It may sound like an unwanted reminder, but I think we need to give a boost to these basic and indispensable exercises no matter how old and accomplished we may be by now.
I believe that the older and more accomplished we are, the more sharply we should feel the need to read, write and study. These activities correspond to our human nature as persons and dignity as children of God.
Sad to say, now we see many people neglecting this duty and thus we see the logical consequences. Many do not know anymore how to think properly, how to express themselves adequately, how to argue and reason.
Many people do not know how to relate things together and come out with well-integrated views. Now we find it harder to get beyond the immediate and concrete environment, beyond current biases and conditionings.
We may display an impressive facade of sophistication, given the amount of date we may have. But since these data are now well-processed, we still end up clueless, naive, even gullible.
Complicating this veneer of superficiality, narrow-mindedness and short-sightedness is the likelihood of self-righteousness and malice. We have to be more aware of this possibility. How is this to happen?
Our nature cannot suppress the spontaneous working of our will or ego. If that ego is not given its true bearing, thus acting as a child of God, then it seeks to be puffed up, not with real substance but with hot air. We start acting like something other than a child of God.
Thus, a growing environment of confusion, error and arrogant ignorance is made. Maliciously cultivated self-images of ourselves proliferate. We won't be talking with real persons anymore, but with masks and objects.
I just wonder where all these would lead us. Thus, we need to rouse ourselves and do something drastic. Reading, writing and studying are basic skills we always need to do to keep and develop our humanity.
Reading, writing and studying help us to perceive and live in a reality more proper to us--not in a world of the material and the physical only, but also in the world of the spiritual.
These skills allow us to enter into areas otherwise closed to the power of our senses. They expand our world, deepen our perceptions, exercise our distinctively human powers as compared to our merely animal powers.
These skills enable us to enter into meaningful dialogue with the past and the present worlds, to participate in some global dialogue and debate, to shape our future somehow. They figure prominently in our ongoing, lifelong formation.
They let us develop a sense of the global market of ideas, important for us to develop also a sense of what we can contribute to this market, much like what a business entrepreneur does.
They effectively ground us in history, culture and tradition, while sharpening in us a sense of creativity and inventiveness. They are indispensable to actualize our potentials and to pursue our goal of wisdom and maturity.
We have to rouse ourselves from our tendency to be passive and complacent with respect to knowledge, contented with simply watching TV or relying on the media alone, listening to gossips or pursuing idle curiosities.
In all these, effort has to be made to do all our reading, writing and studying in the presence of God. Otherwise, we tend to fail to distinguish between fact and fiction, truths and products of our imagination, beliefs and make-believe. And we would get into more serious trouble.
Let us encourage everyone to develop the habit of reading, writing and studying!
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Weirdos?
St. Paul already warned us quite clearly. Those who take their Christian faith seriously better be prepared to be humiliated and treated like a laughing stock.
“We have been made a spectacle to the world…we are fools for Christ…we are maligned…we have become as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all.” (1 Cor 4,9-13)
Talking about Christ, now as it was then, will always meet some resistance. “For the Jews ask for signs, and the Greeks look for ‘wisdom,’ but we, for our part preach a crucified Christ—to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block and to the Gentiles foolishness.” (1 Cor 1,22-23)
These thoughts came to mind when I was following some commentaries related to the forthcoming showing of the film, “Da Vinci Code.”
Yes, dear, we are now in the middle of a media firestorm to hype this controversial movie. So, we just have to activate our critical mind. We cannot be naïve. Times are extremely tricky.
The usual tack used by most commentators is that we should not be too bothered by this movie, since after all the author of the book on which it based said it’s just fiction.
Actually this view amuses me more than piques me. I smell naiveté here or a sense of helplessness. It is as if these hardened commentators suddenly become ignorant of the many tricks and gimmicks in this world.
What most amused me most was to read a columnist who said that those who are asking for the banning of the movie are actually “weirdos.” Now, wait a
minute! Am I now a weirdo?
Though I’m too old to be talking about banning and boycotting a movie, I just can not let a movie that satirizes my faith, my most intimate treasure, to pass by without me airing some complaint.
How would you react if someone approaches you to say the he has just written a book, now being made into a movie, and that he has used your wife or mother as the main character, portraying her as a slut, but that you should not worry because the book is just fiction?
