Faithful Wonders

Facts of Life

“Every week is full of small wonders — things that truly make me see the hand of God in the world,” blogger Lauren Warner wrote at SippingLemonade.com last month. “As [G.K.] Chesterton says, ‘I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.’ Yes: That is the feeling in those moments — sheer gratitude. It’s bigger than happiness. It’s happiness doubled by wonder.

“And even if I never see the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, my life will have still been complete having seen the rise and fall of my child’s breath on a summer afternoon, to have watched a storm roll in with a cup of hot coffee. … For surely, it is in these little things that God shows his presence to us every day. We spend so much of life looking for miracles, when really, aren’t they all around us?”

In this same vein, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore wrote about how “The Church in the Home” (July 17 column, Catholic Review) instills these kinds of attitudes: “We felt at home in the Church, and because of that, our homes had a ‘church-like’ quality. … While our home was church-like because of prayer, religious instruction and moral formation, the most church-like quality of all was love. … The world has changed dramatically since I was a child. But the fundamental need for children to have a mother and father who love each other and who are faithful to the Lord, the Church and each other remains unchanged.”