In the beginning .. !!

A writer whom I admire a lot says that " Beginning well is a momentary thing but finishing well is a lifelong thing." I say,how true!!

What is true at this time in our history is that we are moving into uncharted territory. Since the French revolution, many influential intellectuals have rejected religion. But it is only now that religious ideas underpin general morality. Because these ideas have prevailed for so long, people tend to assume that the morality that goes with them is somehow obvious and common sensical and will continue. "Love thy neighbour as thy self" is widely considered to be a moral imperative that everyone can accept and try to follow without religious faith as if it were a belief that came natural to man. But this is a terrible error. No moral doctrine comes naturally. As the derivation of the word doctrine implies it has to be taught. It can only be taught if enough people understand the theories on which it rests...We have entered a period in which this is no longer so and we are beginning to see the results...With this loss of a truly human morality comes paradoxically a greater emphasis on the importance of human gratification. As human beings no longer believe that have a unique standing in the order of creation they turn inwards.

The great modern crime is to prevent people do what they want to do...The consequence of this is that what was once called selfishness is now considered fulfillment. The word love is used just as much as it ever was but it means something else.

For a believer in Christ, the measure of love is what one is willing to give up for it. For the other love is the most exciting state of the ego. The social consequences are...an extreme restlessness that makes contentment almost as outdated a term as crinoline...Religion has an extraordinary and unique capacity to keep sublime concepts of beauty and truth and the principles of conduct that derive from them in the minds of ordinary people.

Our moral beliefs will decay if they are cut off from their source, just as a stream will become a stagnant pool if it is no longer fed by its spring. This is what is happening in the World today. The injunction to "love they neighbour" is not a statement of the obvious. It is a commandment and one that is only makes sense because it flows from the first "love thy God". We must obey it because it is true and we know that it is true because of the event that Easter commemorates.