If to complain about this development is to be a weirdo, then by all means I am one such weirdo.
The problem we have is that many of us are such suckers of any movie and novel that we seem not to mind anymore if there are certain basic values that are being perverted in the process.
Especially if the movie has some action, drama or feel-good themes, or it has some titillating sex scenes, it seems to me that we can just forget about the integrity of our faith.
This, in my view, is again another manifestation of addiction and obsession. And I must say this phenomenon is quite widespread.
I find this funny, because many people come to me and ask why they have a hard time praying, etc. I also ask them, how many hours do you spend on TV and the DVD? I always find a correlation between more movies and less prayer.
We need to discipline ourselves. We need to be more discerning. As I said, I will not talk about banning or boycotting the movie. The nature of the story itself should tell us whether it should have been written in the first place, then read and promoted, then filmed and watched.
Alas, we expose the real problem we have. It has many layers. Among them, that many of us are so weak we cannot say no to any curiosity that may grip us. Worse, is the crisis of faith that many of us are having, most of the time not even being aware of it.
As for me, I remain unrepentant in pursuing my resolution not to read the book, much less to see the film. And I will pray for divine mercy and divine retribution.
“We have been made a spectacle to the world…we are fools for Christ…we are maligned…we have become as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all.” (1 Cor 4,9-13)
Talking about Christ, now as it was then, will always meet some resistance. “For the Jews ask for signs, and the Greeks look for ‘wisdom,’ but we, for our part preach a crucified Christ—to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block and to the Gentiles foolishness.” (1 Cor 1,22-23)
These thoughts came to mind when I was following some commentaries related to the forthcoming showing of the film, “Da Vinci Code.”
Yes, dear, we are now in the middle of a media firestorm to hype this controversial movie. So, we just have to activate our critical mind. We cannot be naïve. Times are extremely tricky.
The usual tack used by most commentators is that we should not be too bothered by this movie, since after all the author of the book on which it based said it’s just fiction.
Actually this view amuses me more than piques me. I smell naiveté here or a sense of helplessness. It is as if these hardened commentators suddenly become ignorant of the many tricks and gimmicks in this world.
What most amused me most was to read a columnist who said that those who are asking for the banning of the movie are actually “weirdos.” Now, wait a
minute! Am I now a weirdo?
Though I’m too old to be talking about banning and boycotting a movie, I just can not let a movie that satirizes my faith, my most intimate treasure, to pass by without me airing some complaint.
How would you react if someone approaches you to say the he has just written a book, now being made into a movie, and that he has used your wife or mother as the main character, portraying her as a slut, but that you should not worry because the book is just fiction?
If to complain about this development is to be a weirdo, then by all means I am one such weirdo.
The problem we have is that many of us are such suckers of any movie and novel that we seem not to mind anymore if there are certain basic values that are being perverted in the process.
Especially if the movie has some action, drama or feel-good themes, or it has some titillating sex scenes, it seems to me that we can just forget about the integrity of our faith.
This, in my view, is again another manifestation of addiction and obsession. And I must say this phenomenon is quite widespread.
I find this funny, because many people come to me and ask why they have a hard time praying, etc. I also ask them, how many hours do you spend on TV and the DVD? I always find a correlation between more movies and less prayer.
We need to discipline ourselves. We need to be more discerning. As I said, I will not talk about banning or boycotting the movie. The nature of the story itself should tell us whether it should have been written in the first place, then read and promoted, then filmed and watched.
Alas, we expose the real problem we have. It has many layers. Among them, that many of us are so weak we cannot say no to any curiosity that may grip us. Worse, is the crisis of faith that many of us are having, most of the time not even being aware of it.
As for me, I remain unrepentant in pursuing my resolution not to read the book, much less to see the film. And I will pray for divine mercy and divine retribution.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Keeping Christ alive
OF course, Christ is always alive, whether we are aware of it or not.He is God. But as the Easter Triduum reminded us, he truly died, a victim of all our sins. And on the third day he rose again. He now lives, and forever. "Why seek the living one among the dead?" (Lk 24,5)
We have to be more aware of this truth, and be more consistent to this reality. Our problem is that we are good in professing it--even turgid and pompous in expressing it--but our life many times reflects the opposite.
