What gives us motivation and energy? Our energy does not come simply from sleeping, eating, and exercising well. While such habits are important, Jesus reminds us of what we all know deep down: “Man does not live on bread alone” (cf. Mt 4:4; Dt 8:3). For we all know that even physically healthy people can sometimes struggle just to get out of bed if they lack awareness of the meaning of their lives.
Word To Enkindle
It is said that soldiers spilling their lifeblood on the battlefield often call for their mothers with their dying breath. In their violent exit from the world, they find comfort in remembering the maternal love that brought them into the world.
There are few things human beings can do that imitate God. One is to observe the Sabbath (see Gn 2:1-3; Ex 20:8-11); another is to rely on Mary.
Imagine being born in 1182, at a time when you could happily spend your whole life in the same community. But while you are a child, a shipwreck takes away the money your father had intended to be your dowry, and so, while you are at the age of 12 your parents decide, at least for the moment, to send you away to a convent for an education. There’s no way to phone home, and instead of being with your family and friends, you have to follow the strict schedule of some nuns. As a child, you don’t want to become a nun, and instead you care a lot about what you look like and about impressing potential suitors. After all, until that shipwreck took your dowry, you were hoping to get married relatively soon.
Do you ever feel like you are going through the motions without passion as you carry out your responsibilities? At times, we all can — even monks.
Every morning, monks and nuns — and many lay people — arise early for morning prayer. The Latin name for this prayer, “laudes,” means “praises.” Often the psalms that make up morning prayer are indeed full of expressions of praise. One has inspired in me a reflection on the liturgy. Here are the initial verses of Psalm 63.
St. Luke gives us the angel Gabriel’s annunciation greeting to Mary as “Chaire, kecharitōmenē” (Lk 1:28). There are thrilling grammatical and theological mysteries packed into these two Greek words.
My ideal translation of this phrase would be “Give us our ‘supersubstantial’ bread today.” That would sound gloriously awkward at Mass, and ‘supersubstantial’ would be a liturgical tongue twister for children trying to say the word quickly five times in a row. That translation, though, grants immediate access to the mystery at work in the first petition of the Our Father prayer.
Gambling is growing in our country — and quickly. My impression is that we have work to do to be informed about what is happening and to let ourselves be formed by what the Church teaches, lest so much happen without the constructive engagement of Catholics and of anyone else concerned about social justice.
Death, disobedience, and sin are not part of the original divine plan, and yet they are manifest facts of human life. How, then, is the divine will to be done by me or any other weak-willed man or woman dwelling in the valley of the shadow of death?