Before I became a Dominican friar I considered becoming a monk. I once related my monastic aspirations to a fellow Catholic who then became upset and objected, “I don’t like the idea of you sitting inside and praying all day while the rest of us have to work.”

A similar sentiment pervades the letters of the early friars to their Dominican sisters. St. Peter Martyr complained to the prioress of a convent in Milan, “You have gone up onto the mountain of sacrifice, while I still dwell in the valley of care, and have spent almost all my life for others. You take the wings of contemplation and soar above all this, but I am so stuck in the glue of concern for other people that I cannot fly. Woe is me, for my exile is prolonged.” And Bl. Jordan of Saxony, writing to Bl. Diana d’Andalo, states quite bluntly, “I hardly ever pray, and so ask the sisters to make up for my deficiency.”

While my interlocutor resented the leisure of monks, the friars were happy that their sisters had gained a life of contemplation. And, though the friars were saddened by the contrast between their own busyness and the repose of the nuns, they were grateful to the sisters for their total dedication to prayer and depended on them to supply the friars’ lack. This gratitude often engendered in the friars a deep affection for the nuns, which they expressed in their letters and in visits to the monasteries.

Another Brother and I were recently sent on a preaching mission and had occasion to stay with the sisters at the Monastery of Mary the Queen in Elmira, New York. The monastery was founded in 1944 as a daughter house of Our Lady of the Rosary in Buffalo. Since 1945, the nuns have had Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament from morning until evening. And for decades the monastery has nourished the chapter of Third Order Dominicans to which Brother and I had been sent.

The sisters received us warmly and gathered to converse with us in the parlor. The support they gave us on that visit by way of lodging and conversation reminded me of the help they always give to the friars by their prayers.

St. Thomas said that the task of the friars is to contemplate and to pass on to others what is contemplated. But preachers can feel as if they do not have enough time to contemplate what they are meant to pass on. The nuns, however, have a greater devotion to contemplation. The Constitutions of the Nuns of the Order of Preachers describes their vocation in this way: “the nuns are to seek, ponder, and call upon Jesus Christ in solitude, so that the word proceeding from the mouth of God may not return to him empty but may accomplish those things for which it was sent.”

While the friars are called especially to preach the word, the nuns are called especially to hear it. This activity is the beginning and end of preaching. As professional hearers of the word, the nuns work so that the word that the friars preach “may accomplish those things for which it was sent.” Thus the friars pass on not only the fruits of their own contemplation but the fruits of the nuns’ contemplation, too.

Visiting the sisters deepened my admiration and gratitude for their lives of careful listening to the word of God. Their work is fundamental for the Church. In the nuns, the Church is hidden with God—as one sister said, “at the heart of reality.” No cause for resentment here—only joy.

_____________________________

For more information on the nuns at Elmira, visit the monastery’s website.

The problem of boredom, though never lacking in our culture, is one that is especially pointed in the summer months. Perhaps it’s because school is out and parents are trying to find things for their children to do—camps, summer jobs, day care, vacations—or maybe it’s something about the heat that makes us lethargic and less inclined to activity. Whatever the cause, summer is a time when the words, “I’m bored,” are spoken with some frequency.

So what is boredom? It seems to be a restlessness, wherein the will has no object. The bored are looking for something to do. They want to want something. The problem, however, is not so much identifying boredom as finding a way to break out of it.

Man’s powers are directed to the expenditure of energy for an over-all purpose; if he lacks it, his giddiness and restlessness and consequent boredom are the price he has to pay. The most bored people in life are not the underprivileged but the overprivileged…the moral is to have something to do and live for, not for today and tomorrow, but always. (Ven. Fulton J. Sheen, Life is Worth Living)

Bored people often seek to be distracted them from their pitiful state, but distraction turns out to be no remedy. Television or the Internet may mask the symptoms for a time, but they cannot save us from boredom. The human person needs an activity that involves the whole person. We need a purpose for our life.

It is God who gives shape to our life. In seeking to be united with God, in orienting our lives to God, even tasks that “should” be boring are given new life. How is this possible?

