The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1958-10-10
JOSEPH BREIC-
Life Could
Be Beautiful

Do you suppose the family of mankind will ever
be filled with such charity that merely being alive
will be one big rollicking lark, and every day viii be
like Tiny Tins Christmas, plus the beginning OF 4
vacation, plus a birthday party, plus a honeymoon,
plus a three.ring circus-al poured together, heaped
up, pressed down and running over?
Life could be like that, you know, if ever all of
us began to live it-or even began seriously to try
to live it-according to Gods will. There is no use
in saying that so to live is impossible. 1t is perfectly
possible with God; but the trouble is that we won't
open the door of the world and invite God in.
THE CLOWNS in the circus express the poig-
nancy of our fallen state perhaps better than all the
plays and books ever written, and all the sermons
ever preached. They are preposterous, they are
laughter-provoking-and their faces are sad. Out of
the ancient forgotten wisdom of the human race, they
seem to be saying to us that life ought to be a
huge f~roic; only it isnt-and that is our tragedy.
The difficulty of charity mean unwearying
charity-is rooted in the fact that thus far in our
history it calls for heroism because it is SO lonely. The
Cure of AIRS, st. John Vianney, was a man of gigantic
physical strength, who could rlthlessly have had his
way in most things. But he was a saint and a priest
who had given his heart to God and man, and was de-
termined to live with the bargain to the end.
He DID SO; but at what cost! Often as he forced
his way through each day of self-sacrifice,. he would
cry out to himself in the corridors of his own soul,
Courage. Courage With iron determination he
would manacle his impulse to lose patience with the
selfishness, the sloth, the greeds and g%rabbingS, the
angers and lusts, the sins he saw all around him.
The life of the Cure of AIRS would have been a
singing and dancing and Santajolly thing if only
his love had been returned; if everybody had been
competing with him in good deeds, in devotion to
Christ the Savior, in giving and not taking, in the
splendor of being what he was made to be, the image
and likeness of the living God. But the strange sorrow
that we see in the painted faces of the circus clowns
lay heavy upon the Cure, because men and women
are not filled with good love for one another.
WE ARE NOT FILLED with this good love be-
cause we will not let God fill us with it. God became
one of us in Christ who gave us all that He had to
give, which was everything; but we will not have
Him, we will not let Him transform us, we run from
the joys He tries to give as the swine ran into the
sea when He cast out devils. @N
We will not love, will we?-or if we love we do
so grudgingly, stingily, Watchfully lest we open our
hearts too wide to others. We are too cowardly to be
generous. If we hire a woman to help in the house,
and know we are paying a skinny wage, we hesitate
to add a dollar or two because she does not demand
it-and dares not. In everything, re bargain, we
pinch, we calculate.
Christ, whose charity is t~ireless, waits for us at
Mass and Communion, waits in the sacrament of pen
ance, bares His heart to us, pours out His love in the
promises He gave to st. Margaret Mary; but we have
no time for Him, we are too busy grubbing for moth
ings to accept His invitation to entersHis mansion of
Joy.
Do you suppose we will ever become Wise-do
you think we will ever let Christ make our world
into the ~bubbling happy home for us that He wants
it to be?