Truth from the Heart: communion

Can Beauty Be Our Superman?

10:26:00 AMCatherine Yanko

Wedding season has weaned to a close while so many last names in my phone contacts remain jumbled up. For me, this summer was packed with weddings. Each one I went to was different. From receptions in an art studio to a hunting lodge to the elegant ceremonies, I thoroughly enjoyed every second of the love stricken atmosphere. But, amidst the perfectly laid decorations and the photo shoots, I started to wonder: What happens next? What happens when the pinterest boards are no longer pertinent, the drawn out engagement period is over, and there is no wedding left to plan? I started to wonder how does a couple transition from this self-obsessed state of planning into life.

I think the craziest part is some people don’t make this transition. It seems like necessarily couples have to get out of the inward focus since the wedding is over and the possibility of children now is open and welcome. But, I really don’t think all couples make the transition. Think about it. There’s the couple that upon marriage still does not immerse itself in community. The only relationship, albeit a very important one, that is being formed is with one’s spouse. It is not like this is just a newlywed thing either. Think about all the couples, young, middle-aged, and elderly, that quite frankly don’t have friends.

Man is made for community.

The second man forgets this is the second man loses himself. Each individual has to take it upon his own to delve into community. No one else can do this for him or her. Karol Wojtyla says of persons, “As he seeks to determine the particular lines along which his personality must develop, the main direction of his love, every man must learn to integrate himself into the activity of God and respond to His love.” (1) To integrate oneself into this direction of love does not look like our perfectly crafted pinterest boards we have to perfect our lifestyle or contained in the four walls of our homes. This is a love that goes out to all of society.

Family life is a great way to rid one’s self of their egoism, but another danger presents itself. An egoism that displays itself in obsessions with one’s family is still a kind of egoism. We all had those friends growing up that could never hang out because they had their third family game night in a row. Or, how many times are we more concerned with our families looking perfect by spending hours on photoshoots and thousands of dollars on outfits instead of remembering there is a whole society out there calling out for help, physically or in this need for community. Families need society if we want to avoid this kind of egoism.

I think the biggest thing that is keeping families from going out into society is fear. We are so worried about how corrupt and immoral society is that we forget that we ourselves have our own issues too. Our families aren’t perfect, so why do we fear the impact of society so much? Of course there are precautions that need to be made for a pornographic and drug crazed culture, but the response is not one of a citadel. We cannot go about hiding. Instead Karol Wojtyla says that family should exist in these large societies because society has something to offer the family too.

“The family is in itself a small society, and the existence of all large societies- nation, state, Church- depends on it. Obviously any large society will keep a watchful eye on the process of its own ceaseless recruitment by way of the family. The family is the primary institution at the base of our existence as human beings. It forms part of the large society which it constantly helps to create, but it also has its own distinct existence, its own character and ends.” (2)

It is a lot easier to stick to our perfected ideas of what our families could be that are easily controlled than to allow others to call us into an integrated lifestyle where we work with others for a goal that is beyond our control. The good of society is a goal that cannot be abandoned in the love stricken sentiments of our newly weds. Families, go out. Change the world because that is exactly what your family is made to do. The family is not supposed to be your ultimate craft project that you can easily control and manipulate accordingly. Rather, it is a very messy love that the world depends on. Without families, there is no society. And without society, how can man flourish into his full personal being?

So, husbands and wives, it’s up to you. Will your family, in all the messiness it is, be a part of society or will you continue to be that isolated agent fearful of change?

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1. Wojtyla, Karol. Love and Responsibility, 258.

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2. Ibid, 217.

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college communion community

A Lesson for Graduates from the Little Prince

6:00:00 AMCatherine Yanko

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Today I walked down to my University’s Admissions building to retrieve a form for graduation for this spring semester. Yes, this is long overdue but that is not the point. The point is I am graduating in the Spring.

Image Two (How I feel about graduating)

As I stared my adulthood in the face, a friend texted me and told me to watch “The Little Prince” on Netflix. When I came home, I opted for further procrastination on packing up for the school year and watched this film… and then found an online text of the book.

