The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1959-05-08
May Is Month
For Courage
JOSEPH BREIG-

God is like a father who wants his children to rise
to the summit of accomplishment and nobility. In
simplest terms, He is like a parent who witfdraws his
finger from a tiny hand so that a fodder may learn to
walk for himself, even at cost of a bump or two and a
few tears. He is like a father and mother who bless
their sons and daughters and send them forth to work,
to dare, to aspire and to achieve greatly.
God wills for each of us all the true success of
which we are capable. His desire is to praise us for
eternity even as we praise Him.
We sing His wisdom and goodness; He will sing
IF may so express it, our struggles and strivingS, our
courage, our getting up and going on, our patience in
adversely, our humility in triumph. He has told us
that He wants to say to us: We'll done, good and
faithful servant"
God could do everything Himself, and leave moth
ing to us. But then we would own no merit; we could
not have the humble pride of having made something
OF ourselves with His help.
God, you might say, has a profound respect for
our dignity as beings who can know good from evil,
and choose good. He made each of us to be king over
the complex kingdom of self; to be emperor in the en-
pire of thoughts and emotions and talents that each
of us have.
OF us is.
GOD COULD HAVE REDEEMED us from sin
merely by willing our redemption. He chose instead
to take up the burden Himself, and yet to lay 1t on
the shoulders of man-first of all upon the Man who
was God incarnate but human too; second upon the
woman He selected for mothering Him in flesh, and
after that upon every one of us who will have the
courage and love to enter into this unthinkably noble
work Of God and man together.
Herein lies an answer to the mystery of st. PaufS
saying that he filled up in himself what was wanting
in the sufferings of Christ. From Adam to the last
child who will be born into the world, there is a glor-
ious role for every one who will not refuse it. ~
AL this seems hidden from us until we stopsto
look steadily at Mary the Virgin. When WE do that,
a clarity comes upon us, and we feel a kind of derrlng-
do about embracing the inscruitable goodness of Gods
plan for mankind.
U ADMIRATION and affection for Mary-ca1l
it reverence or generation too-tends to take childike
form in the month of May. This is because most of us
are not given to deep thought; also because WI are
happily surrounded by children and are lifted up by
their innocence, and because finally May is a child of
a month, bringing new flowers.
AS May comes, we think of Our Lady as young;
as a maiden not yet mother. But Mary is immensely
more than our vision of her as slender, e~xquisitely
lovely, and good In great simplicity. She endured far
more for God and for us than we can begin to grasp
with our little knowledge, our little holiness, our small
experience of tribulation. She towers spiritually so far
above us that we can hardly see the tips of her toes;
and yet she bends and puts her, arms around us.
MARY ROSE to stature that pierceS the skies be-
cause in her fullness of Gods grace she was moi. afraid
to walk with God wherever His unthinkable goodness
led. even to the shocking reality of God her incarnate
Son tormented to death.
Everything that God asked of Mary, she gave
until nothing was left to give. In that giving she earned
what God had Willed for her-splendor forever as
queen of all creation beside Christ her King and ours,
In perceiving this secret of Mary's sanctity, we
perceive the secret of our own. We pierce the mystery
of Gods desire that we achieve all that He made us
capable of achieving. y
Sometimes it seems that he stands apart and
leaves everything to us; we plod through mists and
darkness; we fail and try again; we fall and rise and
stagger on. IL
All the time God is there with us, loving us with
a boundless love and leading us toward a triumph
that He wants to be our triumph as much as possible.
May is a month for innocence and rejoicing; but
like all other months it is a month for courage ALSO