The Delicate Thread of Thanks

The Catholic Thing ^ | 27 November 2009 | Austin Ruse

[AncientAirs]

How can there be a generation of souls wholly indifferent to this delicate thread that exists in each of us and that connects us backwards to the beginning and forwards to His return?

But it is not just the Culture of Death that threatens the unbroken thread. There is also the Culture of Selfishness that avoids marriage and, once married, also avoids children. I am an example of the former. I did not marry until forty-seven. How did I come finally to be blessed with a wife and two children at my advanced age? How did I not break the thread, and in not breaking it also avoid a break in the covenant with my ancestors and with my descendants?

At this time of year, I certainly give thanks for the settlement of this land. But my thanks are much larger than that. And my thanks, I believe, align themselves with those of the Pilgrims. I thank God for his Divine Providence that brought me here to these shores, but also and more importantly for His loving kindness that connects me to this delicate yet unbroken thread.

[AncientAirs]

"Once you start down this particular road of wonder it is hard to stop. And we think of everyone who survived before. With modern medical techniques, getting through a long life is a lot easier than it ever used to be. Demographer Nicholas Eberstadt says that the population explosion happened not because we breed like bunnies but that we no longer die like flies. I think of each of my ancestors and not just back to the American founding but way back through the mists of time. Medicine may explain some features of modern times, but what about before? How is it that every single one of my ancestors survived long enough for their children to be born? How did they happen to turn the right way one day and not be taken by, I don’t know, a lion? A flood? A bullet? A streetcar? A germ?"

Worth a read, the tragic sensibility, in our living hands....