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In Babylon there lived a man named Joakim, who married a very beautiful and God-fearing woman, Susanna, the daughter of Hilkiah; her pious parents had trained their daughter, according to the law of Moses. Joakim was very rich; he had a garden near his house, and the Jews had recourse to him often because he was the most respected of them all. That year, two elders of the people were appointed judges, of whom the Lord said “Wickedness has come out of Babylon: from the elders who were to govern the people as judges.” These men, to whom all brought their cases, frequented the house of Joakim. When the people left at noon, Susanna used to enter her husband’s garden for a walk. When the old men saw her enter every day for her walk, they began to lust for her. They suppressed their consciences; they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven, and did not keep in mind just judgments. Though both were enamored of her, they did not tell each other their trouble, for they were ashamed to reveal their lust full desire to have her. Day by day they watched eagerly for her. One day they said to each other, “ Let us be off for home, it is time for lunch.” So they went out and parted; but both turned back, and when they met again, they asked each other the reason. They admitted their lust, and then they agreed to look for an occasion when they could meet her alone. One day, while they were waiting for the right moment, she entered the garden as usual, with two maids only. She decided to bathe, for the weather was warm. Nobody else was there, except the two elders, who had hidden themselves and were watching her. “ Bring me oil and soap,” she said to the maids, “and shut the garden doors while I bathe.” They did as she said; they shut the garden doors and left by the side gate to fetch what she had ordered, unaware that the elders were hidden inside. As soon as the maids had left, the two old men got up and hurry to her. “ Look,” they said, “ the garden doors are shut, and no one can see us; give in to our desire, and lie with us. If you refuse, we will testify against you that you dismissed your maids because a young man was here with you.” “ I am completely trapped,” Susanna groaned. “If I yield, it will be my death; if I refuse, I cannot escape your power. Yet it is better for me to fall into your power without guilt then to sin before the Lord.” Then Susanna shrieked, and the old men also shouted at her, as one of them ran to open the garden doors. When the people in the house heard the cries from the garden, they rushed in by the side gate to see what had happened to her. At the accusations by the old men, the servants felt very much ashamed, for never had any such thing been said about Susanna. When the people came to her husband Joakim the next day, the two wicked elders also came, fully determined to put Susanna to death. Before all the people they ordered: “Send for Susanna, the daughter of Hilkiah, the wife of Joakim.” When she was sent for, she came with her parents, children, and all her relatives. Susanna, very delicate and beautiful, was veiled; but those wicked men ordered her to uncover her face so as to state themselves with her beauty. All her relatives and the onlookers were weeping. In the midst of the people, the two elders rose up and laid their hands on her head. Through her tears she looked up to heaven, for she trusted in the Lord wholeheartedly. The elders made this accusation: “ As we were walking in the garden alone, this woman entered with two girls, and shut the doors of the garden, dismissing the girls. A young man, who was hidden there, came to lay with her. When we, in a corner of the garden, saw this crime, we ran towards them. We saw them lying together, but the man we could not hold, because he was stronger than we; he opened the doors and ran off. Then we seized this one and asked who the young man was, but she refused to tell us. We testify to this.” The assembly, believe them, since they were elders and judges of the people, and they condemned her to death. But Susanna cried out loud: “O eternal God, you know what is hidden and are aware of all things before they come to be: you know that they have testified falsely against me. Here I am about to die, though I have done none of the things with which these wicked men have charged me.” The Lord heard her prayer. As she was being led to execution, God stirred up the holy spirit of a young boy named Daniel, And he cried out aloud: “ I will have no part in the death of this woman.” All the people turned and asked him, “ What is this you are saying?” He stood in their midst and continued, “Are you such fools, O Israelites! To condemn a woman of Israel without examination and without clear evidence? Return to court, for they have testified falsely against her.” Then all the people returned in haste. To Daniel the elders, said, “Come sit with us and inform us, since God has given you the prestige of old age.” But he replied, “Seperate these two far from one another that I may examine them.” After they were separated, one from the other, he called one of them and said: “How you have grown evil with age! Now have your past sins come to term: passing unjust sentences, condemning the innocent, and freeing the guilty, although the Lord says, ‘The innocent, and the just you shall not put death.’ Now, then, if you were a witness, tell me under what tree you saw them together.” “ under a mastic tree,” he answered. “Your fine lie has cost you your head,” said Daniel; “for the angel of God shall receive the sentence from him and split you in two.” Putting him to one side, he ordered the other one to be brought. “Offspring of Canaan, not of Judah, “Daniel said to him, “beauty has seduced you, lust has subverted your conscience. This is how your acted with the daughters of Israel, and in their fear they yielded to you; but a daughter of Judah did not tolerate your wickedness. Now then, tell me under what tree you surprised them together.” “Under an oak,” he said. “Your fine lie has caused you also your head,” said Daniel; “for the angel of God waits with a sword to cut you in two, so as to make an end of you both.” The whole assembly, he cried aloud, blessing God who saves those that hope in him. They rose up against the two elders, for by their own words Daniel had convicted them of perjury. According to the law, Moses, they inflicted on them, the penalty they had plotted to impose on their neighbor: they put them to death. Thus was innocent blood spared that day. Hilkiah and his wife praised God for their daughter Susanna, as did Joakim her husband and all her relatives, because she was found innocent of any shameful deed. And from that day onward, Daniel was greatly esteemed by the people. ✝️

148 The Virgin Mary most perfectly embodies the obedience of faith. By faith Mary welcomes the tidings and promise brought by the angel Gabriel, believing that "with God nothing will be impossible" and so giving her assent: "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word." Elizabeth greeted her: "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilllment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." It is for this faith that all generations have called Mary blessed. 149 Throughout her life and until her last ordeal when Jesus her son died on the cross, Mary's faith never wavered. She never ceased to believe in the fulfillment of God's word. And so the Church venerates in Mary the purest realization of faith.

