The central icon of Catholic Christianity is mother and child. That motif is so deep in not just our human experience but in our animal, biological past.

Women have entered the work force . . . partly to express their feelings of self-worth . . . partly because today many families would not survive without two incomes, partly because they are not at all sure their marriages will last. The day of the husband as permanent meal-ticket is over, a fact most women recognize, however they feel about "women's liberation.

We have imagined ourselves a special creation, set apart from other humans. In the last twentieth century, we see that our povertyis as absolute as that of the poorest nations. We have attempted to deny the human condition in our quest for power after power. It would be well for us to rejoin the human race, to accept our essential poverty as a gift, and to share our material wealth with those in need.

It's clear all the way through history that practices are primary and beliefs are secondary.

We never get to the bottom of ourselves on our own. We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love and learning.

The problem of the universal is difficult in every case. The universal and the particular can never be separated; they always go hand in hand.

However painful the process of leaving home, for parents and for children, the really frightening thing for both would be the prospect of the child never leaving home.