Living an Integrated Life, by Regis Martin

Have we still got a Christian consensus around which Americans of every possible persuasion can rally round? A public philosophy, that is, whose strength and wisdom continue to inspire support? And if so, what is the core principle that binds us together as a people? It is, I would argue, the belief that God—not doctors or lawyers or politicians—is the Author of life and that we are its custodians and shepherds. We are not arbiters of a gift which only God can give, but rather, beneficiaries of a blessing which we ought both to be grateful for and to defend.

Is the house I live in free and clear because I paid for it, or does God still hold the mortgage? “God owns the world,” writes St. Josemaría Escrivá, “but he rents it out to the brave.” And so we need to be brave in order to defend the things of God, beginning with human life—especially the most innocent and vulnerable. And because life does not generate itself but issues forth from the loins of human love, situated within the matrix of a family subject to God as the Father of us all, we need to protect this most basic and necessary institution. …

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