Christ, for many of us, remains dead, a figure buried in the past, a word, an idea, a psychological crutch, a pious decoration, a political tool, a mere symbol. We mangle him again, use and abuse him, exploit him to suit our will.
The constant challenge we have is how to activate our faith such that Christ is truly alive in us. He should be present in our mind and heart, in our lips and senses. We should continually deal with him, speaking to him, consulting him, asking, begging, etc.
Christ should be in our thoughts and desires. He should be inside us and outside us as well. We should learn to see his face, no matter how disfigured, everywhere and in everyone.
We should look for him, find, love and serve him in all aspects of our lives--personal, family, social, professional, business, political, etc. This is the challenge. But how can we effectively meet this challenge?
Even before consciously activating our faith, our common sense will already tell us that we have to exert the effort to deal with him, trying to get to know him better, to spend time with him, to stay close to him.
From this basic intuition, we will realize through our faith that we need to develop certain indispensable practices and habits, like praying, spiritual reading, having recourse to the sacraments, undertaking a lifelong ascetical struggle, and having other norms of piety truly helpful to us in all our circumstances.
We have to realize that we need to study well the doctrines of Christ, now left with the Church and authoritatively taught by it. These doctrines are not just brilliant ideas. They are the living Christ impacting on our human condition. They have to be taken seriously.
We need to be mature Christians, "unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ," as St. Paul told us (Eph 4,13), Christians who know how to be so both in the Church and in the world, in name and in deeds, actively pursuing God's plan for man through the apostolate.
But, alas, these things can sound Greek to many. The truth is many of us appear helplessly gripped in worldly allurements. We seem completely infatuated with the world, and our taste for the sacred is disappearing.
This situation, of course, makes us prone to worse things. St. Paul talked about us being like "children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Eph 4,14)
Worse, St. Paul also warned us that "there shall be a time when people will not endure sound doctrine, but will heap to themselves teachers according to their own lusts...and will turn away their hearing from the truth, but will turn to fables." (2 Tim 4,3-4)
This, in my view, is what is happening in the phenomenon of the "Da Vinci Code" book and forthcoming film, and the recent issue of the "Gospel of Judas."
The curiosity generated by these things speaks volumes of the kind of Christian life many people are having these days. This is really lamentable, made worse when all sorts of rationalizations are made to prop that curiosity.
Sometimes, I wonder why with all the achievements of modern science and technology, we still appear quite naive with respect to our faith and worldly matters. We cannot seem to outgrow it.
Christ is alive! He is in the Holy Eucharist and in the sacraments and in the Gospels. He is in the Church and also in the world, and in every person, rich or poor. We have to find a way to find him and love him truly with deeds whatever the circumstance!
We have to be more aware of this truth, and be more consistent to this reality. Our problem is that we are good in professing it--even turgid and pompous in expressing it--but our life many times reflects the opposite.
Christ, for many of us, remains dead, a figure buried in the past, a word, an idea, a psychological crutch, a pious decoration, a political tool, a mere symbol. We mangle him again, use and abuse him, exploit him to suit our will.
The constant challenge we have is how to activate our faith such that Christ is truly alive in us. He should be present in our mind and heart, in our lips and senses. We should continually deal with him, speaking to him, consulting him, asking, begging, etc.
Christ should be in our thoughts and desires. He should be inside us and outside us as well. We should learn to see his face, no matter how disfigured, everywhere and in everyone.
We should look for him, find, love and serve him in all aspects of our lives--personal, family, social, professional, business, political, etc. This is the challenge. But how can we effectively meet this challenge?
Even before consciously activating our faith, our common sense will already tell us that we have to exert the effort to deal with him, trying to get to know him better, to spend time with him, to stay close to him.
From this basic intuition, we will realize through our faith that we need to develop certain indispensable practices and habits, like praying, spiritual reading, having recourse to the sacraments, undertaking a lifelong ascetical struggle, and having other norms of piety truly helpful to us in all our circumstances.
We have to realize that we need to study well the doctrines of Christ, now left with the Church and authoritatively taught by it. These doctrines are not just brilliant ideas. They are the living Christ impacting on our human condition. They have to be taken seriously.
