question: how will there ever be real, all-pervasive, lasting peace here on our little planet? Philosophers and theologians will probably debate this question for centuries to come. To me the more productive pursuit is for each of us to promote peace within our own families and communities. Christianity is a religion of hope. If each of us actively promotes peace within our families and communities, we can have the realistic hope that this peace will spread.
Peace is not something that just happens by chance. The Christian perspective is that true peace can only exist when people are at peace with themselves and live in a community where all relationships are built on respect, justice and goodwill.
For us to be at peace with ourselves, we have to take time to nurture not only our physical and mental faculties but also our spiritual selves. We often forget this or deliberately neglect it. We must develop a balance in our lives and establishing that balance requires spending time regularly in self-reflection, prayer and meditation.
To ensure that our communities are places where relationships are built on respect, justice and goodwill, we must actively strive to put these values into practice in all our interactions with others, no matter how we are feeling personally, no matter what is happening in our own lives. We must stand up against injustice and unfairness wherever we find it. We must try at all times to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. It is a valuable practice at the end of each day to spend a few minutes in quiet reflection and ask ourselves this question: "Was everyone I came into contact with today better off for having done so?" If the answer is no, we have some work to do.
"Be the change you want to see in the world." (Mahatma Gandhi)
"Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969, A.D.
We came in peace for all mankind."
We came in peace for all mankind! Ironic that at the time, the Vietnam War was raging and violence, oppression and inequity were rife here on Earth.
For many people who were much older than I at the time, the moon landing seemed to symbolise the hope for a brighter future. Surely, they thought, if we can put a man on the moon, we can do anything. We can solve all the disagreements and inequities around the world and create a lasting peace.
So, what happened? Today, we still ask the same question: how will there ever be real, all-pervasive, lasting peace here on our little planet? Philosophers and theologians will probably debate this question for centuries to come. To me the more productive pursuit is for each of us to promote peace within our own families and communities. Christianity is a religion of hope. If each of us actively promotes peace within our families and communities, we can have the realistic hope that this peace will spread.
Peace is not something that just happens by chance. The Christian perspective is that true peace can only exist when people are at peace with themselves and live in a community where all relationships are built on respect, justice and goodwill.
For us to be at peace with ourselves, we have to take time to nurture not only our physical and mental faculties but also our spiritual selves. We often forget this or deliberately neglect it. We must develop a balance in our lives and establishing that balance requires spending time regularly in self-reflection, prayer and meditation.
To ensure that our communities are places where relationships are built on respect, justice and goodwill, we must actively strive to put these values into practice in all our interactions with others, no matter how we are feeling personally, no matter what is happening in our own lives. We must stand up against injustice and unfairness wherever we find it. We must try at all times to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. It is a valuable practice at the end of each day to spend a few minutes in quiet reflection and ask ourselves this question: "Was everyone I came into contact with today better off for having done so?" If the answer is no, we have some work to do.
"Be the change you want to see in the world." (Mahatma Gandhi)
The Five People You Meet In Heaven
"The Five People You Meet In Heaven" is a delightful, thought-provoking book written by Mitch Albom. If you have not read it, put it on your Christmas list. It is only a short book and is well worth the read. On the back cover it says: "On his eighty-third birthday, Eddie, a lonely war veteran, dies in a tragic accident trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. With his last breath, he feels two small hands in his – and then nothing. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever."
I am sure I will not ruin the book for anyone by briefly highlighting the five basic lessons Eddie learns in Heaven. The book gives these lessons much more beautifully and powerfully than my simple summary ever could. The lessons are these:
· All of our life-stories are linked. How we treat one another makes a profound difference to all of our lives. What we say and do to others can have powerful effects on their lives – for good and for bad – without us ever knowing.
· Sacrifice is part of life. It is supposed to be there. It is not something to regret. It is something to aspire to. When we sacrifice something, we gain something in return.
· Forgiveness – to live life to the full and be the best person we can be, we must learn to forgive those who hurt us. "Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hatred is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves."
· Love does not have an end. When people die, love takes a different form, that's all. Our loved ones are still with us in our hearts and minds and one day we will see them again.
· Everyone has a purpose to life that not only affects their own lives but unknowingly touches the lives of others.
Valuable lessons about human life, wouldn't you agree? Yet, I think many people today shield their children from some or all of these lessons as they grow. Many children grow up believing that they are the centre of creation and that the world owes them whatever they want. They grow up believing that it's all about them and that others can look after themselves.
We could do a lot worse as parents, than to help our children learn the five lessons mentioned above, whenever opportunities present themselves. In teaching our children these simple but essential lessons, we not only help them to become more resilient themselves but also help them to become more selfless and more loving and caring of others. In the end, the extent to which we have enhanced the lives of others is a good measure of a life well lived.
I am sure I will not ruin the book for anyone by briefly highlighting the five basic lessons Eddie learns in Heaven. The book gives these lessons much more beautifully and powerfully than my simple summary ever could. The lessons are these:
· All of our life-stories are linked. How we treat one another makes a profound difference to all of our lives. What we say and do to others can have powerful effects on their lives – for good and for bad – without us ever knowing.
· Sacrifice is part of life. It is supposed to be there. It is not something to regret. It is something to aspire to. When we sacrifice something, we gain something in return.
· Forgiveness – to live life to the full and be the best person we can be, we must learn to forgive those who hurt us. "Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hatred is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves."
· Love does not have an end. When people die, love takes a different form, that's all. Our loved ones are still with us in our hearts and minds and one day we will see them again.
· Everyone has a purpose to life that not only affects their own lives but unknowingly touches the lives of others.
Valuable lessons about human life, wouldn't you agree? Yet, I think many people today shield their children from some or all of these lessons as they grow. Many children grow up believing that they are the centre of creation and that the world owes them whatever they want. They grow up believing that it's all about them and that others can look after themselves.
We could do a lot worse as parents, than to help our children learn the five lessons mentioned above, whenever opportunities present themselves. In teaching our children these simple but essential lessons, we not only help them to become more resilient themselves but also help them to become more selfless and more loving and caring of others. In the end, the extent to which we have enhanced the lives of others is a good measure of a life well lived.
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