This movie begins with a modern girl who is interviewing to get into a competitive prep school. She fails the interview. To still gain admission to the school, she moves to be in the respective school district. This girl and her mom move into one of those neighborhoods where every house is a copy of each other. But, next to their new home is an exquisite and intriguing home unlike any other. This is the home of the aviator. The aviator is quite old but develops a remarkably beautiful friendship with the little girl. As he introduces her to “The Little Prince”, the viewer can see the girl come alive in wonder of the adventures of the aviator and hope of a world unlike her own extremely narrow and rigid one.

Right from the beginning, I found myself already in the same shoes as the little girl. As she focused on her admittance and interviews to Werth Academy, I found myself suddenly also anxious about my future. The upcoming school year bears its share of hardships in the academic sphere and an ever busy schedule. Graduation looming over my head also puts an added pressure to have the next steps of my life figured out. The mother in this movie had planned out her daughter's whole summer on catching up academically so she could succeed in school. In their kitchen, the mother hung a huge board of exact times (down to ten minute increments) of what the little girl should be doing every second of the day with little magnets to move as the tasks were completed. As this scene flashed across my laptop screen, I looked down to my planner already filling up day by day for this coming school year.

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As the mother said to the little girl pointing at her schedule, “This is you, this is your life”, I could not help but wondered how many times I have dug myself into that same thinking. How many times have I been so narrowly focused on my schedule, that I neglect the present moment. There is a reason why Hildebrand refers to living as an art and not a mere practice.

This is the mentality and world that pushed the little girl to finally admit, “I’m not so sure I want to grow up anymore”. In the face of her world seeming to expand as she ages, the little girl realizes she will not reach fulfillment in her current setting. She is in a place where the pressure is building up so much on herself that even when she desires to play with a friend her mother says maybe next summer and only every other Thursday for half an hour. The demand of the modern world sets individual people immediately against community. This demand is what I fear in graduating.

This isolation is disguised as success by modern man. If you can be the most successful at what you do, have whatever new possession it may be and the best of it, and are happy with yourself then you have succeeded at life. This mentality eliminates the possibility of community because it is irrelevant in the goal of such success. In the LifeGuide, Dietrich von Hildebrand says, “The true measure of the depth of man will much rather be found in whether or not he is awakened to that spirit of true communion, in whether or not there has been a breaking-down of the inner walls of self-assertion, in the defenses of the sphere of the ego” (50). It is impossible to live this full life without reaching beyond one’s isolation into community. Asserting one’s own desires or successes over others may help in the aim of graduation but will never gain authentic fulfillment.

One of the most profound moments of this movie for me was when the Little Prince and Aviator are in Africa together and the Little Prince looks around at the barren desert and asks the aviator why it is so lonely in Africa. The aviator replies that it is because it is lonely in the hearts of men. This is what is at stake this school year. We have the choice to perpetuate a lifestyle that will continue well past graduation. We can continue to close in on ourselves in the face of others. Or, we can welcome one another with gratitude and reverence. Hopefully, this year will be one where if the Little Prince were to come to my university he would not declare here too it is lonely in the hearts of men.

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The Joy Found in Another

6:00:00 AMAnonymous

birthday communion consumerism

The Lesson That Took Me 20 Years to Learn

6:00:00 AMCatherine Yanko

"Remember, no man is a failure who has friends" - Clarence, “It's a Wonderful Life”

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Today is my twentieth birthday. Leaving the teen years behind calls for some self-reflection. When I look back on the last 20 years of my life, it is really easy to laugh at all of the failures and mistakes: all of the times I thought I knew who I was and what I was doing but really had no clue. Thankfully, these failures have taught me more than I could have imagined. Out of all that I have learned, I find one lesson to be the most encompassing and important: the greatest gift of life is being in communion with another.

