January 22, 2022

Have you ever gotten in trouble because you “took the part for the whole”?  This is the essence of cancer – one cell trying to become the whole organ – and the first sin – our first parents wanting to become God.  We can spend years in the delusion that we have just not grasped onto the right college, the right career, the right spouse, the right neighborhood (or the right religion!), but we discover that our human thriving does not really begin until we have made the turn from grasping to integration.  Indeed, mature adulthood means that we are spiritually secure and spend our time not in a desperate search for the solution, but rather weaving our commitments, responsibilities, ideas, relationships and desires into that one deep truth that grounds every human heart.  This in fact is the pattern of our eternal life!  Lord, teach me to discern the difference between your boundless goodness and the many created goods that surround me.  Give me the courage to surrender the many things that point to you, but are not you.  Lead me to that humble place where I might become “all things to all people” (1 Cor 9:22), and, with your Son, enjoy real connections that withstand the ages.  Help me to become conformed to the whole precisely by playing my part well.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.