A Homily on Cana

For the most part, these Monday digests are thoughts about the homily of the day before.  However, since yesterday’s Gospel was on the Manifestation at Cana, I couldn’t resist digging up an old homily which I heard some years ago.  It is a wedding homily, as the reader will discern; but I have removed the personal elements, and I think the meditation on marriage that remains is worth the read.

St. John tells us that the first of Jesus’ miracles took place at a wedding in the small town of Cana in Galilee. There are many lessons to be drawn from this—but the first and most obvious one is that a wedding was important enough to Jesus for him to be there. And he was not there just as a guest: he saved the day. The wine had run out at that wedding. The wine which had been produced by human effort—growing the grapes, picking them in season, crushing them, fermenting the juice—this wine was depleted; it had run its course and was gone. Jesus was asked to do something, to intervene. In order to produce more wine, he converted ordinary water into wine, a wine of superior vintage and quality. And so he turned what could have been a moment of embarrassment for the bride and groom into a moment of triumph for them. His presence at the beginning of their married life together was a source of relief and of joy—and ultimately was the promise of good things to come in that marriage.

This couple wants Jesus to be present in a special way here at their wedding. All the affection and good will of their friends means a great deal to them—but that is the human wine, a wine which ultimately is depleted. They want our Lord’s presence so that, as at the wedding in Cana, he may provide the good wine, the gift of his grace and blessing.

They realize that it takes three to get married—not a man, a woman, and a photographer, but a man, a woman, and God. In a few moments, during the marriage ritual, you will hear the words, “What God has joined, men must not divide." What God has joined. For ultimately, it is God who joins the couple in marriage here this afternoon. God joins them in married love because, He, God, is love. He is not just a great master of love, he is the personification of love. He is a family of three persons who live only for one another—none of whom has a private life apart from the other two, no separate “space.” The only differences among them are the relationships which distinguish the way in which they love one another: a Father, a Son, love personified in the Holy Spirit. This family life of the Holy Trinity is shrouded in a great mystery, as, I suppose, all great love is shrouded in mystery [Eph 5:32].

We too are all called to a love such as this, to this kind of selflessness, to make a gift of ourselves in love. In fact, as Pope John Paul wrote in his first letter to the world, we “cannot live without love. [We] remain … incomprehensible for [our]self, [our] life is senseless, if love is not revealed to [us], if [we] do not encounter love, if [we] do not experience it and make it [our] own, if [we] do not participate intimately in it.” [RH10] St. Augustine wrote: “Our hearts are made for God and they cannot rest until they rest in God.” Hence if human love is to begin to satisfy the human heart, it must imitate God’s love. To love as God loves, to make a total gift of our self to another as God does is, strictly speaking, unreasonable—indeed, humanly speaking, impossible, for why to love one can allege no cause [Shakespeare, 49]. But it becomes possible and reasonable with God’s help and grace—the good wine of Jesus.

Love comes from God [1Jn4:7]. Consequently, when love seems to be running low in our life… when one kills the spirit of love with a perpetual dullness [Shakespeare, 56]… in addition to whatever objective human difficulties there may be, the problem at bottom is—always—that we have not been turning to God to draw upon his help, to seek the good wine which he alone provides to enable us to love. […] And the solution, above and beyond whatever human means need to be taken, ultimately is to turn back to God and to pray to ask help to learn once again to love—to forgive and to give of oneself anew. And thus “kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, / Still constant in a wondrous excellence” [Shakespeare, 105].

Finding love, falling in love is the most significant thing that can happen in the life of a man or a woman. Love enables us to overcome impatience and unkindness and selfishness; it transforms our tendency to be boastful and conceited and rude. Being loved frees the heart to love, to run the risk, the adventure of love. It brings the joy of discovery and at last the freedom to escape the selfishness of selflove. Discovering true personal love opens the eyes of the heart toward the discovery of God. And so it often happens that although God is Love, the Great Lover and source of love in us, and the one who leads us to love, it often takes falling in love to be led to God and be transformed by God. The world looks different to a person in love, and that person look different to the world. There is a difference in the eyes, in the look, in the voice, in the demeanor. The Song of Songs reminds us, “My lover belongs to me and I to him.” It has been a great joy, a wonderful thing for all of us to see this couple fall in love and witness the transforming effect their love has had upon them—and on others. Such a love grows without growing old and without coming to an end. Our prayer today for them is that their love may never die—fortis est ut mors dilectio [Song 8:6]—which we might translate: “Love is stronger than death.”

