This is Holy Family School of Faith.

Welcome to our Rosary Meditation.

Through the generosity of a very gracious couple,

Sandy and I are on the beach in Captiva, Florida,

for some much-needed rest, friendship, good conversation, and the rosary.

So let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Our meditation is on the virtue of justice, but we have justice backwards.

Many people think of justice in the sense of vengeance or what is owed to me.

Then we turn a virtue into a self-centered principle. The virtue of justice is to give to God and others what we owe them

and not deny them the things they have a right to. The catechism says that justice consists

in the constant and firm will, the choice to give God and neighbor their due.

We all owe something to God, our parents, spouse, children, our country, our employers, employees, teachers, and so on.

In this meditation, we will begin with what we owe

God. So let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for. The first three commandments

delineate what we owe God. The next seven, what we owe others. The first three, you shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain and keep the Sabbath day holy. So what do we

owe God? Well, everything. God created us from nothing. He holds us in existence at every moment. He provides for our

smallest needs. He became man, suffered and died to give us eternal life. In return, we owe him

everything. And that's just justice. Giving God what we owe him is an aspect of justice called the virtue of

religion. Some people, however, say, I'm not a religious person. I want to respond to them,

oh, so you created yourself, you hold yourself in existence, you can save yourself from everlasting death? Wow, I'm glad I've met such a God as you. But I don't actually say it. We can never attain a level of pure justice with God because we never perfectly repay this enormous debt that we owe him.

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