Novelty: "Do It Again!"

Novelty eventually wears off. Why? The reasons are plentiful, but the response required is a rather simple one: renewal. We as people require renewal because it is hard-coded into our being; we may like routines—those comfortable grooves—if everything goes well. At the slightest setback we declare them ruts. There is a middle way—a Catholic way—that unites the two in a symbiotic relationship as two sides of the same coin of existence.

It is to treat everything as novelty and everything with a sense of wonderment and with a desire for renewal. G.K. Chesterton, whose birthday is today, speaks of it when he describes children and their exclamation "Do it again!" until the grown-up is nearly dead.

I think this very much God's approach to us and our days, never tiring. We too must rise and say to the morning "Do it again!" We may not always have the vigor in this life to make all things novelties, but God has made all things new. Therefore, we are called to renew and be renewed. This is our view into Eternity.

"Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Building Upon Grace

Continuing our last conversation on being Rooted in Love...

Within all the clamor of the desire for action and movement of grace is need for the heart to first contemplate it. There one stands amid one's larger journey of faith and of love. One cannot grow disappointed in its timing—the action—if one doesn't first rest in the contemplation of Christ and His love. The remainder outside of this is dross and complete loss if not for the contemplation of Christ.

This clamor becomes a business that is not close to peace if it is not first peace in Christ. So it is with one's daily interaction and with one's daily work. There is no sanctification of the Ordinary without the Extraordinary nor process of growth without first growth and sanctification in Christ.

It is here in this very point that one's work takes meaning and one's work takes concrete shape. Life is worth living precisely because there is distinct purpose. If we are to see beyond the temporal of the here and now, we are to search out for the Truth that is not far away, yet it is that very Truth that remains ever the more in our midst.

This uncommon sense is not all that uncommon; more so, it is sense that is rarely seen for what it is—grace. The promptings of the Spirit fall into this column of distinction, and so it all deserves one's attention and prompt response in kind.

So then all we are left with then to respond to these glorious promptings of grace on Our Lord's part is to do the very thing I have opened upon and thus rested upon—to act with grace and to follow the promptings of the Risen Lord to completion.

It is not the velocity of the movement in response to this grace we should concern ourselves with, but rather it should be the resting on the place in which Our Lord has placed us to act on His love! Deo Gratias!