We need to be mature Christians, "unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ," as St. Paul told us (Eph 4,13), Christians who know how to be so both in the Church and in the world, in name and in deeds, actively pursuing God's plan for man through the apostolate.
But, alas, these things can sound Greek to many. The truth is many of us appear helplessly gripped in worldly allurements. We seem completely infatuated with the world, and our taste for the sacred is disappearing.
This situation, of course, makes us prone to worse things. St. Paul talked about us being like "children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Eph 4,14)
Worse, St. Paul also warned us that "there shall be a time when people will not endure sound doctrine, but will heap to themselves teachers according to their own lusts...and will turn away their hearing from the truth, but will turn to fables." (2 Tim 4,3-4)
This, in my view, is what is happening in the phenomenon of the "Da Vinci Code" book and forthcoming film, and the recent issue of the "Gospel of Judas."
The curiosity generated by these things speaks volumes of the kind of Christian life many people are having these days. This is really lamentable, made worse when all sorts of rationalizations are made to prop that curiosity.
Sometimes, I wonder why with all the achievements of modern science and technology, we still appear quite naive with respect to our faith and worldly matters. We cannot seem to outgrow it.
Christ is alive! He is in the Holy Eucharist and in the sacraments and in the Gospels. He is in the Church and also in the world, and in every person, rich or poor. We have to find a way to find him and love him truly with deeds whatever the circumstance!
Keeping Christ alive
OF course, Christ is always alive, whether we are aware of it or not.He is God. But as the Easter Triduum reminded us, he truly died, a victim of all our sins. And on the third day he rose again. He now lives, and forever. "Why seek the living one among the dead?" (Lk 24,5)
We have to be more aware of this truth, and be more consistent to this reality. Our problem is that we are good in professing it--even turgid and pompous in expressing it--but our life many times reflects the opposite.
Christ, for many of us, remains dead, a figure buried in the past, a word, an idea, a psychological crutch, a pious decoration, a political tool, a mere symbol. We mangle him again, use and abuse him, exploit him to suit our will.
The constant challenge we have is how to activate our faith such that Christ is truly alive in us. He should be present in our mind and heart, in our lips and senses. We should continually deal with him, speaking to him, consulting him, asking, begging, etc.
Christ should be in our thoughts and desires. He should be inside us and outside us as well. We should learn to see his face, no matter how disfigured, everywhere and in everyone.
We should look for him, find, love and serve him in all aspects of our lives--personal, family, social, professional, business, political, etc. This is the challenge. But how can we effectively meet this challenge?
Even before consciously activating our faith, our common sense will already tell us that we have to exert the effort to deal with him, trying to get to know him better, to spend time with him, to stay close to him.
From this basic intuition, we will realize through our faith that we need to develop certain indispensable practices and habits, like praying, spiritual reading, having recourse to the sacraments, undertaking a lifelong ascetical struggle, and having other norms of piety truly helpful to us in all our circumstances.
We have to realize that we need to study well the doctrines of Christ, now left with the Church and authoritatively taught by it. These doctrines are not just brilliant ideas. They are the living Christ impacting on our human condition. They have to be taken seriously.
We need to be mature Christians, "unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ," as St. Paul told us (Eph 4,13), Christians who know how to be so both in the Church and in the world, in name and in deeds, actively pursuing God's plan for man through the apostolate.
But, alas, these things can sound Greek to many. The truth is many of us appear helplessly gripped in worldly allurements. We seem completely infatuated with the world, and our taste for the sacred is disappearing.
This situation, of course, makes us prone to worse things. St. Paul talked about us being like "children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Eph 4,14)
Worse, St. Paul also warned us that "there shall be a time when people will not endure sound doctrine, but will heap to themselves teachers according to their own lusts...and will turn away their hearing from the truth, but will turn to fables." (2 Tim 4,3-4)
This, in my view, is what is happening in the phenomenon of the "Da Vinci Code" book and forthcoming film, and the recent issue of the "Gospel of Judas."
The curiosity generated by these things speaks volumes of the kind of Christian life many people are having these days. This is really lamentable, made worse when all sorts of rationalizations are made to prop that curiosity.
