How Is Your Day Going?

How Is Life Treating You?

“Today” is the only day any of us has.

There is no “re-doing” of yesterdays,

and there is no “promise” of tomorrow,

there is only today. 

Don’t let today’s

love and joy get diminished or tarnished

by yesterday’s regrets or tomorrow’s fears. 

Life is – and always has been – a mystery and challenge.

The best we can do each and every day

is to make sure

our mind and outlook is fed with positive attitudes

and our body 

is fed with good nutrition and sensible exercise.

It is our belief

to “work like it is all up to me –

and pray like it is all up to God.”

                “God our Father, you conquer the darkness of life by the light of your Word. Strengthen within our hearts the faith you have given us; let not the trials of life ever quench the fire that your love has kindled within us!”

A Prayer for Our Country

at the

Democratic National Convention

Cardinal Timothy Dolan offers benediction—as well as moral exhortation, a lesson in . . .  political philosophy, and a challenge to recognize and grapple with first principles:

We beseech you, almighty God to shed your grace on this noble experiment in ordered liberty, which began with the confident assertion of inalienable rights bestowed upon us by you:  life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thus do we praise you for the gift of life.  Grant us the courage to defend it, life, without which no other rights are secure.  We ask your benediction on those waiting to be born, that they may be welcomed and protected.  Strengthen our sick and our elders waiting to see your holy face at life’s end, that they may be accompanied by true compassion and cherished with the dignity due those who are infirm and fragile.

We praise and thank you for the gift of liberty.  May this land of the free never lack those brave enough to defend our basic freedoms.  Renew in all our people a profound respect for religious liberty:  the first, most cherished freedom bequeathed upon us at our Founding. May our liberty be in harmony with truth; freedom ordered in goodness and justice.  Help us live our freedom in faith, hope, and love.  Make us ever-grateful for those who, for over two centuries, have given their lives in freedom’s defense; we commend their noble souls to your eternal care, as even now we beg the protection of your mighty arm upon our men and women in uniform.

We praise and thank you for granting us the life and the liberty by which we can pursue happiness.  Show us anew that happiness is found only in respecting the laws of nature and of nature’s God.  Empower us with your grace so that we might resist the temptation to replace the moral law with idols of our own making, or to remake those institutions you have given us for the nurturing of life and community.  May we welcome those who yearn to breathe free and to pursue happiness in this land of freedom, adding their gifts to those whose families have lived here for centuries.

Read the entire prayer on the Cardinal's blog:

http://blog.archny.org/index.php/a-prayer-for-our-country-at-the-democratic-national-convention/