The Life of Virtue

Several years ago, a band by the name of FUN. came out with a song entitled "We Are Young."  The catchy chorus of that song proceeds: "Tonight/We are young/So let's set the world on fire/we can burn brighter/Than the sun."  The gist these lyrics is that young, vibrant people can or should or will make some major difference in the world.  Moreover, that difference will cause them to "burn brighter than the sun."  It seems that they desire to become stars that will be noticed and remembered by others in this world. St. Catherine of Siena, whose memorial feast the Catholic Church celebrates today, also said something about fire in the world.  The young Dominican exclaimed, "Become who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire."  Perhaps FUN. had St. Catherine in mind when writing the song's chorus, because she was so youthful when she heartily took up her vocation to consecrated life.  Nevertheless, her words are a clarion ...

While I am not always able to do so (because of my own inner distractions as well as a few squirmy children), I do my very best to listen to every prayer that is said at Mass.  I was blessed during yesterday's Mass to struggle and strain to hear the words of the Preface, which is said before the Sanctus and the Eucharistic Prayer.  The prescribed preface for the First Sunday of Advent is as follows: For he assumed at his first coming the lowliness of human flesh, and so fulfilled the design you formed long ago, and opened for us the way to eternal salvation, that, when he comes again in glory and majesty and all is at last made manifest, we who watch for that day may inherit the great promise in which now we dare to hope. That prayer reminded me why I so thoroughly enjoy the Advent season, and why I am so attracted to the virtue of hope.  The extraordinary seasonal joy that I experience, as well as the attraction to preparing now for what is to come, hap...