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January 2, 2009
St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and doctors of the Church

Read

January 2

As we begin Poverty Awareness Month, read about the connection between world peace and poverty and what you can do to help in this bulletin insert

Pray

Prayer for Peace

Immaculate Heart of Mary, help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down upon our modern world and seem to block the paths toward the future. From famine and war, deliver us. From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us. From sins against human life from its very beginning, deliver us. From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us. From every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international, deliver us. From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us. From attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us. From the loss of awareness of good and evil, deliver us. From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us. Accept, O Mother of Christ, this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies. Help us with the power of the Holy Spirit conquer all sin: individual sin and the "sin of the world," sin in all its manifestations. Let there be revealed once more in the history of the world the infinite saving power of the redemption: the power of merciful love. May it put a stop to evil. May it transform consciences. May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope. Amen

Reflect

Pope Benedict XVI , Saints, p. 20 (330–379 and 330–389/390, respectively; January 2)

 Basil: The Program of Action
Basil spent himself without reserve in faithful service to the Church and in the multiform exercise of the episcopal ministry. In accordance with the program that he himself drafted, he became an “apostle and minister of Christ, steward of God’s mysteries, herald of the Kingdom, a model and rule of piety, an eye of the Body of the Church, a Pastor of Christ’s sheep, a loving doctor, father and nurse, a cooperator of God, a farmer of God, a builder of God’s temple” (cf. Moralia 80, 11-20: PG 31, 864b-868b).
 This is the program which the holy Bishop consigns to preachers of the Word—in the past as in the present—a program which he himself was generously committed to putting into practice. In AD 379 Basil, who was not yet fifty, returned to God “in the hope of eternal life, through Jesus Christ Our Lord” (De Baptismo, 1, 2, 9). He was a man who truly lived with his gaze fixed on Christ. He was a man of love for his neighbor. Full of the hope and joy of faith, Basil shows us how to be true Christians.

General Audience
July 4, 2007

Act

When you watch television today, pay attention to explicit and implied messages about poverty in the U.S.  Reflect on what you are viewing and make notes on your findings.  Did the message affirm the dignity of poor people or obscure it?  Email or phone your assessment to the television station concerning how poverty was presented in their programming—whether favorable or otherwise.