Luceat!

Recently, as I walked away from one of the UW rec centers, I heard a crash and a scream. I looked back and witnessed a young woman on the ground in tears, lying in the middle of the road with her moped tossed a few feet away from her. I stared for a couple of seconds and then snapped out of my stupor and started to run towards this young woman.

The people around me were staring at her too, for a moment their ears were not filled with i-pods or cell phones, but the screaming of a PERSON in need of aid.

As I ran towards her, I saw someone start to dial 9-1-1. The young lady dialing the phone, myself and a couple of others seemed to be the only ones that had the screaming in their ears lead to action. I continued to run inside the rec center and told them about the young lady on the ground…help was on the way. Meanwhile, the small group of people outside was able to get the young woman out of the street and to a nearby bench. The help arrived minutes after that.

I walked away from this experience with great sadness in my heart. Why do over fifty people witness this accident and only four people take any sort of action? It was as if that person’s life did not matter. I shed a few tears as I walked away and spoke to our Lord, “Jesus, our world needs to know you…they need to know that all people’s lives are worth something…help them to see that they will only find worth in their own lives, if they find it in others.”

I stopped and reflected upon the philosophies of our modern era: individualism, minimalism, hedonism, etc…and as I reflected I realized that all these philosophies had lost touch with who man really is and why are were even here. The fundamental lie of these philosophies lies in the fact that they deny LIFE! They have thrown to the side the foundation of existence, there is no story, there is no romance, there is no adversity, and there are no heroes.

The human person is called to be heroic in all that he or she does. The human person is called to be great, never settling or growing satisfied on this earth. There must be a yearning, an overwhelming desire for truth, beauty and goodness that overflows from the human person’s heart. There must be a struggle, something to overcome in the midst of the night, something that makes us fear, but rise to courage. Yes, life is worth living, but we will never know this if we live in comfort and don’t challenge the status quo. Reflect upon these words from Pope Benedict:

Fulfillment does not lie in comfort, ease, and following one’s inclinations but precisely in allowing demands to be made upon you, in taking the harder path. Everything else turns out somehow boring anyway. Only the person who recognizes an ideal he must satisfy, who takes on real responsibility, will find fulfillment. It is not in taking on the path of comfort that we become rich, but only in giving.