We’re all Republicans now. We’re all Federalists now.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Are we every going to move beyond demogoguery and ideological stalemate?

Are our elected representatives ever going to be able to work together constructively to do the will of the American people?

Is the United States a democracy “of the people, by the people, for the people”, or is it an oligarchy “of corporate interests, by corporate interests, and for corporate interests?”

Perhaps our representatives on both sides of the aisle, and the journalists whose opinions that pass as news should stop shouting long enough to remember Thomas Jefferson’s words from the very 1st inaugural address.

His words are very much in the spirit of Barry Goldwater, when he said “To disagree, one doesn’t have to be disagreeable”. 

If we are a society  of people like the one that I imagined I grew up in…, a people that cares about ideas and ideals…, a people that cares about our neighbors…, a people that cares for those who cannot take care of themselves…, there is one word that will solve our problem:

Respect.”

Let’s stop the personal attacks. And let’s start showing some respect.

Respect for elders. Respect for our neighbors. Respect for the other guy. Respect for ourselves. Respect for the truth. Respect for our world.

Let us, then, restore civility to our civic discourse (“without which liberty and life itself are but dreary things“), and let us show the world we are still the world’s best hope. 

Let’s show some respect, and (1) work together to take responsibility for our country’s problems, (2) implement practical ideas that will build the foundation for a society that cares about our world and the people who live in it, and (3) give ourselves the chance to create real opportunities for sustainable growth.

We owe it to ourselves, our children, and future generations of Americans.

~~~

The 1st Inaugral Address, by Thomas Jefferson, 1801

[...] “All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.

During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world’s best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth.”  [...]

~ Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 1, 1801

There is a saying in French: “La reconnaissance de l’homme est la plus grande des politesses.” Roughly translated, it means: “Acknowledging another person [sic] is the greatest courtesy.”

There are many ways to acknowledge another person.

Caritas

You can acknowledge another person with a greeting, a nod, a wave, a salute, and many many other ways.

It seems though, we do a mediocre job acknowledging one another. We pass each other by, each in our own little cacoon…, because we’re too busy or too distracted to do otherwise.

If we are so mediocre at acknowledging others, it makes you wonder how well we practice the virtue of ‘charity’, which is a concern for, and active helping of, others.

In this fresco from the Middle Ages, which is in the Arena Chapel in Padua, Italy – Charity holds a basket of wonderfully painted fruit in the one hand, and with the other receives a heart handed to her by God the Father.

This fresco should serve to remind us, when our pride and our egos get too big, that all of our talents are on loan from above.

Since we were made in His image it would do well for us to acknowledge him in all we do–and then as Saint Augustine teaches: “pray as though everything depended on God, and work as though everything depended on us.”

It would be…, the greatest courtesy.

Divine Mercy was a Feast the Pope instituted on the Sunday after Easter because he believed its spirituality of love could transform the world.

So this message was delivered posthumously:

“To humanity, which at times seems lost and dominated by the power of evil, of egoism and of fear, the Lord rises again to offer the gift of his love that forgives, reconciles and reopens the soul to hope. It is a love that changes the heart and bestows peace. How much the world needs to comprehend and embrace the divine mercy.”

“Comprehend the Divine Mercy…”

I doubt whether the media will pay much attention to this message, but it’s well-known that John Paul II, with his encyclical “Dives in Misericordia” will surely go down in Church History as “The Mercy Pope.”

So what did he mean by “comprehend ‘the Divine Mercy’”?

The Pope was profoundly impacted by the work of a young nun, Saint Faustina Helena Kowalska, who was born in the village of Glogowiec west of Lodz, Poland, on August 25, 1905. The 3rd of 10 children, when she was twenty when she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, whose members devote themselves to the care and education of troubled young women.

Saint Faustina

As the story goes, it was in 1931 that our Lord appeared to Saint Faustina in a vision as she was walking in the convent garden. She saw a Jesus, who appeared as he was when he was raised from the dead, clothed in a white garment with His right hand raised in blessing. His left hand was touching His garment in the area of the heart, from where two large rays came forth, one red and the other pale. Jesus said to her:

“Paint an image according to the pattern you see with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You … I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish. [...] I am offering people a vessel with which they are to keep coming for graces to the fountain of mercy.”

At the request of her spiritual director, Saint Faustina asked the Lord about the meaning of the rays in the image. She heard these words in reply:

“The two rays denote Blood and Water. The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls. These two rays issued forth from the depths of My tender mercy when My agonized Heart was opened by a lance on the Cross … Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him.”

“How much the world needs to comprehend and embrace the Divine Mercy…,”

Indeed.

In The Merchant of Venice, Portia illustrates how we, when we are merciful, can be most like our Father in Heaven.

“The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.”

– Portia, The Merchant of Venice, IV.i.179–192

So perhaps being merciful is one of the easiest, most accessible, ways for us humans to “Be perfect, as [our] Father in Heaven is Perfect.”

Would that it were that our leaders be merciful as a conditioned response, because it shows empathy for another’s pain and compassion for another’s suffering.

Ocean of Mercy

By the way, one of the greatest CDs you’ll ever listen to is “Ocean of Mercy” by Michael John Poirier. I highly recommend it.