An utterly hopeless piece on our imperfect world made of imperfect beings. Yes, let’s reject all “shoulds” since we’ve armed ourselves from head to foot with all these “can’ts”. No wonder the Philippines is in trouble, they’re littered with…. dare I say it… yes I do…. brats who throw temper tantrums while screaming all the while, “I can’t do it! It’s just way too hard!” Don’t you just love the way this speaks to the heart of youth? “You’re good for nothing. You’ll likely end up in the gutter, so don’t even try. You have no reason to think you can master yourself. You have no other choice but to be violent, and coercive, and incontinent. You’re a failure from the day you were born and that’s not likely to change no matter what you do, since the people around you are nothing but failures as well.”

No call to rise beyond our faults and imperfections. No taking the road less taken. Just join the highway of filth and degradation since that’s where you’re likely to end up anyway. No confidence in human ability to rise above one’s basest desires. No hope, no room for God’s grace.

To my kids: I enjoin you, be thankful with me. Thankful for a God who created us, sinners all, and yet not despairing. Thankful for the forgiveness He offers us when we stumble. Thankful for the circumstances and people He’s surrounded us with through the years, for the teachings of our faith, for the knowledge that we are created to be holy, and true, and good, and beautiful. For His Word and His Presence. For the certainty that we are created for more than earthly pleasure. That there is more to life than what’s shallow and fleeting. That life isn’t worth anything if it isn’t being given away, in sacrifice and love for other.

I am thankful for a spouse who every day dies to self and gives me reason to do the same. Thankful for parents who took me by the hand and led me through straight paths. We meandered (more like rebelled) every now and then, but with prayer we haven’t completely lost our way. Thankful for the fact that we can ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to wallow in our own foul excrement, because we are constantly given the grace to rise up and walk away. No, we are not perfect beings. Thank God for that. If we were perfect there would be no need for anyone or anything. We would be our own gods, creating our own rules and traveling the road we’ve paved ourselves, walking — nay, running — to our own self-designed perdition.

As a parent I denounce such thinking. This is the kind of trash no self-respecting mother would want her kids to read. We raise our children to believe in themselves and their capabilities, and to recognize their faults and struggle to conquer them, not use them as lame excuses for failure.

You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. – Matthew 5:48

Oh dear children, we are called to so much more. Don’t let any misguided fool tell you otherwise.

The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I regret to add to the tally, but this was one more piece by a Jesuit-educated young man. There seems to be a bunch of them lately. St. Ignatius obviously disagrees with him. Dear reader, help me pray for his lost soul. Perhaps students are not required to undertake the spiritual exercises. A pity, since they would have been a great help.

A PRAYER OF ST. IGNATIUS TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST

O BELOVED Word of God, teach me to be generous, to serve Thee with that perfection which Thy majesty claims, to give without calculation, to fight without heeding wounds, to labor without repose, to expend myself in Thy service without thought of other reward than that of knowing that I do Thy most holy will. Amen.

On Conquering Self

LORD, it is for the purpose of conquering myself that by Thy grace I have undertaken these holy exercises. It is my rebel will that I desire to vanquish and overcome, my unruly and disordered affections which I desire to put in order, so that my soul may be attentive simply to the seeking and finding of Thy will, and to the following of it alone, in the ordering and disposing of my life.

Give me a generous heart, a heart truly liberal, which, giving itself to Thee, may abandon itself without any reservation to Thee, its Lord and Redeemer.

Lord, so great to all Thy servants, dispose of my life, of my liberty, of all that surrounds me. O my Creator, speak to Thy creature. Behold my soul before Thee: my will is as a scale in a state of perfectly equal balance, which shall only waver to one side or the other when Thou placest in it the weight of Thy will or wish. I ignore all natural inclination; my will is suspended and in a state of perfect indifference. I have but one will and desire, to obey and please Thee. I promise Thee fidelity to my exercises of piety, and to the full time meditation. I foresee the furious assaults of the devil, but I am firmly resolved to yield nothing on this point to his importunities.

I promise Thee to exert my earnest efforts. It is for me to exercise myself, and to labor, even at the cost of suffering if necessary; to examine my soul and to rectify its ways; to call on Thee, to listen to Thee, to obey Thee.

I promise Thee to preserve silence; not only shall my lips remain silent, but my mind shall be drawn off from the cares of life, from the agitations of the world, and from all vanities. I know that this interior and exterior solitude possesses great merit in Thy sight. But above all it leaves me in greater liberty to find that which I so ardently desire; it enables me to approach closely to Thee, to lose none of Thy words, to be better disposed for the receiving of the gifts of Thy divine and supreme goodness.

I think writers like these would have a great future with this company, though: Despair.