Soul Food October 2009

The Value of Every Human Being

An excerpt from Take Five: Meditations with Pope Benedict XVI, by Mike Aquilina and Fr. Kris D. Stubna

How many are the pilgrims you happen to meet throughout the year! I would like to ask you to see in each one of them the face of a brother or sister whom God sets on your path, a friendly albeit unknown person to be welcomed and helped with patient listening in the knowledge that we all belong to the one great human family. Is it not true ... that we do not all live alongside one another purely by chance? Are we not all on the same journey as human beings and, hence, as brothers and sisters? For this reason, then, it is essential that each person strives to live his or her own life in an attitude of responsibility before God, recognizing him as the original source of his or her and everyone else's existence. Indeed, it is precisely by returning to this supreme Principle that one is enabled to perceive the unconditional value of every human being; it is thanks to this knowledge that the foundations for building a peaceful humanity can be laid. Let it be very clear: without the transcendent foundation which is God, society risks becoming a mere agglomeration of neighbors; it ceases to be a community of brothers and sisters, called to form one great family.

--Address to Members of the Vatican's General Inspectorate for Public Security (January 11, 2008)

Think about it

• Everyone I meet is someone God has set on my path.
• No meetings are "chance" meetings
• I should think of people as brothers and sisters, not merely neighbors

Just imagine

"Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows." -- Luke 12:6-7

Remember

Without God, society risks becoming a mere agglomeration of neighbors; it ceases to be a community of brothers and sisters.

Excerpt from Take Five: Meditations with Pope Benedict XVI, by Mike Aquilina and Fr. Kris D. Stubna. Copyright © 2009, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. All rights reserved. For more information or to order, call 800-348-2440 or click here»