I am no stranger to the effects of living in a consumer-based, individualistic society. The mantras “the more the better”, “the best way to do it is by yourself”, and “my hell is other people” taught me to always put myself first. All efforts to do so were positively labeled as hard-working. A social world became a social ladder. People become connections and friends were passing. Being constantly praised for my autonomy by the adults I looked up to, I began working harder and harder to be as independent as I could. Eventually, I found myself in isolation thinking I was the happiest I could be.

It was a few years ago that two women started to chisel through my heart, hardened to the idea of community. The first was Flannery O’Connor, a twentieth century American writer and essayist. The way she described persons in her short stories was mind-boggling. The characters in these stories were revealed through their interactions with one another. Each character had a history, but at the same time each character was being developed by their engagement with other characters. Through the gift of self, the characters revealed more of their self to the reader. In her letters, she speaks so reverently of her friends and family that I could not help but wonder at her love for others. The second is a social activist and journalist named Dorothy Day, another twentieth century American woman. When I finished reading her second autobiography, “The Long Loneliness”, I was confused. There seemed to be so little about her but a lot about the great friendships she made throughout the years. These women showed me that your view of yourself should not be limited to the narrowness of yourself but should include the value of those of your community.

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To these women I am indebted. It was through their life and work that I abandoned my isolation to begin to strive to see others. I no longer wanted to be so independent that I did not know what it meant to know and be known by another in the process. Persons came alive and I desired to know myself. I began to start seeing them as Flannery O’Connor described and wanted to form relationships like those of Dorothy Day. And, I did. I met one of the world’s greatest friends in high school. My family was no longer merely the people I lived with but a great gift. I saw persons and the only proper response was, and continues to be, love. And what did this love do to me? I couldn’t have said it better than John Paul II in “Love and Responsibility”, “It [Love] makes the person want to do just that- surrender itself to another, to the one it loves” (125).

Dietrich von Hildebrand is quoted in “The Dietrich von Hildebrand Life Guide” as saying, “We will never do justice to the nature of the person and the fullness of his being if we do not fully understand the nature of community” (54). I think that is why Dorothy Day spoke so much of others in her autobiography. It is impossible to understand what it means to be the person you are without giving oneself in community. This is the lesson I have come to learn in the last twenty years.

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As much as I have grown as an individual, I certainly have not done so by myself. I could not agree more with Dietrich von Hildebrand: “The community, which in an ordered, meaningful way ‘unifies’ human beings as spiritual persons, implies great support and help for the individual person in the forming of resolutions, in the readiness to act heroically, in the adherence to convictions” (53). I thank my friend Amanda, who taught me faithfulness, for our friendship that has taught me to love being myself (quirks included) and thus how to come alive by doing things that I love. I learned I am made of love and for love, as Saint Catherine of Siena so famously said, through my friendship with Michelle, and by her friendship continually learn that I am a person who has experiences that are valuable and worth sharing with others. To my parents, I owe my “never give up” attitude and the gift of my brothers who taught me how much I love to care for others. To a lady I met in France who taught me my ardor for family and to my professor who taught me I love to teach, thank you. Mary, the woman who taught me what friendship is, I can also thank for showing me I am made for daily joy. The list could go on to be very long. It is to all of these people with whom I share a communion that I owe thanks today. Thank you for the gift of communion that has helped me become the person I am. Today, I am celebrating you.

aesthetics celibacy communion

On the Relevance of Celibacy to the Modern Culture

6:00:00 AMLiz Stein

The question is really not whether the celibate life is relevant – or of importance – to the current culture (it is), but rather why such an issue – namely, the upsurge of celibate and religious vocations within the last decade alone – is rarely discussed or acknowledged at all. If one were to witness mention of the Catholic Church and/or celibacy at all, they may see some commentary within mainstream news outlets which are sure to admonish the Catholic Church as a backwards institution which fears human sexuality, diminishes the role of Her women, and abides by long-forsaken sexist ideals. Unfortunately, this stigma in the modern media which attempts to shame those who live the celibate life truly does exist.