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Coming to marriage as a bright and mature couple, the bride and bridegroom have experienced the challenge of love and perhaps already the cost and even some of the pain of love. Hence as you pledge yourselves to one another here this afternoon, you come with a love that is strengthened in the forge of loyalty through suffering and hardship. “O benefit of ill, now I find true / That better is by evil still made better, / And ruin’d love when it is built anew / Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater” [Shakespeare, 119].

The road ahead which you walk together to discover God’s love in your lives is, in reality, a double boulevard, each side of which bears a different name. Your avenue, Bridegroom, is named “Bride.” And yours, Bride, bears the name “Bridegroom.” You will grow in love for one another as you learn to discover God coming to you in each other. Like most streets, with time and heavy traffic there may appear potholes, and the street will need some repair… “Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments; love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove. / O no, it is an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken; / It is the star to every wand’ring bark, / Whose worth’s unknown, although his highth be taken” [Shakespeare, 116].

Welcome God when he comes to you with his cross in the challenges and difficulties, as well as when he comes to you in the bliss of shared happiness and joy—and perhaps most especially when he comes to you with an infant’s face, in the mystery of a new life and love in each of the children he may send you.

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As a reminder of these fundamental truths upon which your love will grow, you will carry with you your wedding rings. In times of old, a ring was the sign of royalty, the mark of a king and queen. It bore the royal seal and was a stamp of authority. For you it is also a sign of the authenticity of your commitment to each other and a reminder of the aristocracy of loyalty in love to which you are called.

Your rings are a circle—the perfect form of unity. Like the ring, your love is always beginning anew with every act of love and service, with every moment of forgiveness; and this should have no end. It must ever continue and develop, for love, like every living thing, dies when it ceases to grow. Thus, you will learn to love not once for all, but continually, not taking one another for granted, but always winning each other through newly found details of love and affection and service.

Your rings are a link—the bond of union and fidelity and mystery. This link integrates joy and suffering, which must always go together in this life, to help you grow in integrity. With the years of your fidelity to one another, your love and awe for each other will grow, you will know each other better, and yet each to each will be evermore a mystery.

Finally, your rings are a crown—the crown of the promise of children, which are a token of God’s confidence in you as parents, and the reason for continued courage in bringing the mystery of new life into the world.

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Concluding, I would like to remind all of you here that this is also a moment of grace for you who have come to witness this marriage and give the couple your support. I hope you will indulge me for a moment and forgive me for drawing this parallel, but for those who attend—that is, all but the persons who are most intimately involved and the focal point of the ceremony—coming to a wedding is, in many ways like attending a funeral. You stand on the sidelines witnessing a significant moment of transition in the life of a loved one. A funeral moves you to think of the life and history of the deceased person, to think of the eternal reward to which the person is going, and ultimately to reflect upon your own life: Where you are going, where you have been, what you are living for.

So also, at a wedding, you are not mere spectators, passive participants at the pageant of others’ love. This is a moment of grace for all of you, an invitation to reflect on your love, on your capacity to love, how you have loved, the challenge of giving yourself in love, the love in your life—and for many of you, the love in your own marriage. And it is also a moment in which God gives each of you a grace to grow in your capacity for love and fidelity. That is God’s gift to you for your generosity in coming here this afternoon to witness and support these pledges of love to each other before God at the beginning of their married life.

And this afternoon that gift is a very special gift, for I think I express the sentiments of all of you here when I say that this is a special wedding for a very special couple, and for all of us. As those of you who are older look upon this handsome couple you will find your own love rejuvenated; those who are younger will find an inspiration. “Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm: fortis est ut mors dilectio. This couple, with their example of love and kindness, of loyalty and faithful love, will be an example and encouragement to many of their friends and peers—to lead them to God and to teach them how to love, with a love that goes beyond the grave.

Let me end by reminding you that Jesus’ first miracle took place at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, where he transformed water into very fine wine, and thus came to the aid of a young couple on their wedding day. Jesus was at that wedding because his mother Mary was there. He interceded to help the couple at her request. Mary is also present at this wedding. We ask you, Mary, to intercede here today and forever that your Son may bring the good wine of his grace and his blessings upon this couple.

