The World Beyond Our Window, by Francis X. Maier

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*Image: May Morning on Magdalen Tower by William Holman Hunt, 1888-91 [Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool, England]. Te Deum Patrem colimus.

By Francis X. Maier, The Catholic Thing, Sept. 27, 2023

Francis X. Maier is a senior fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

This is a column about the future.  But it begins with the past.  I’ll explain.

I turn 75 in October.  As birthdays go, this is a Big One.  My wife Suann and I are both blessed with good health, so mortality still feels like a tedious but remote obligation. . .though a lot less remote than a decade ago.  People die; all of us.  In your 70s, consciously or otherwise, you start to take an inventory of what you’ve seen and learned; what, if anything, you’ve accomplished; what your life has meant.

And so, for the past several years, I’ve wandered back to 1 Peter 1:24-25 more frequently: …