I recently presided at a funeral for a child who was stillborn. In preparing, I became convinced that such children and their parents are powerful witnesses to Christian faith. In this column, I’d like to reflect on these children, and in the next two columns on their parents.
And yet the sacramental gift remains a gift. Every priest stores within his heart unspeakable sadness and massive joy, uncertainty in meeting needs and gratitude for the aid of the Holy Spirit.
Over two millennia of Church history, several standards of orthodoxy have served as the pillars on which a correct understanding of the Christian mysteries must be built.
If you ask most people (other than Father Roch) “Do you want to be happy?”, they will likely answer “Yes!” without much hesitation. If you ask them “What is happiness?”, you are likely to get a splendid variety of secular and sacred answers: “Being at peace…getting or doing what I want…living freely…finding meaning in my life…a feeling of bliss…retiring when I want to…sweet vengeance on my enemy…union with God in prayer”. If you ask them, “Why should you be happy?”, they might look confused for a moment…and that moment could yield a fruitful reflection on the depths within oneself.
We typically associate the word “invention” with modern scientific breakthroughs, brilliant and painstaking achievements by geniuses producing civilizational advancements and mastery over the forces of nature.