Forgive and Forget

I once heard a solid old Jesuit preach a homilette—one of those small sermons that crops up right after the prayers of the faithful or just before the final blessing, when Father remembers he forgot something—on the topic of the phrase “forgive and forget.” This phrase (which some incautious parish committee had inserted into the prayers of the faithful) was, the good priest pointed out, problematic. Forgiving is not the same as forgetting, and to suggest that the two are necessarily paired is dangerously misleading.

Yet the conflation of “forgiving” with “forgetting” is all too common. One of the issues, for example, with much of the current official response to the scandal of the Viganò letters, is that mere apologies will not suffice to set things right. Get the laity to grasp how sorry the hierarchy is for their errors of judgment, and all will be forgiven; obtain forgiveness, and everyone will forget that the letter was ever written. That, at least, seems to be the thinking in some corners of the hierarchy.

But the misapprehension is one that colors all of public life. Once upon a time, the worst thing that could happen to a person was that their private sins be found out; the most embarrassing punishment was to be placed in the stocks where all your neighbors could see you and learn (if they didn’t already know) what you had done. Today, in the pillory of Twitter and Facebook, many people outed for politically incorrect or morally abhorrent behavior rushes to stock themselves, hoping that a suitable quantity of abject groveling may leave them with some semblance of a reputation.

Read the rest at the Register.

The Side on Which We Ought to Err

It is a point I have made before, but one which, I think, bears repeating; and it came up again in my reading tonight.

"We all know the cringing, fearful way in which a dog shrinks away from our caresses if he has been previously ill-treated by others.  One meets children whose arm goes up to ward off a blow as soon as anyone in authority approaches them.  The same sort of attitude is often found with regard to God.  He is thought of as a hard master, overexacting and meticulous, setting traps for His creatures, and almost only anxious to catch them in wrong-doing.  No true love of God is possible with such a concept in one's mind.  Yet such ideas exist, and we must take care that we are not responsible for their formation.  That is one reason why, if we must err in dealing with our neighbor, we ought to err on the side of mercy and kindness rather than of justice and rigor."--M. Eugene Boylan, This Tremendous Lover.

I should perhaps underscore that this is a statement what is preferable with regard to personal action, and not a remark regarding any religious or political group or subgroup in particular.  One of the sad tendencies of the world, especially perhaps the social media world today, is to forget personal sanctification in favor of top-down solutions.  The top-down stuff won't work, in no small part because most of those who really do want to make the world a better place aren't in a position to exert real power--but also because, even if they were, they would discover themselves hampered by this pesky thing called human free will.  But the little way operates in any political or social sphere, however dismal, degenerate, or dire.

Sanctity Has a Beauty that Will Save the World

The Tuesday, July 3 edition of NPR’s “All Things Considered” celebrated the anniversary of the encyclical Humanae Vitae with the headline “50 Years Ago, The Pope Called Birth Control ‘Intrinsically Wrong.’”  The story focuses on how the Church’s stance on contraception has led Catholics to contravene Church authority.  Sources include a Jesuit at Boston College (whose Jesuitical charism enables him to twist the Thomistic insight that “‘bad law … breeds contempt for good law’”); a Georgetown researcher; a baby boomer puzzled by how contraception offends God; a millennial who equates NFP with “the ‘rhythm method’”; a divorced mother of seven; a divorced female lay minister; and a priest who finds the word “believe” problematic.

To believe NPR, pro-encyclical representatives have little to say for themselves: Mary Eberstadt is quoted in generalities, an archbishop talks about a desire to retain the Church’s “uniqueness,” and a lay Catholic is concerned about the dilution of an unspecified “‘message.’”  But such “revisionist” views are, according to NPR, in evidence only among “some Catholic conservatives” reacting to “the move toward a more tolerant approach under Pope Francis.”  The piece ends by noting that American Catholics mostly don’t accept the prohibition on contraception, and (according to the Georgetown researcher) “‘The American Catholic church is assimilating ever further into American culture.’”

It is hardly accidental that the piece ran a day before July 4: it reads like a veritable declaration of independence from Church teaching.  Superficially, the main teaching in question is contraception.  But disagreement about artificial birth control is not really the heart of the matter.  What is at stake is a fundamental disagreement about the nature of the family.

For the NPRs of the world, the family is defined by the individuals who make it up.  Every family, they argue, is like every person unique: “Let a thousand flowers bloom.”