Sometimes, I wonder why with all the achievements of modern science and technology, we still appear quite naive with respect to our faith and worldly matters. We cannot seem to outgrow it.
Christ is alive! He is in the Holy Eucharist and in the sacraments and in the Gospels. He is in the Church and also in the world, and in every person, rich or poor. We have to find a way to find him and love him truly with deeds whatever the circumstance!
We have to be more aware of this truth, and be more consistent to this reality. Our problem is that we are good in professing it--even turgid and pompous in expressing it--but our life many times reflects the opposite.
Christ, for many of us, remains dead, a figure buried in the past, a word, an idea, a psychological crutch, a pious decoration, a political tool, a mere symbol. We mangle him again, use and abuse him, exploit him to suit our will.
The constant challenge we have is how to activate our faith such that Christ is truly alive in us. He should be present in our mind and heart, in our lips and senses. We should continually deal with him, speaking to him, consulting him, asking, begging, etc.
Christ should be in our thoughts and desires. He should be inside us and outside us as well. We should learn to see his face, no matter how disfigured, everywhere and in everyone.
We should look for him, find, love and serve him in all aspects of our lives--personal, family, social, professional, business, political, etc. This is the challenge. But how can we effectively meet this challenge?
Even before consciously activating our faith, our common sense will already tell us that we have to exert the effort to deal with him, trying to get to know him better, to spend time with him, to stay close to him.
From this basic intuition, we will realize through our faith that we need to develop certain indispensable practices and habits, like praying, spiritual reading, having recourse to the sacraments, undertaking a lifelong ascetical struggle, and having other norms of piety truly helpful to us in all our circumstances.
We have to realize that we need to study well the doctrines of Christ, now left with the Church and authoritatively taught by it. These doctrines are not just brilliant ideas. They are the living Christ impacting on our human condition. They have to be taken seriously.
We need to be mature Christians, "unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ," as St. Paul told us (Eph 4,13), Christians who know how to be so both in the Church and in the world, in name and in deeds, actively pursuing God's plan for man through the apostolate.
But, alas, these things can sound Greek to many. The truth is many of us appear helplessly gripped in worldly allurements. We seem completely infatuated with the world, and our taste for the sacred is disappearing.
This situation, of course, makes us prone to worse things. St. Paul talked about us being like "children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Eph 4,14)
Worse, St. Paul also warned us that "there shall be a time when people will not endure sound doctrine, but will heap to themselves teachers according to their own lusts...and will turn away their hearing from the truth, but will turn to fables." (2 Tim 4,3-4)
This, in my view, is what is happening in the phenomenon of the "Da Vinci Code" book and forthcoming film, and the recent issue of the "Gospel of Judas."
The curiosity generated by these things speaks volumes of the kind of Christian life many people are having these days. This is really lamentable, made worse when all sorts of rationalizations are made to prop that curiosity.
Sometimes, I wonder why with all the achievements of modern science and technology, we still appear quite naive with respect to our faith and worldly matters. We cannot seem to outgrow it.
Christ is alive! He is in the Holy Eucharist and in the sacraments and in the Gospels. He is in the Church and also in the world, and in every person, rich or poor. We have to find a way to find him and love him truly with deeds whatever the circumstance!
Saturday, April 1, 2006
Graduation thoughts
AS chaplain of a number of schools, l can’t help but get involved in the preparation and celebration of the graduation of students. I consider it a very rewarding privilege, especially when I finally get to celebrate the Holy Mass for them and to say my little piece of reflections.
Graduations are blessed occasions to give thanks to God and to many others—parents, teachers, students, etc. They also allow us to consider again certain basic truths that we tend to take for granted.
In my view, graduations remind us that our life here on earth is made of parts and stages. Graduations, among other things, precisely mark these points of transition. But they actually point to a very important truth.
And this is none other than that our life, though made of different parts and stages, is actually one, the very one created by God though procreated by parents, and meant to participate in the very life of God.
It is a life that comes from God and belongs to God. Given our nature and the way we are, it is a life meant to be knowingly and lovingly offered to God. Man is meaningless without God.
The basic structure of our life can readily validate this truth. The different parts of our being—our intelligence, our will, our emotions and bodily aspects, even our social life—find their proper objects in God.
