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Greetings Readers,
Happy (belated) Fourth of July. Our current newsletter looks a man of principle, St. John the Baptist, and another important principle, patriotism or love of country. Both the man and the principal are much needed today, and are well worth turning our attention to.
Happy Reading!
In Defense of Patriotism
Sadly, it has become fashionable today, especially among the young, to despise the flag, see patriotism as a vice, and condemn those who founded it. And yet we should love our country. Love of country is merely an extension of love of home and community; and those are not only legitimate loves, but necessary ones. We should indeed love our home. We should be grateful to it and to the men who made it what it is. They were none of them perfect; they were heroes, not saints. Yet, many of them fought and toiled and bled and even died for the country they loved; and this is the country they have left to us. Read more here.
John the Baptist
If the young St. John was portrayed as sweet and graceful by Raphael and by other Renaissance painters, as a voice in the wilderness, he was hard as nails, or as the truth. He wore no soft clothes, nor ate fine foods. Rather than making friends and influencing people, he denounced the scribes and Pharisees who came to hear him, warning them also to repent, else they would not be spared the coming wrath.
St. John taught the truth, and he could not soften it, not even for the decadent, decaying descendant of the once mighty Maccabees: King Herod Antiphas. Read more here.