On the other side, followers of Pope Paul VI share Leo Tolstoy’s belief that happy families are all alike.  This does not imply that happy families fit a certain rigid structure, that they all practice the same hobbies, or include a certain number of children.  Tolstoy’s axiom suggests rather that there are certain important factors upon which the happiness of a family depends.  According to this viewpoint, while families possess their own unique cultures, a “family” must meet certain baseline criteria in order to be happy—and, to extend the principle, a family must meet a certain baseline definition in order to be a family at all.  This view defines a family in the strict sense as a man and a woman who live together in a way such as is liable to produce children.

That is where the orthodox Catholic’s quarrel with NPR truly lies.  That definition of family is the root matter in dispute when arguments about contraception, IVF, donor babies, divorce, abortion, polygamy, transgenderism, or gay marriage surface.  Sister Lucia of Fatima wrote that “the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family."  If she was correct, then NPR’s latest sally is but one of many in this long-drawn-out war.

But why is there a war at all?

Read the rest at the Register.

Your Dissatisfaction with Your Present State is a Holy Thing

The first act of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta Patience, among its many absurdities, includes the following quatrain, sung by a bevy of poetical maidens and their beaus the British dragoons:

The pain that is all but a pleasure will change

For the pleasure that’s all but pain,

And never, oh never, this heart will range

From that old, old love again!

The absurdity of the quatrain lies in the fact that the love-struck singers will in a very few moments be separated as the maidens discover their latest literary crush: the devastatingly handsome poet Grosvenor.

The story is a deliberate farce.  The author, W.S. Gilbert, meant the lyric as a parody of Victorian sentimentality, which he undoubtedly considered fully as shallow as any aesthetic maiden.  But Gilbert nearly always wrote a little truer than he intended; and the hackneyed paradox on which he seized might (handled well) have done credit to a Donne or a Pope: the paradox of love so strong that it hurts.

That phrase too sounds hackneyed, partly because we have heard it so often that we don’t really hear it at all.  We assume blithely that the pangs of love are due to fear of losing the object of our love.  There is some truth in this assumption.  A wise professor of ethics once told us in his class that from the day we had children we would never lack worry again.  He was right: and a great part of a parent’s worry is the fear that through their actions or neglect something bad will happen to their child.  That is, perhaps, the paradigmatic human fear of loss.

Read the rest at the Register.

Goodbye, Good Families

Not too long ago the New Yorker published a piece on court-appointed “guardians” who steal from the elderly (“How the Elderly Lose Their Rights”).  The article was full of heartbreaking personal stories and troubling legal shenanigans, many of them enabled by laws which seem to have been designed without the best interests of the elderly in mind.  As the story drew near its close, I found myself quickly reviewing where my and my husband’s grandparents lived, and how they were situated, and breathing a sigh of relief at the consideration that nothing like that was likely to happen to them.

But the piece was troubling to say the least; and for hours after I had set it aside, one lingering sentence struck me as especially poignant: the notion, trumpeted by a particularly appalling “guardian,” that family members, even when present in an elderly person’s life, were not to be trusted.  “They just want the money,” was the quote attributed to him.  (And guardians don’t?  Hm …)

Read the rest at the Register.

Francis de Sales on How the Love of God Is Manifest in Conformity and Stability

These are a few highlights from the past week’s reading.

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The great S. Thomas is of opinion that it is not expedient to consult and deliberate much concerning an inclination to enter a good and well-regulated religious Order; for the religious life being counselled by our Saviour in the Gospel, what need is there of many consultations? It is sufficient to make one good one, with a few persons who are thoroughly prudent and capable in such an affair, and who can assist us to make a speedy and solid resolution; but as soon as we have once deliberated and resolved, whether in this matter or in any other that appertains to God's service, we must be constant and immovable, not permitting ourselves to be shaken by any appearances of a greater good: for very often, says the glorious S. Bernard, the devil deludes us, and to draw us from the effecting of one good he proposes unto us some other good, that seems better; and after we have started this, he, in order to divert us from effecting it, presents a third, ready to let us make plenty of beginnings if only we do not make an end. We should not even go from one Order to another without very weighty motives, says S. Thomas, following the Abbot Nestorius cited by Cassian. I borrow from the great S. Anselm (writing to Lanzo) a beautiful similitude. As a plant often transplanted can never take root, nor, consequently, come to perfection and return the expected fruit; so the soul that transplants her heart from design to design cannot do well, nor come to the true growth of her perfection, since perfection does not consist in beginnings but in accomplishments. The sacred living creatures of Ezechiel went whither the impulse of the spirit was to go, and they turned not when they went, and every one of them went straight forward: we are to go whither the inspiration moves us, not turning about, nor returning back, but tending thither, whither God has turned our face, without changing our gaze. He that is in a good way, let him step out and get on. It happens sometimes that we forsake the good to seek the better, and that having forsaken the one we find not the other: better is the possession of a small treasure found, than the expectation of a greater which is to find. The inspiration which moves us to quit a real good which we enjoy in order to gain a better in the future, is to be suspected. A young Portuguese, called Francis Bassus, was admirable, not only in divine eloquence but also in the practice of virtue, under the discipline of the Blessed (S.) Philip Neri in the Congregation of the Oratory at Rome. Now he persuaded himself that he was inspired to leave this holy society, to place himself in an Order, strictly so called, and at last he resolved to do so. But the B. Philip, assisting at his reception into the Order of S. Dominic, wept bitterly; whereupon being asked by Francis Marie Tauruse, afterwards Archbishop of Siena and Cardinal, why he shed tears: I deplore, said he, the loss of so many virtues. And in fact this young man, who was so excellently good and devout in the Congregation, after he became a religious was so inconstant and fickle, that agitated with various desires of novelties and changes, he gave afterwards great and grievous scandal. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book VIII, Ch.XI)