144 To obey (from the Latin ob-audire, to "hear or listen to") in faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard, because its truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is th model of such obedience offered us by Sacred Scripture. The Virgin Mary is its most perfect embodiment.

Are we truly free? God freed the Israelites from Egypt into the dessert, where they walked for fourty years. To teach them how to obey God. In reality no one is truly free and live to tell it. It’s either being obedient to God or King but not both. It depends who is king. God wanted to be King of the Israelites. But they want to be like all the other nations. Following a king is only beneficial if the King truly believes in God. For example, King James was known as the king of peace. If the kings intentions are pure we would be happy and self obedient to God. But if the king does not honor God we would experience misery for many years. I think it’s better to keep God as our king, giving us the ability to live a world of righteousness. That is why our founding fathers wanted our government to be limited in its power. This country could only remain free if we believe in God our king.

There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. 9 What advantages has the worker from his toil? 10 I have considered the task which God has appointed for men to be busied about. 11 He has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts, without men’s ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done. 12 I recognized that there is nothing better than to be glad and to do well during life. 13 For every man, moreover, to eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of all his labor is a gift of God. 14 I recognized that whatever God does will endure forever; there is no adding to it, or taking from it. Thus has God done that he may be revered. 15 What now is has already been; what is to be, already is; and God restores what would otherwise be displaced.

16 And still under the sun in the judgment place, I saw wickedness, and in the seat of justice, inequity. 17 And I said to myself, both the just and the wicked God will judge, since there is a time for every affair and on every work a judgment. 18 I said to myself: as for the children of men, it is God‘s way of testing them, and of showing that they are in themselves like beasts. 19 For the lot of man and of beast is one lot; the one dies as well as the other. Both have the same life-breath, and man has no advantage over the beast; but all is vanity. 20 Both go to the same place; but we’re made from the dust, and to the dust they both return. 21 Who knows if the life-breath of the children of men goes upward and the life-breath of beasts go earthward? 22 And I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to rejoice in his work; for this is his lot. Who will let him see what is to come after him?

1 Once in the time of the judges there was a famine in the land; so a man from Bethlehem of Judah departed with his wife and two sons to reside on the plateau of Moab. 2 The man was named Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and his sons Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem of Judah. Some time after their arrival on the Moabite plateau, 3 Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons, 4 who married Moabite women, one named Orpah, the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Chilion died also, and the woman was left with neither her two sons nor her husband. 6 She then made ready to go back from the plateau of Moab because word reached her there that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. 7 She and to her two daughter-in-law left the place where they had been living. Then as they were on the road back to the land of Judah, 8 Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back, each of you, to you mother's house! May the LORD be kind to you as you were to the departed and to me! 9 May the LORD grant each of you a husband and a home in which you will find rest." She kissed them good-by, but they wept with loud sobs, 10 and told her they would return with her to her people. 11 "Go back, my daughters!" said Naomi. "Why should you come with me? Have I other sons in my womb who may become your husbands? 12 Go back, my dauughters! Go, for I am too old to marry again. And even if I could offer any hopes, or if tonight I had a husband or had borne sons, 13 would you then wait and deprive yourselves of husbands until those sons grew up? No, my daughters! my lot is too bitter for you, because the LORD has extended his hand against me." 14 Again they sobbed aloud and wept; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth stayed with her. 15 "See now!" she said, "your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her god. Go back after your sister-in-law!" 16 But Ruth said “Do not ask me to abandon or foresake you! for wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17 Wherever you die I will die, and there be buried. May the LORD do so and so to me, and more besides, if aught but death separates me from you!" 18 Naomi then ceased to urge her, for she saw she was determined to go with her.

"Our Lady of Fatima" formally known as Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of Fatima. She is a Catholic title of Mary, mother of Jesus, based on the Marian apparitions in 1917, seen by three shepherd children at the Cova de Iria in Fatima, Portugal. The three children were Lucia dos Santos, her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto. Jose Alves Correia da Silva, bishop of Leiria, declared the events worthy on October 13, 1930.

1734 Freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary. Progress in virtue, knowledge of the good, and ascesis enhance the mastery of the will over its acts. 1735 Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors. 1736 Every act directly willed is imputable to its author: Thus the Lord asked Eve after the sin in the garden: "What is this that you have done?" He asked Cain the same question. The prophet Nathan questioned David in the same way after he committed adultery with the wife of Uriah and had him murdered. An action can be indirectly voluntary when it results from negligence regarding something one should have known or done: for example, an accident arising from ignorance of traffic laws. 1737 An effect can be tolerated without being willed by its agent; for instance, a mother's exhaustion from tending her sick child. A bad effect is not imputable if it was not willed either as an end or as a means of an action, e.g., a death a person incurs in aiding someone in danger. For a bad effect to be imputable it must be foreseeable and the agent must have the possibility of avoiding it, as in the case of manslaughter caused by a drunken driver. 1738 Freedom is exercised in relationships between human beings. Every human person, created in the image of God, has the natural right to be recognized as a free and responsible being. All owe to each other this duty of respect. The right to the exercise of freedom , especially in moral and religious matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of the human person. This right must be recognized and protected by civil authority within the limits of the common good and public order.

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude. 172 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the posibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach. 1733 The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to "the slavery of sin."