Mothers are gifted by God with unique insight into the mystery of life and its connection, for now, to the tragedy of death. Just think of Mary. Her maternity extended from Bethlehem to Calvary: to be a mother as God desires, Mary had to give life to a person destined to pass through death. Her fiat or “yes” to life at the Annunciation is not merely biological; it is a cooperation with God’s whole Providence for the one she births. That means that an ‘openness to life’ is at the same time a certain openness to death, and thus, for now, the joy of motherhood is always accompanied by pain (Gn 3:16; Jn 16:21).
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In the Judeo-Christian worldview, the wilderness has always been a place of divine encounter. Think Moses and the burning bush, Elijah on Mount Horeb, Jesus in the desert. Often God leads his people into the wild places in order to reveal himself in a new way and to strengthen them for mission. And He is still doing it today.
As we grow in life, we also grow in the things that interest us. Some succeed in accomplishing a dream that they had hoped for. Others aren’t so lucky. But, in any case, life is a journey, and we keep moving toward one destination or another. In whichever direction we find ourselves heading, there is always an important need for a life journey companion — someone who will help us, guide us, shape us and tell us the truth about the direction of our journey. Some people find such companionship in friends, some in family, and others in different people.
Fortitude is the virtue of courage and strength. It enables us to endure adversity without giving in to despair. With fortitude we learn how to persevere despite difficult life situations. When life becomes difficult and we are faced with choices, it is the virtue of fortitude that helps us to withstand adversity without making wrong choices. It gives us the strength to choose the right course of action, regardless of the cost or the consequences that our decision may bring to our lives or our situation.
When people die after long lives, we sometimes limit our sadness by turning their funerals into “celebrations of life” by sharing endearing stories about them, and sometimes we can even experience gratitude that the person is at rest after a difficult illness. But what do we “celebrate” for children who didn’t have much chance to live?
In 2007, on the Feast of the Chair of Peter, Pope Benedict XVI gifted us with his first Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation. The title in Latin, Sacramentum Caritatis, in English, The Sacrament of Charity, or as I prefer, The Sacrament of Love.
This summer Catholics around the world are invited to participate in two exciting, inter-related events in the life of the church. The World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly will take place July 23, and World Youth Day is being celebrated in Lisbon, Portugal during the first week of August.
In my last column I discussed the cardinal virtue of temperance and how it assists us in regulating our desires for pleasure. In this column I want to continue with the conversation about the cardinal virtues because of their essential value in our moral lives. Prudence is one of the cardinal virtues and a very important one to practice and to acquire both as humans and as people of faith.
I recently accompanied a group of University of Dallas students and young alumni to the Holy Land, and I would like to share some musings about Christian faith and pilgrim feet based on that blessed experience.
In a world of insatiable pleasures, temperance is the ultimate saving virtue. Temperance is the virtue that enables a person to have a balanced spirituality and a balanced life. In the Catholic Church, temperance is described as one of the cardinal virtues. Temperance uses reason to moderate or restrain our desires and the pleasures of our senses.