Mr. Sobrino offers JPII's reflection on courage

Wonder who should read this?

I should, for one. One of the most reasonable acts I routinely engage in is dire anticipation. I give birth to Mark Twain's fruits of imagination nearly every moment. Such frailty only helps the Reasonable and silences the fool.

That's the trouble. We all want to be so reasonable to one another, however mad our reasonableness tends to make us. Would that I experienced the foolishness of those slaves of the arena, who went forth saying, "today is a good day to die."

After all, Fools that we are, we do not believe death ends us. Christ has made that certainty a nonexistant reality. Death merely offers us the full measure of life to which we have chosen. God's judgement honors our own choice, frightening though that may be. It's better for me to be Foolish in these cases than Reasonable. If only I could remember to be consistent.