The End of This Era by Courtenay Bartholomew

It was at the foot of the Cross that the Redeemer bequeathed His mother to be our spiritual mother. It was when He said to John: "Behold they mother" (John 19:27). For more than two decades this Mother of all Nations and Queen of Peace has been appearing all over the world, crying at times, and pleading with her children to change their ways and return to God. She has warned that this is a time of God's mercy and that she can no longer hold back the hand of His Justice if we do not respond to her call. Meanwhile man continues to display an ever increasing disrespect and lack of appreciation of and gratitude for the gift of life, which is so taken for granted. Indeed, we live in an era in which the disrespect and devaluation of life have spawned the advent of the suicide bomber and international terrorismwith an increasing incidence of murders worldwide. Truly, we are in the midst of a culture of death.

But the gift of life is not ours to destroy. It is by far the most precious gift of the creator and everyone is responsible for his own life before him. We are stewards, not owners of that life. So said, I thought it important to highlight the origins of life since there are so many of us who, among other things, so not know from where we came physically and that, for example, we are recycled "star born." It is the death of the stars and their explosions into the stratosphere, which is the source of life on Earth. In short, we are recycled stardust, the chemistry of life

We live in the nuclear age and as a consequence, man has the power to self-destruct with the possibilities of the annihilation of several nations from a nuclear exchange. As Pope John Paul II once said "We are the men and women of an extraordinary time, exhilarating yet full of contradictions. Humanity now has instruments of unprecedented power. We can turn this world into a garden or reduce it to a pile of rubble. Man can use this power for good within the bounds of the moral law or he can succumb to the shortsighted pride of a science, which accepts no limits but tramples on the respect die to every human being. Today, as never before in the past, humanity stands at the crossroads."

Paperback: 102 pages