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Now one of the best marks of the goodness of all inspirations in general, and particularly of extraordinary ones, is the peace and tranquillity of the heart that receives them: for though indeed the Holy Ghost is violent, yet his violence is gentle, sweet and peaceful. He comes as a mighty wind, and as a heavenly thunder, but he does not overthrow the Apostles, he troubles them not; the fear which they had in hearing the sound was of no continuance, but was immediately followed by a sweet assurance. That is why this fire sits upon each of them, taking and causing a sacred repose; and as our Saviour is called a peaceful or pacific Solomon, so is his spouse called Sulamitess, calm and daughter of peace: and the voice, that is, the inspiration, of the bridegroom does not in any sort disquiet or trouble her, but draws her so sweetly that he makes her soul deliciously melt and, as it were, flow out into him: My soul, says she, melted when my beloved spoke: and though she be warlike and martial, yet is she withal so peaceable, that amidst armies and battles she maintains the concord of an unequalled melody. What shalt thou see, saith she, in the Sulamitess but the choirs of armies? Her armies are choirs, that is, harmonies of singers; and her choirs are armies, because the weapons of the Church and of the devout soul, are only prayers, hymns, canticles and psalms. Thus it is that those servants of God who had the highest and sublimest inspirations were the most mild and peaceable men in the world, as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob: Moses is styled the meekest of men; David is lauded for his mildness. On the contrary, the evil spirit is turbulent, rough, disturbing; and those who follow infernal suggestions, taking them to be heavenly inspirations, are as a rule easily known, because they are unquiet, headstrong, haughty, ready to undertake or meddle with all affairs, men who under the cloak of zeal turn everything upside down, censure every one, chide every one, find fault with everything; they are persons who will not be directed, will not give in to any one, will bear nothing, but gratify the passions of self-love under the name of jealousy for God's honour.  (Treatise on the Love of God, Book VIII, Ch. XII)

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I speak of a noble, real, productive and solid humility, which makes us supple to correction,
pliable and prompt to obedience. While the incomparable Simeon Stylites was yet a novice at
Teleda, he made himself indocile to the advice of his superiors, who wished to hinder him from practising so many strange austerities, which he did with an inordinate cruelty to himself; so that at length he was on this account turned out of the monastery, as being too little capable of the mortification of the heart, and too much addicted to that of the body. But having entered into himself and become more devout, and more prudent in the spiritual life, he behaved quite differently, as he showed in the following action. When the hermits who were dispersed through the deserts near Antioch knew the extraordinary life which he led upon the pillar, in which he seemed to be either an earthly angel or a heavenly man, they despatched a messenger whom they ordered to speak thus to him from them: Why dost thou, Simeon, leaving the highway trodden by so many great and holy predecessors, follow another, unknown of men, and so different from all that has been seen or heard to this day? Simeon, quit this pillar, and come amongst other men to live, after the manner of life and way of serving God used by the good Fathers who have gone before us. In case Simeon, yielding to their advice and giving in to their will, should show himself ready to descend, they had charged 360 the deputy to leave him free to persevere in the manner of life he had begun, because by his obedience, said those good Fathers, it could well be known that he had undertaken this kind of life by the divine inspiration: but in case he should resist, and, despising their exhortations, follow his own will, it would be necessary to withdraw him thence by violence, and force him to forsake his pillar. The deputy then, being come to the pillar, had no sooner delivered his message, than the great Simeon, without delay, without reservation, without any reply, began to descend with an obedience and humility worthy of his rare sanctity. Which when the deputy saw: stay, said he, O Simeon! remain there, persevere with constancy, take courage, pursue thy enterprise valiantly; thy abiding upon this pillar is from God. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book VIII, Ch. XIII)

