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| San Gennaro, ora pro nobis |
I have tried instead to turn my attention to what endures: God, faith, family, literature, art, beauty, and the cultivation of a life shaped by something higher than appetite and distraction. I pray more. I read more. I spend more time with the people I love. I seek out beautiful churches, paintings, music, books, architecture, landscapes, and those small rituals that give dignity and order to ordinary life.
None of this has made me unaware of what is happening around me. If anything, the contrast has become sharper.
Much of modern society seems engaged in a sustained assault on what our ancestors understood as true, noble, and beautiful. Transcendence has been replaced by consumption, contemplation by distraction, and inheritance by novelty. We have surrounded ourselves with comforts while becoming restless, anxious, and spiritually impoverished.
Though I cannot reverse the direction of an age, I can refuse to let its disorder become my own. The world may continue along its chosen course, but I do not have to follow it. Again, this does not mean pretending the darkness does not exist. It means refusing to let it extinguish the light by which I live. There are still Masses to attend, books to read, paintings to admire, meals to share, prayers to say, people to love, and beautiful things worth preserving.
Wishing you a joyful Feast of San Gennaro!
~ By Giovanni di Napoli, September 18th, Feast of San Sabino