Whereas boredom means that our will has no object, love is the act whereby the will is fixed to a real or apparent good. Love is the remedy to an aimless will, which we call boredom, and God, the Supremely Lovable, our ultimate end and purpose in life, is the object that can make our every action grounded in love.

Any moment of boredom can be solved by an act of love, whether that involves volunteering at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, helping our family or friends with something, or making an act of love for God by means of a simple prayer. But it is only by placing our entire lives at the disposal of God that boredom is totally cast out. In this way, even the most banal of tasks can become suffused with the light of love. Cleaning toilets, doing some repetitive or painful task, or even doing nothing: all of these things we can offer to God. And, in offering it up, we perform an act of love.

By living a life of such love, our humanity is transformed and conformed to the end it seeks—God. The children of God have life, and they have it in abundance. After all, who ever heard of a bored saint?

✠

Image: Berthe Morisot, Summer Day (Bois de Boulogne)

Being alone. It’s that all-too-familiar human experience. It lies at the root of our fears, ultimately making the vast wilderness frightening and the dark so haunting. The unnerving experience of being alone often descends upon men and women and has the power to paralyze them or otherwise entrap them in illusions of helpless desperation or worse, despair.

For many ancient philosophers, embracing solitude and approaching “the alone” purifies man. Plotinus—a follower of Plato—writes, “This is the life of gods and of the godlike and blessed among men, liberation from the alien that besets us here, a life taking no pleasure in the things of the earth, passing from the alone to the alone.” This mystical account of the acquisition of knowledge describes how Plotinus views the human condition and ultimately man’s final end. For Plotinus, the human person pursues knowledge, since he is, after all, a rational creature and capable of knowing things as they truly are. Ultimately, though, man will find peace only by drawing in upon himself and thereby mystically returning to the One, the source of all things.

For Saint Augustine, on the other hand, something markedly different happens in the Christian life. As one who admires and reflects much of the thought of Plotinus, Augustine offers a radical re-interpretation of Plotinus’s teaching, in light of the Gospel. For Saint Augustine, the human person finds rest not in being alone, but by being alone with.

Perhaps the most beautiful example of this line of thinking in Augustine comes from his Confessions. Just before the death of his mother, Saint Monica, Augustine describes a mystical experience they shared together at the port of Ostia. He writes,

We proceeded step by step through all bodily things up to that heaven whence shine the sun and the moon and the stars down upon the earth. We ascended higher yet by means of inward thought and discourse and admiration of [God’s] works, and we came up to our own minds. We transcended them, so that we attained to the region of abundance that never fails, in which [God] feed[s] Israel forever upon the food of truth, and where is that Wisdom by which all these things are made, both which have been and which are to be.

The beautiful language of Augustine conveys not only the overwhelming nature of the experience, but also a truth at the very core of Christianity. Christians never live out their call of discipleship alone in a solitary vacuum. Even hermits are bound by their prayers and by a particular relationship with Christ to the community of believers.

For Augustine, to be Christian means that we are never truly alone. As he recounts his vision, he tells his readers, “We were alone, conversing together most tenderly.” Augustine shared perhaps the most absorbing mystical experience of his life with his mother. They were by themselves, together, but not isolated.

The Christian tradition vividly teaches this truth expressed by Augustine. The clarion call to live lives imbued with charity demands the companionship of family and community. Discipleship means joining with the other members of the body, working alongside the other laborers in the vineyard. In a truly mysterious way, intimately coming to know the revelation of God calls us Christians out of ourselves. United in Christ, fellow believers standing side by side, together we climb ever onward toward the eternal place where we shall see God as he is.

✠

Image: Timothy Boocock, Staring at the Milkyway Galaxy in Trysil, Norway

A friend once asked me about the thought process that went into my decision to join the Dominican Order. “To be honest, I actually didn’t think much about it,” was my reply. Before I could proceed to explain, my friend interrupted, “Well, that’s hard to believe! Isn’t it your job as a Dominican to think? It doesn’t seem fitting for someone joining the Dominican Order to not think about his vocation.”

I was taken aback for a moment. On the one hand, I was confident in the huge choice I made for my life—I did in fact have a desire to become a Dominican friar—on the other hand, my friend was truly concerned with what appeared to be an irrational and hasty decision. He couldn’t understand why I didn’t subject my mind to a careful screening process or scrutinize all available options in order to figure out the right plan for my life. Well, I certainly have had some time to think about this brief exchange of words.