source

Manuscript Illumination with Saint Dominic Saving the Church

of Saint John Lateran in an Initial A, from a Gradual

Of Lives Worth Living

“Je suis Charlie Hebdo,” said the signs.  Terrorism is indeed a terrible thing, and understandably calls out sentiments of solidarity.  I would not call the Charlie Gard case an instance of terrorism, but it terrifies me and, as a mother, it terrifies me on a personal level.  If a court in England can decide when someone’s child no longer has a quality of life worth preserving, how long before a court in America can make that decision?  And what if, God forbid, it were my child whose case the court was examining?  So, to co-opt a phrase, Je suis la mère de Charlie Gard.

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The other day, as some of us were discussing the matter, lines sprang to mind, lines familiar from childhood, imprinted in the static-y tones of an old cassette tape.

“If someone loves a flower, one single blossom among all the millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy, just to look at the stars—because he can say to himself, ‘Somewhere, my flower is there.’  But if a sheep eats the flower, then in one moment for him all the stars will be darkened.  And you think this is not important?!”

It was hard at first to articulate why the lines felt relevant to the case of Charlie Gard; but I think I have an inkling now.

The proponents of euthanasia talk about quality of life, and occasionally about dignity.  But they define these terms narrowly: generally, by observation of the purely physical.  They talk of pain and comfort.  I cannot recall an instance where they talked of love.  But it is love which, as Saint-Exupéry reminds us, makes us happy—not to talk with the beloved, not even to be with the beloved, but simply to know that they exist.  “If someone loves a flower … it is enough to make him happy … [to] say to himself, ‘Somewhere, my flower is there.’”

I suppose someone might retort, “Yes, that’s all very well; but if the flower is unhappy, or the flower does not even know of its gardener’s existence, why bother so much about the gardener’s feelings?  Isn’t he a bit selfish to ask that his flower keep blooming while he, planets and planets away, looks smugly at his millions of stars?”

If one is asking about the flower of Saint-Exupéry, then my rejoinder is that one ought to read The Little Prince.  But of course, one would really be asking about Charlie Gard, and Terri Schiavo, and all the rest of us who may some day be in their condition, or have a loved one who is.  And to that question, my answer would be this:

There is an economy of love that knows next to nothing of the physical world.  If someone loves a flower, this is good for the flower too—yes, even if the flower is for the time being through some circumstance neither pruned nor sheltered nor watered nor smelled.  The flower too is happy, in the old sense related to “hap”; the flower is fortunate.  And not fortunate because of the good things it received in the past or may receive in the future, but fortunate because it is loved, even if it is ignorant of that fact.

No one can deny that being loved is good, as being healthy or rich is a good.  Health, however, is useless to a hypochondriac and riches are useless to a man who does not know that they are buried in his field.  Health and riches are good for use; they are good when they are enjoyed; their value lies in their employment in various activities.  But love and being loved are not good for activities; they are activities.  One does not speak of “enjoying” loving or being loved (except callously); certainly we would judge that anyone who speaks of “using” love does not know what the word means.  Other things are given a value by the human beings who have them: by the market, or the taste of the individual, or the customs of the country.  But love works in the other way: love cannot be made greater because human beings value it highly, nor can it be made less because human beings undervalue it; rather, love gives us value.  We are what we are because we have been loved: by our spouses, our parents, our children, our friends, the strangers who change our bedpans—and by God.  Most of all, by God.

I suppose to anyone who does not already take a supernatural interest in things, this will sound irrational.  I am afraid that even to anyone who agrees with my ethical concerns, it may appear hopelessly soppy.  But I do think that this is one of the true reasons why it is wrong to take an innocent life: because there is an intangible value to each person’s existence, making it in some perhaps mysterious wise worthwhile to them, due to the love they receive, an everlasting love which nevertheless bears up their existence in this brief particular moment of space and time.