To be or not to be

I was lying in bed reading last night and I ran across this great quote by Chesterton (does any one else wonder why his cause for cannonization hasn't been opened yet, that's a whole other blog entry - any takers? anyway...) on existence: "But as I was still thinking the thing out by myself, with little help from philosophy and no real help from religion, [he recalled], I invented a rudimentary and makeshift mystical theory of my own. It was substantially this: that even mere existence, reduced to its most primary limits, was extraordinary enough to be exciting. Anything was magnificent as compared with nothing." This got me thinking about a number of things. First, that as the Angelic Doctor teaches us, God doesn't need us! Yet, despite the fact that we don't have to be, we are!!! I know that among some of my blog readers there will be those called to share the gift of their existence in a very public and loud way while others will live out that gift in a way that remains very private and quiet. Whether you are called to be a great theologian and live in the academy, raise 7 beautiful children with a husband who you think is even better looking than George Clooney, sit at the bedside of an elderly person, pour concrete, create budgets for U of M, design cars for Ford or humbly sit in class at the JPII Institute and wonder if you'll ever have anything profound to offer, know that in the fact you simply exist, that you ARE, it is GOOD and EXCITING!!!!!! To take it even further, to raise you up even higher we can talk about the Incarnation: God made man!! Grace has seized our human nature and far from diminishing it, has raised it up, in Jesus Christ! (I stole that from de Lubac by the way) I'll stop with paragraph 22 from Gaudium et Spes (its long I know, but worth reading) "The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown. He Who is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15), is Himself the perfect man. To the sons of Adam He restores the divine likeness which had been disfigured from the first sin onward. Since human nature as He assumed it was not annulled, by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too. For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. He worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin. As an innocent lamb He merited for us life by the free shedding of His own blood. In Him God reconciled us to Himself and among ourselves; from bondage to the devil and sin He delivered us, so that each one of us can say with the Apostle: The Son of God "loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20). By suffering for us He not only provided us with an example for our imitation, He blazed a trail, and if we follow it, life and death are made holy and take on a new meaning. The Christian man, conformed to the likeness of that Son Who is the firstborn of many brothers, received "the first-fruits of the Spirit" (Rom. 8:23) by which he becomes capable of discharging the new law of love. Through this Spirit, who is "the pledge of our inheritance" (Eph. 1:14), the whole man is renewed from within, even to the achievement of "the redemption of the body" (Rom. 8:23): "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the death dwells in you, then he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also bring to life your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who dwells in you" (Rom. 8:11). Pressing upon the Christian to be sure, are the need and the duty to battle against evil through manifold tribulations and even to suffer death. But, linked with the paschal mystery and patterned on the dying Christ, he will hasten forward to resurrection in the strength which comes from hope.
All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery. Such is the mystery of man, and it is a great one, as seen by believers in the light of Christian revelation. Through Christ and in Christ, the riddles of sorrow and death grow meaningful. Apart from His Gospel, they overwhelm us. Christ has risen, destroying death by His death; He has lavished life upon us so that, as sons in the Son, we can cry out in the Spirit; Abba, Father"

*The answer then to Hamlet's age old question then clearly is, to be - an existence that becomes more lively and authentic in Christ our brother!!!!