The objection raised by my friend concerning the need to think carefully before acting is very reasonable and wise. Indeed, one must not jump to conclusions without seeking the right counsel and obtaining all the necessary facts. This is called prudence—it’s about putting all the pieces together. But how does one know when all the pieces have been gathered together without entering into an infinite regress? How does one even know whether all the pieces are from the same box?

At the other end of the spectrum is a “wait-and-see” approach to discernment. It’s about waiting for the right moment, the right opportunity, and then pouncing on it. It’s the Whack-a-Mole game—wait for the little guy to pop up and then wham! You win the big money. All the options are out in front, and I just wait for a sign to help me take the next step.

Looking back at our biggest decisions in life, can we ever say that we’ve given them enough thought? In one sense, I did think about my vocation. Or to be more precise, I pondered my vocation, and I am still pondering it. But in pondering the meaning of my vocation, I do not think so much about getting it right with God, but about the right that God does. I did not create myself, my family members, my friends, my neighbors, or the Dominican friars. God created them all and continues to work through them.

In reply to my friend, I suppose I did have a thought process going into my discernment, just not the kind he expected. I thought not about the various possibilities for my life, which can be close to infinite; rather, I thought about God and pondered the great things He has done for me and for others, especially for my family, friends, neighbors, and the Dominican friars. God does an infinite amount for us for which we should be thankful.

In another sense, I can say that I did jump right into the Dominican life almost in an instant. I got baited and hooked, like a fish in the ocean. I saw something beautiful fluttering about so I came in for a closer look. I bit into the dangling lure of the consecrated life and then, all of sudden, was drawn up out of the water. It was Dominic who caught me, and he put me securely in the boat of the Fisherman.

✠

Image: Mikhail Nesterov, St Paphnutius of Borovsk

The second of a series of three interviews with Fr. Nageeb Michael, OP, this video focuses on the current suffering of Iraqi Christians. Fr. Nageeb speaks at length about the current persecution of the Christian community in his homeland and even introduces his viewers to priests he knows personally who were killed for the Christian faith. The interview concludes with a plea for solidarity with and prayers for the Christian community of Iraq.

When we look back on the past, it is sometimes tempting to think of historical events as having a certain inevitability: because they happened in the way they did, it was necessary that they happen in such a way. With the aid of hindsight, we can discern how certain cultural movements or personalities influenced particular events or individuals and draw out connections and causalities that may even have been latent at the time. In itself, this can be a useful and fruitful exercise, especially when we consider the providential hand of God who is able to draw good even out of the evil actions of men.

In undertaking this exercise, however, it is always necessary to recall that the human beings involved in historical events acted freely, making contingent decisions whose consequences they had the opportunity to either consider or ignore. Just as we ourselves are free at the present moment to decide whether to continue to spend our time contemplating the mists of history as we peruse this blog or to give way to some more fruitful activity, so too the individuals whose lives and works we consider had the freedom to choose how they would respond to the situations in which they found themselves.

When we look back on an event that has happened, it is helpful to consider not only that it happened, but also to consider what motivations and circumstances contributed to an individual’s decision to act well or ill. What they have written they have written, but it is fruitful to consider not only the words that have been preserved but the anguish and joy that went into them.

One phenomenon that is fruitful to consider, both in past events and our current circumstances, is that of doubt. Often times, we think of doubt as something unhelpful or distracting, something that takes away from the self-confidence and drive that is indispensable for achieving greatness. In the 2010 On Heaven and Earth, a book-length dialogue between then Cardinal Bergoglio and Rabbi Skorka of Buenos Aires, our present Holy Father articulated a different view of this matter:

The great leaders of the people of God were men that left room for doubt. Going back to Moses, he is the most humble character that there was on Earth. Before God, no one else remained more humble, and he that wants to be a leader of the people of God has to give God His space; therefore to shrink, to recede into oneself with doubt, with the interior experiences of darkness, of not knowing what to do, all of that ultimately is very purifying.

