For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his sould? Or what will a man give in exchange for his sould?

Don't run from suffering; embrace it...What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?

-Jesus of Nazareth

The Franciscan friars visiting our campus this week bubble over with life; I feel like a pale shell next to them, to the life they have. What does it profit a man to spend his entire life running after the impulses dangled in front of him if his entire frenzied, frenetic, restless life is soul-killing suicide?

What are the things that give us real life? Their joy comes from the simple fellowship of poverty: no television, shared meals, communal possessions, shared manual labor, shared ministry--that coveted hiking fellowship that I remember so dearly from the trail. Their spiritual wholeness comes from hours spent daily in prayer, communal celebration, solitude, meditation, study, submission to authority and worship--carefully examining the soul and by grace pushing back the self-destructive habits and ideas that strangle out the life of the soul.

All this for the price of poverty, chastity, and obedience...

"The only container into which grace and mercy are poured out is that of trust. We ought to be leaning so heavily on Christ that it is plainly evident that if He were not there supporting us, we would fall." --Brother Columba