But these truths are often taken for granted. And sometimes from this indifference and complacency, a more serious attitude of disbelief can develop with a matching moral life that can not rid itself from sin and evil.
The problem that we often have is to consider education independently of God. The problem comes when we pursue our idea of human development and maturity outside of the forces of religion and faith.
The problem develops when we simply depend and rely on our own powers, often forgetting that these powers—our intelligence and will, especially—come from God, and have to be used according to God’s laws, not simply to our own will.
This problem can become so widespread that we can talk about a certain secularization, that is, a systematic removal of God from all human affairs, replacing him with our own ideas of what is good and bad. We develop a secularized world.
We now make ourselves our own God, the ultimate creator and designer of the world, of what is right and wrong, etc. And thus, everything now depends on us. What we cannot cope, we simply dismiss, and we don’t seem to care about what would happen. This is the ultimate expression of self-deification.
The task of education is precisely to form men and women into real persons aware of who they really are and what they ought to be and do. This is when we realize that we need to pray to be in constant contact with God.
Education develops the different aspects of our life with God as the ultimate and constant principle, goal, pattern and driving source of energy. The challenge is how we can make this truth a living reality in all of us.
Only in this way can we, for example, pursue our physical development that would feel the need for modesty and chastity. The pursuit for beauty and strength would be cleared of vanity and arrogance.
Our intellectual development would always follow the objective standards of truth and recognize the role of faith. It would always be exercised in humility.
Only in this way can we use our freedom properly, vitally linking it to truth, and thus making it compatible always with responsibility and obedience. Freedom would never be a capricious, licentious freedom.
Graduations make us realize all these, and many, many more. Remember, they mark those points of transition that connect us to other stages until we reach our proper end, and that’s God, our Creator, Father and Savior.
Graduations are blessed occasions to give thanks to God and to many others—parents, teachers, students, etc. They also allow us to consider again certain basic truths that we tend to take for granted.
In my view, graduations remind us that our life here on earth is made of parts and stages. Graduations, among other things, precisely mark these points of transition. But they actually point to a very important truth.
And this is none other than that our life, though made of different parts and stages, is actually one, the very one created by God though procreated by parents, and meant to participate in the very life of God.
It is a life that comes from God and belongs to God. Given our nature and the way we are, it is a life meant to be knowingly and lovingly offered to God. Man is meaningless without God.
The basic structure of our life can readily validate this truth. The different parts of our being—our intelligence, our will, our emotions and bodily aspects, even our social life—find their proper objects in God.
But these truths are often taken for granted. And sometimes from this indifference and complacency, a more serious attitude of disbelief can develop with a matching moral life that can not rid itself from sin and evil.
The problem that we often have is to consider education independently of God. The problem comes when we pursue our idea of human development and maturity outside of the forces of religion and faith.
The problem develops when we simply depend and rely on our own powers, often forgetting that these powers—our intelligence and will, especially—come from God, and have to be used according to God’s laws, not simply to our own will.
This problem can become so widespread that we can talk about a certain secularization, that is, a systematic removal of God from all human affairs, replacing him with our own ideas of what is good and bad. We develop a secularized world.
We now make ourselves our own God, the ultimate creator and designer of the world, of what is right and wrong, etc. And thus, everything now depends on us. What we cannot cope, we simply dismiss, and we don’t seem to care about what would happen. This is the ultimate expression of self-deification.
The task of education is precisely to form men and women into real persons aware of who they really are and what they ought to be and do. This is when we realize that we need to pray to be in constant contact with God.
Education develops the different aspects of our life with God as the ultimate and constant principle, goal, pattern and driving source of energy. The challenge is how we can make this truth a living reality in all of us.
Only in this way can we, for example, pursue our physical development that would feel the need for modesty and chastity. The pursuit for beauty and strength would be cleared of vanity and arrogance.
Our intellectual development would always follow the objective standards of truth and recognize the role of faith. It would always be exercised in humility.
Only in this way can we use our freedom properly, vitally linking it to truth, and thus making it compatible always with responsibility and obedience. Freedom would never be a capricious, licentious freedom.
Graduations make us realize all these, and many, many more. Remember, they mark those points of transition that connect us to other stages until we reach our proper end, and that’s God, our Creator, Father and Savior.
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