For a Friday

Pope Benedict XVI, photo from the Times Online.

This is shamelessy cribbed from Deacon's Bench. But it is OH so worth reading, and yes, taping to our bathroom mirrors, or oh, tattooing on us somewhere if you're so inclined. And it's from Il Papa: Pope Benedict.

"We all stand in a great arena of history and are dependent on each other. A man ought not, therefore, just figure out what he would like, but to ask what he can do and how he can help.

Then he will see that 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 man who "risks the fire," who recognizes a calling within himself, a vocation, an ideal he must satisfy, who takes on real responsibility, will find fulfillment. As we have said, it is not in taking, not on the path of comfort, that we become rich, but only in giving."

And, while Pope Benedict was speaking of vocations to religious life here. I believe this applies to us all. Especially moms, families, marriage....heck, life in general, heck: ME. It's just so hard to remember and harder to actually do, isn't it? Ah, don't I know it. Sigh. I'm taping this to my mirror, so I can see it each day....and try again...