One Step Enough
Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet;
I do not ask to see the distant scene;
One step enough for me.
—first stanza of John Henry Newman’s “Lead Kindly Light”
John Henry Newman’s [...]

Tags: Become Who You Are, John Paul the Great, Newman

The Inner Paints the Outer

The Inner—paints the Outer—
The Brush without the Hand—
Its Picture publishes—precise—
As is the inner Brand.
—Emily Dickinson, #451
Dickinson’s poem reminds us that what we do (“Outer”) arises from what we are (“Inner”). Only people of duplicity appear other than they are. People of integrity strive to match outer and inner.
Fundamental to our inner [...]

Tags: Become Who You Are, Dickinson, John Paul the Great, poetry

I might adapt the famous phrase to say, without a vision, the person perishes.
There’s a basic truth here: We are capable of and, in a sense, made to direct our capacities of body, mind, and spirit towards “ends,” things we perceive to be ultimately good.
Discovering this dimension of purpose and vision requires calm reflection, [...]

Tags: Become Who You Are, John Paul the Great

Human dignity requires one to act through conscious and free choice, as motivated and prompted personally from within, and not through blind impulse or merely external pressure. People achieve such dignity when they free themselves from all subservience to their feelings, and in a free choice of the good, pursue their own end by effectively [...]

Tags: Become Who You Are, John Paul the Great, Newman

“Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought. ”
Pope John Paul II
Becoming who we are requires free and responsible choices, decisions, and acts. A cat IS who he/she is. There is no question of choice, decision, free action. A human person co-creates himself/herself [...]

Tags: Become Who You Are, John Paul the Great