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Á¦¸ñ On Love of One¡¯s Fatherland - BVM's Assumption Day(2018-08-15)
ÀÛ¼ºÀÚ °ü¸®ÀÚ ÀÛ¼ºÀÏ 2018-08-15





On Love of One¡¯s Fatherland - BVM's Assumption Day(2018-08-15)


Introduction


Today we celebrate Our Lady in her Assumption to Heaven. This feast is one of the 10 Holy Days of obligation in the Catholic Church.


Today is also, by a happy circumstance, the national Day of South Korea and I would like to take this occasion to talk to you about Fatherland. It is not a political topic, it is a part of the 4 th Commandment of God.
 

1. God and His government through secondary causes


¡Ü God Creator cause of our existence


 God is the Creator of everything: He made the world out of nothing. Everything depends on Him at each instant: our life, our goods, whatever we have belong to Him. This reality is the foundation of the virtue of Religion, that is to say the cult, the worship, the respect, the honor we must give to God as the Sovereign Master of the world. We don¡¯t practice religion because we like it or because we get some advantages from it, but first of all because it is an essential duty of ours as creatures.


¡Ü Our parents, immediate secondary cause of our existence and formation


 God is the Owner of the world and also its General Provider: He is in control of everything. But usually He does not govern the world and our lives directly, but He governs creatures through the intermediary of other creatures, and this is true also in the formation of new humans. God gave directly life to the first man, Adam, because he was the very first. But afterwards He created Eve using Adam¡¯s rib. And then God established the Family, the union of a man and a woman to be the principle of life for other human beings. Unless man interferes with God¡¯s plan by his wickedness, human beings are born from a family and from their parents they receive food, shelter, clothing and their first education. This reality is the foundation of the virtue of Piety, that is to say the respect, the honor, the help and the love we must give to our parents or tutors. We don¡¯t respect our parents first of all because they are kind or because they love us, but because we have received life from them and so they have a right to be respected and honored by us. Without them, we would be nothing. 
 

¡Ü Our fatherland, remote secondary cause of our existence and formation


 But God does not give us existence and education only through our family. Indeed one family alone is not able to bring to the family members all what they need spiritually, intellectually and physically.
 

 Several families need to gather together and to unite their efforts in order to obtain and provide what they all need, what is good for all, what we call the ¡°Common Good¡±. And because there cannot be any coordinated effort without an authority, chiefs are established. This organized gathering of families form a Society.
 
 The family in which we are born is part of an organized Society with laws, traditions, customs, language, History; a society which is intimately influenced and linked to the land itself where it stays; a society from which we receive what we need to live and to become accomplished human beings. This society is what we call ¡°fatherland¡± or more commonly ¡°country¡±.
 

¡Ü Current utopia of the world being one country


 There are many fatherlands on earth and it cannot be otherwise. To imagine the world as one country, to declare people ¡°be citizens of the world¡± is just a dangerous dream promoted by the Free-masonry in order to dominate the world more easily. Indeed there are two elements making families organize themselves in one society, in one fatherland:
 

0. To have the same target, to aim at the same Common Good;
0. And to have a common way of life.

 But it is not difficult to understand that the way of life of an Eskimo in the North Pole is not the same than a Congolese¡¯s in Africa, the way of life of an Italian is not the same than a Australian¡¯s; it is not difficult to see that the interests of the USA are not the same than those of Russia, the interests of South Korea are not the same than those of Japan, etc¡¦


 The diversity of fatherlands is wanted by God, is part of human life as God has created it, and this diversity is beautiful.


2. Love of fatherland


¡Ü Importance of fatherland in our life


 From what I said, you understand that the existence of fatherlands and the fact that we are born in a certain fatherland is an effect of God¡¯s will. God has created us in such a way that we cannot receive our life but within a society called ¡°the family¡±, that we cannot reach the perfection of our human nature but within a bigger society called ¡°fatherland¡±. God himself has made the family and the fatherland be the principles of our existence, of our education and human development.
 

¡Ü Love of fatherland


 Now what I said before about our family is true about our fatherland. If our fatherland is for each one of us a principle of existence and development, we have therefore towards our fatherland a duty of Piety, that is to say to love, to serve and to defend our fatherland, to obey its laws willingly as far as they are not against God¡¯s laws. Even we must be ready to sacrifice our personal goods up to our life in order to preserve the Common Good of our fatherland.
 

 It is a matter of Justice to obey the laws of our country and to pay just taxes in order to preserve and promote the common good. It is a matter of Piety or ¡°patriotism¡± to accomplish with love our duties towards our country.
 

¡Ü Love of God goes along with love of fatherland


 Love of one¡¯s country is at first a natural love, rooted in our human nature as God has created it. But for a Christian that love for one¡¯s fatherland becomes a virtue if we refer that love to God the Creator and to his Providence. God has made us be born in a certain fatherland, He governs and guides us through that fatherland. Therefore in loving and serving our fatherland we comply with God¡¯s will and therefore ultimately we love and serve God Himself. Love of God and love of one¡¯s fatherland are intimately united in a Catholic.


 God has given a striking example of that reality in the History of France with St Joan of Arc: if you read story of that heroic young woman who freed her fatherland from the British occupation, you will see how the love of God goes along with love of fatherland.


Conclusion:


God in creating the human nature has instituted the family and the fatherland as the principles of human existence and development. Specifically, God has made us to be members of this or that fatherland and He expects from us to have Piety towards it.

 The present tendency in the world is to destroy countries as such, to turn them to be simple ¡°regions¡± of the world. This is directly against God¡¯s order, against human nature and it is the source of chaos.

 Since we celebrate the Assumption of Our Lady, let us pray to her for our countries, let us pray to her in order to be granted a greater love for our fatherland. Let us understand also that the improvement of our country passes necessarily through the improvement of its citizens. The spiritual greatness and welfare of our fatherland implies necessarily our personal holiness, requests us to become saints.


Fr. E. Demornex.