Such a stigma, however, is ill founded. Celibacy has nothing to do with faulty or eerie traditions. The lifestyle of celibacy is thoroughly philosophically and reasonably founded. Even those who claim no religion are undoubtedly affected by the religiosity displayed by those who live the celibate life.

So - why celibacy? The concept of “self gift” to one’s Creator and a full human gift of oneself to one’s community is a lofty and intriguing one – particularly, I would argue, to young people. Existing in a culture which is generally self-centric in nature provides the urge for self-discovery which I mentioned above. A selfish disposition was never known to bring about any lasting fulfillment – and thus, young people came to recognize that they are living in the midst of a world where the majority (and their own selves) are prone to look out primarily for their own self-interests. It is no surprise that we become dissatisfied with this – and often wish to distinguish ourselves from the crowd.

I believe that this non-conformist mentality stems directly from that lack of fulfillment which is the fruit of a self-centered culture. However, whatever we attempt to fill our subsequent emptiness with – be it mind-altering substances, losing ourselves in our professions - or even - human relationships, service, charitable works, philanthropy, etc. – If our attempts remain at their core to be self-involved, focusing on how we can live with ourselves and “feel” fulfilled, our efforts are still self-serving and in essence “selfish”. This is precisely why, I believe, the religious life - something so rich in self-denial that it is an entire emptying of all our sentimental, physical, temporal desires – is so attractive. It is an entire ‘forgetting’ of one’s very self. Indeed, only through the untainted, unselfish, lofty ‘idealist’ forgetfulness of one’s very self (a free, total, faithful, and fruitful 'self gift') can one truly find himself.

Within a culture where “The horizon of existence seems to be completely filled by the world and temporal progress” (1), it is natural that the youth experience the longing of something that is more transcendent. With this, each young person is confronted with the crisis of identity that asks “Who then am I?” and “How must I act so that my life will have meaning and value?”

As Pope Saint John Paul II said, “Man who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (2) Even that man has a self to give is not only in itself a gift – but it seems also to be an innate invitation to give of oneself.

This invitation for man to give of himself is clearly manifested in the natural earthly communion of spousal love. Because of it may seem that virginity – if a denial of this – is a rejection of the very invitation of our existence. However, to see virginity as simply a denial of sexual intimacy is surely not what John Paul had in mind. Instead, an individual’s call to discover their meaning is fulfilled through the virginal state – and man’s completely personal communion with God. Virginity then becomes an objectively “higher calling”.

In a truly selfless act - rejecting marriage for her (or his) life, the virgin is simultaneously affirming its goodness and becoming a sign of the fullness found in the kingdom of God. The celibate soul refuses interpersonal communion and gift while simultaneously becoming a gift to the community and gaining a personal union which is in essence divine and necessarily ranks high above any other earthly romance.


We have seen that all the riches which the world has to offer, mediocrity, and self-centered lifestyles have not fulfilled us.
We then are uplifted and deeply affected by the examples of those who live the radical life of a religious vocation. Such a lifestyle is counter-cultural to its very core.

If we, as the youth who have seen the extreme of brokenness manifested throughout our culture, seek is the highest “happiness”, then celibacy and religious life only become relevant inasmuch as sacrifice, a detachment from the worldly standards of beauty and success, and self-emptying love become what is necessary for this same “happiness” or fulfillment.

It is a paradox - that the very denial of desires for temporal fulfillment could possibly spring forth into life which is fulfilling (both on earth and eternally). Should every single young adult pursue the celibate life? Perhaps not. However, the very witness of every single celibate life affects every single young adult life. Show me a convent full of celibate religious and I will show you a community of servant individuals young and old alike, who are fully alive and fully fulfilled. Therein lies the relevance of celibacy to today’s youth.

John Paul II, Letter to the Youth of the World, 5:2

Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, 24:2

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Can Beauty Be Our Superman?

Family Isn't Everything

A Lesson for Graduates from the Little Prince

The Joy Found in Another

The Lesson That Took Me 20 Years to Learn

On the Relevance of Celibacy to the Modern Culture

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