Transcript of the Video Above

Daily reflections for Lenten Easter, written by Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI.

Previous generations had a certain sense of sacrifice which, for better or for worse, we have all but lost.
In my parents generation, to offer just one kind of example, it was not that uncommon for someone in a family to forego his or her own private ambitions in order to stay at home and take care of an aging or sick parent.

For years that person would put his or her own life on hold while essentially he or she lived for someone else. Very often, by the time the parent died, it was too late for that person to build the kind of life that might have been possible. Marriage, children, a career had not circumstances conscripted him or her to do this family duty.

Today we no longer see virtue in that kind of self sacrifice. On the contrary, we tend to frown upon it and judge it negatively as a failure of nerve, a tragedy, the waste of a life.

Irrespective of whether that is true, previous generations did recognize something that today we often don’t perceive, namely that in this life we are essentially interdependent.

We have duties as well as rights. Moreover, this kind of sacrifice is, in the end, the cornerstone of family and community life.

Might not the cause of some of our current difficulties in keeping our marriages, families and communities together be the breakdown of this kind of self sacrifice?