The line that I am personally dwelling on this week is the last one: “The world in its present form is passing away.”

I was fortunate after ordination to the priesthood to spend several years studying the theology of the body in depth. I can still recall as if it was yesterday an experience I had sitting outside reading the Holy Father and suddenly realizing I was starting to sit up straighter.

I had a conversation with a young woman recently that I can’t shake. Hers is a rather common tale: she grew up in a strong Catholic family, went to Catholic schools, got to college and drifted away. There’s much more to it, of course, but how many young people are in her shoes, and how many parents know the anguish that hers know?

We have acquired something of a habit of excising those parts of Scripture we find uncomfortable, confusing, and problematic. Hans Urs von Balthasar was fond of saying we need to do theology on our knees, and not at a desk. In other words, we need to let God’s Word pick us apart, not us pick it apart.