MARIA CLEMENS

It’s taken me a long time to get it but the reason why Christianity works for me after decades of exploring other spiritualities is that Christianity, in its best places, says “Trust this Creation and the Creator behind it as the single priority in your life.” It can take a while to dig past all the Platonic popular reinterpretations but at the bottom of it you don’t have to transcend, you don’t have to separate yourself from this world and take on a “spiritual life” - you don’t have to escape the body or the earth or the trees because you are part of this Creation and all of Creation is being made new again. So you eat your hamburger and hug your friend and laugh while fishing and trust in this visitation by this God who became humanly embodied and did all those same things and promised everything is taken care of and that’s it, that’s literally it. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

“Marital love is not defended primarily by presenting indissolubility as a duty, or by repeating doctrine, but by helping it to grow ever stronger under the impulse of grace. A love that fails to grow is at risk. Growth can only occur if we respond to God’s grace through constant acts of love, acts of kindness that become ever more frequent, intense, generous, tender and cheerful.”