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September 9, 2007
It’s a new year! Well not really by the calendar, but by
the lived reality of our lives. School re-opens, committees begin
to meet anew and the pace of life picks up significantly. Part of
us would much prefer the joys of summer – yet it’s only
when we renew the journey and face new challenges that we grow.
Every new job, school year, assignment brings with it a bit of fear
– that it will be too much, or that we will fail.
Many years ago President Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech long remembered because in it he dares us to do Mighty Things:
In
the battle of life, it is not the critic who counts; nor the one who
points out how the strong person stumbled, or where the doer of a deed
could have done better. The credit belongs to the person who is
actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and
blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does
actually strive to do deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great
devotion, spends oneself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in
the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he or she
fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
Far better it is to dare mighty
things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than
to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much
because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor
defeat.
I would only add to that:
When God is going to do something wonderful,
He begins with a difficulty.
If it is going to be something very wonderful,
He begins with an impossibility!
May the year ahead ~ even when it seems impossible ~ see us work wonderful things.
Peace,
Fr. Chuck
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