In his recent biography of St. Francis of Assisi, for instance, Fr. Augustine Thompson, O.P., devotes ample attention to the doubts and crises that plagued St. Francis throughout his life. Far from detracting from Francis’s sanctity, Thompson suggests that an accurate understanding of the difficulties that Francis went through in deciding how to act are of tremendous importance for appreciating his life and witness:

It is, I think, misleading to assimilate him to some stereotyped image of “holiness,” especially one that suggests that a “saint” never has crises of faith, is never angry or depressed, never passes judgments, and never becomes frustrated with himself or others. Francis’s very humanity makes him, I think, more impressive and challenging than a saint who embodied that (impossible) kind of holiness.

Doubt can be a source not only of indecision but more profoundly of purification, for it forces us to consider more deeply the motivations and circumstances of the exercise of our freedom. Doubt is not something to be sought for its own sake, but when it comes we can make the most of the experience by entrusting ourselves to the Lord who is able to make all things work together for the good for those who love him.

✠

Image: Henry Walton, Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

Life in prison without parole. With this sentence the murder trial of Kermit Gosnell has come to an end. Yet another horrific, unmentionable injustice has been addressed by our nation’s legal system. The murder of infants had tipped the golden scales of justice, but with the piercing percussion of a swift gavel strike, the balance was restored. Next case. Could it be that justice is so easy?

No matter the sacral trappings of his legal authority, man’s judicial machinery has always been rather crude and cacophonous in its operation, sputtering and lurching forward, stretching a palsied finger to balance the unbalanceable and right the unrightable. We have known all along that the pure and polished scales are held only by the gods. They hang from the outstretched arms of Justitia, Themis, and Dike, far above the grasp of Judy, Brown, and Mathis.

Intuitively we know that justice requires more than we mortal men can muster. Who can truly fix the shattering blow of the murder, the betrayal, the lie? The shattering impact of injustice forever marks the past, its shards slice through the fabric of the future, and its stain lingers presently on the soul, debased and alienated by its vicious act. How can Gosnell give back the life he took from Baby A, Baby B, Baby C, Baby D, and the countless unlettered babies he slaughtered inside and outside the womb? He cannot. Restitution is impossible. A thousand lives spent in a thousand prisons will not restore what he has taken, and neither would his execution restore the balance. For justice we must look to another.

The old goddesses were destroyed when the light of Christ revealed their nihility, but their scales did not fall into just any mortal hands. They were caught by the Word made flesh, to whom all judgment has been given by the Father. Of course, his mission is firstly that of rescue and ransom: “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Pt 3:18). But when the time of repentance draws to a close, when the cup of God’s patience finally overflows with the blood of martyrs, infants, and marathon spectators, justice will be definitively served. On that day, the unjust will reap the eternal isolation to which every act of injustice inherently tends, and those justified in Christ, his love alive in their souls, will enter the eternal communion to which every act of charity inherently tends. Finally, our every desire for justice will be satiated by the One who alone is perfectly just.

There is hope even for a murderer. His life sentence will neither save him nor his victims, but he could still turn to the God of love, the God of mercy and compassion. He could allow his sins to be carried by the Savior. He could devote his life to penance. But if he does not choose to die with Christ, confess, repent, carry his cross and come after him, then he risks the fate of the final impenitent and may indeed carry his injustice right through the gates of Hell. For the sake of their immortal souls, pray God that all murderers be brought to repentance and know the infinite mercy of God.

When righteous anger rises within us, let us look forward to the day of Christ’s return to judge all nations, and let us call to mind that without God’s saving grace, our own injustice is as irremediable as that of a murderer. Our sin cannot be undone, but it can be forgiven. Our past cannot be changed, but it can be redeemed. Our victims may even become our brothers and our sisters in that land where every tear is wiped away. Let this then be our hope. Christ is making all things new, and one day soon, on a day like today, his perfect justice will be established forever.

✠

Image: Roland Meinecke, Justitia

To many Christians, recent legal restrictions such as the HHS mandate seem like a “soft persecution.” It is tempting for us to portray such restrictions using the language and imagery of martyrdom. But is it accurate at all? One scholar, writing recently, thinks that contemporary Christians have the whole thing wrong—the history of martyrdom and its application today. Don’t we risk making a ridiculous comparison?

