“Our age is without passion. Everyone knows a great deal, we all know which way we ought to go and all the different ways we can go, but nobody is really willing to move.”
Soren Kierkegaard

There is a sad lack of the willingness to move all around us. I certainly have the urge to hold off committing to change as long as possible; it is so much easier to go through the planning stage again and again, to live in the future until even the future passes by and there is nothing left but wasted possibilities. It sounds so unattractive written down, but in my mind it is so soothing and pleasant: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.”

If we have passion though, and if we live our lives passionately, then there is not only a willingness to move, there is a need to move. If we have passion, our lives become defined by that “tension toward something else” which drives us. That is the life that I am striving to live, the sort of life that is active and alive, not so passive that it can be blown about by each and every change that comes along.

Last night I finally saw the movie “Bella.” It was especially beautiful to me in that the movie emphasized the necessity of passion for life. Jose and his family were so passionately committed to each other, to their culture, to their faith, and to their friends. They were a family that did not hold back love. It was such a sacramental movie, such a beautiful movie. “Truth is beautiful in itself.” the Catechism reminds us, but how often is that portrayed in contemporary art? “Bella” was a testimony to the triumph of beauty and passion.