Brian Jenkins

By Brian Jenkins (Quebec Life Coalition) - Photo: gpointstudio/Freepik

Building a culture of life is a top-down exercise. God, our creator, is atop and we, his creatures, below, conforming to his precepts, acting in accord, in one heart, with him.

An example of this happened past week. Jennifer, a woman with whom I work closely, received a phone call. It was from a mother that she and I had helped some time ago. This mother was calling on behalf of another mother whose child had outgrown his clothes and so the mother wondered whether another needy mother could benefit from a gift of these clothes, two boxes full. She contacted her friend who remembered Jennifer. Jennifer called me to ask if Daniella, who had twins three weeks ago, would be interested. As I later found out, she was. So began a chain of events to deliver the clothes.

It is beyond human capacity to build a culture of life in the current landscape of abortion and euthanasia, among other social ills. Only God can restore it. Our role is simply to be a people of faith, acting in accordance with the directives we receive from on high.

And how do we discern these directives? In a 200-page book, the sixteenth-century religious and teacher Lorenzo Scupoli proposed a simple four-point plan – 1. renounce self, 2. believe in God, 3. use our faculties of intellect and will in the right way, and 4. pray to know God’s will in our lives.

Scupoli’s “Spiritual Battle” consists of sixty-five short chapters that explore this four-point plan, a plan that focuses on the inner journey. This journey aims to convert us and purify us so that our outward actions shine with vertu. Through transformation we begin to transform the external world and build a culture of life.

Simple? Yes. Easy? No. I’m in the process of uncovering the many weeds in my psyche that have been growing there for decades. The blessing I'm receiving is that I’m beginning to see them and remove them. I never thought I would get so excited about weeding!

And I am not alone! What about you?