The ancient Christian writer Origen always sticks close to the root meaning of “martyr,” which is “witness.” In his Commentary on the Gospel of John, he says that, “everyone who testifies to the truth, whether he presents his testimony in words or deeds or in whatever way would correctly be called a ‘witness.’” But in the Catholic Church, it is “the custom of the brotherhood… to give the name ‘witnesses’ in a special sense only to those who have borne witness… by the pouring out of their own blood.” The early Church began to restrict the term “martyr” to a select group, as other early texts testify.

Origen’s definition of true “witness” is not narrow. It extends to any conceivable way one could testify to the truth about Jesus Christ. St. Thomas Aquinas has similar thoughts. He says that, “all virtuous deeds, inasmuch as they are referred to God, are professions of the faith… and in this way they can be the cause of martyrdom.” Thomas notes pointedly that this is why the Church celebrates John the Baptist as a martyr, “not for refusing to deny the faith, but for reproving adultery.”

To suffer as a Christian extends far beyond a confession made with words. It includes “also to suffer for doing any good work, or for avoiding any sin, for Christ’s sake, because this all comes under the head of witnessing to the faith.”

So is the language accurate?

Martyrdom is an act of fortitude—the virtue of dealing well in the face of death. By it, man keeps unreasonable fear or recklessness from overwhelming his resolve to stand fast in the good of reason. It includes bearing lesser evils as well. “Fortitude behaves well in bearing all manner of adversity,” Thomas says.

When the Christian suffers lesser evils than death, but does so for Christ’s sake, it seems to bear the same relationship to martyrdom that such suffering would bear to fortitude in general. While such “soft persecution” is certainly far from martyrdom, it is not ridiculous to see it on the same continuum.

Our Lord gave us this beatitude: “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Mt 5:11). When Christians bear mockery, scorn, social exclusion and loss of wealth for refusing to compromise with the Gospel, we indeed share in the blessing Christ promises us. The Epistle to the Hebrews reminds the baptized of such things: “You endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.”

It continues, “For you had compassion on the prisoners, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one” (Heb 10: 32-34). Although we aren’t given to die for Christ, we can still follow the martyrs in following Christ, the true Lamb, wherever He goes.

✠

Image: Fyodor Bronnikov, Martyr on a Circus Ring

What does our fantasy life say about us? Do thoughts determine our character, or is it only actions that count? The question has been asked and answered in various ways. Movies like Minority Report have played on the intuitive notion that punishing someone for a crime they have not yet committed is unjust. Or consider a 1961 episode of the Twilight Zone, “A Penny for Your Thoughts,” in which a bank clerk gains the ability to read thoughts. He “hears” an old trusted employee, Mr. Smithers, plotting in his head to rob the bank. Mr. Smithers does not actually rob the bank, because he is too afraid, but the aged employee does, however, admit that he thinks about doing it everyday.

So, how far removed are our thoughts from our actions?

Dr. Cindy LaCom, the director of Women’s studies at Slippery Rock University, worries about the effect pornography is having on men. In a letter to the editor of the New York Times, LaCom writes about the recent incident in Cleveland where three women were held captive for 10 years:

We live in a world where the “Fifty Shades” trilogy (which has sold over 70 million copies) presents male domination over women as “erotic,” where the porn industry generates more annual profit than the National Football League, where 30 percent of Web traffic is porn. I am surprised at the lack of national dialogue about the pornification of our culture.

But sadly, in a world that endlessly replicates and sexualizes male domination of women, I am not surprised that this “fantasy” narrative has been literalized. Though there are doubtless myriad factors that contributed to this nightmare crime, I hope that one positive outcome is broader critical analyses of how pornography normalizes the domination and degradation of women in pervasive and damaging ways.

Dr. LaCom thinks that fantasizing about dominating women leads some people to actual carry out that fantasy. Obviously, the case in Cleveland is an extreme example. Many people have awful fantasies they never plan on actually fulfilling, like Mr. Smithers at the bank. But what we imagine does change how we act, and it says something about us if our fantasies are pure.

Pornography is a particularly strong example, because not only is it sinful in itself, but it inclines us toward sin. Even if it does not encourage the sort of violence that Dr. LaCom is concerned with, the lust which it fosters harms our perception of reality. It focuses us downward and makes people objects. In lust we forget God and shift our attention to the pleasures of the body. As St. Augustine says of his father in the Confessions II.3.6:

His glee sprang from that intoxication which has blotted you, our creator, out of this world’s memory and led it to love the creature instead, as it drinks the unseen wine of its perverse inclination and is dragged down to the depths.

The images we take in, particularly those that we associate with pleasure, remain with us. Augustine wrote his Confessions more than ten years after his radical conversion and baptism, but in Book X, he laments the effect his previous life of sexual sin has had on his memory. In his dreams he is reminded of his misspent youth, and is forced to re-confront his temptations.

Lust is called a capital vice, because it is born of a desire that points to a very powerful pleasure. So strong can this desire become, that we are led away from our true end: happiness with God.

In charity, the chief among the virtues, we love God above all things. But to love God, we must call him to mind. If our fantasies take us away from God, if they fix our desire elsewhere, they cost us the one most precious thing.

Christ warns us in Matthew 15 that it is deep within ourselves that our sins find their root.

It is not what enters one’s mouth that defiles that person; but what comes out of the mouth is what defiles one.
. . .
The things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile. (11, 18-20)

But lest we fear that we have turned our minds over to evil, that we have absorbed too much of the filth of our culture, God’s mercy is powerful. What we cannot do on our own, God can do in us. As Augustine prays, “On your exceedingly great mercy rests all my hope. Give what you command, and then command whatever you will.” He continues,“Yes, Lord, you will heap gift after gift upon me, that my soul may shake itself free from the sticky morass of concupiscence and follow me to you.” (Confessions X 29.40; 30.42)

A clean mind dedicated to the Lord should be our goal, even if like Mr. Smithers we don’t plan to ever fulfill our fantasies. With God this purity is possible.

✠

Image: David Teniers the Younger, The Temptation of Saint Anthony

First Communion season is upon us. Young boys and girls in their white suits and white dresses line the aisles of churches across the country. Some come with smiles a mile wide, and others with lips nervously quivering. Why all the fuss?

Transubstantiation!

If the Eucharist isn’t really Jesus’ Body and Blood, then it’s all nonsense, and the suits and dresses are just for show. If the Eucharist is simply a symbol of God’s love for us and nothing more, then there’s no need for such tra la la. But . . . if the substances of bread and wine are really converted into the Body and Blood of Jesus, then the whole situation changes. If Jesus, the Lord of the Universe, really comes down on the altar at Mass, then the children are right to tremble with nervous anticipation as they approach to receive his Divine presence.

Jesus Himself tells us,

I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. (Jn 6:51)

Thus, Holy Communion is all about eternal life. Jesus really becomes present in the Eucharist because He loves us and desires for us to spend eternity with Him. It is true that the Eucharist is a sign of God’s love for us. Yet it’s so much more than that. God has loved us enough to become truly and substantially present, hidden under the appearance of bread and wine, so that we might consume Him and be changed into Him. In the Confessions, St. Augustine hears the Lord saying,

Nor shall you change me, like the food of your flesh, into yourself, but you shall be changed into me.

In the Eucharist, He comes to us so that we might come to Him.

The brief life of Blessed Imelda Lambertini vividly shows this. Bl. Imelda became a Dominican nun at the age of nine and begged for two and half years to be able to receive First Communion. Since she was too young by the Italian standards of the time, she was asked to wait until she was twelve.  On the Vigil of the Ascension in 1333, when Imelda was yet only eleven years old, the Lord granted her wish and came to her in a striking way. After Mass, she was found adoring a host which was floating above her. The chaplain was brought in, and to this young girl, wearing her white Dominican habit, he gave First Communion. She died upon consuming the Host. The Lord, truly present in the Eucharist, changed her life in an instant. Her soul, full of joy, was brought to heaven where she participates in the eternal life of God.

This is what the Lord offers to each of us when we receive Holy Communion, whether it be our first, our fiftieth, or our last: He offers us eternal life. In the Eucharist, He comes to us so that we might come to Him.

✠

Image: Théophile Emmanuel Duverger, La Premiere Communion