Past Issues

What does it mean to be an adult? Some think of maturity in terms of self-possession. But what if adulthood is actually the condition in which we realize that we do not, in fact, “possess” ourselves? What if being truly adult means being ready and willing to say “I do,” to give ourselves away—wholly and irrevocably—to another? To mature as a human being implies a certain “ripeness,” the ability to bear fruit. But we can only do that when we have made a complete gift of self to another (or Another). That is why we possess ourselves in the first place, to have something to give.

An adult is a grown up, someone who has developed to the point of maturity. He or she has “graduated from school,” so to speak. Now what? The dreaded platitude intoned at every graduation comes to mind: “‘commencement’ means a beginning not an end.” But what is it we are about to begin? Or, better, into what precisely are we about to be initiated? Skepticism? Doubt? Distraction? This issue proposes adulthood as a “school of life” where “students”—now on their own two feet—verify the truth they have been given as they seek it more deeply, and become teachers themselves.

A troubling new trend suggests that instead of being an adult, it is sufficient “to adult” when necessary—that is, to undertake what responsible adults do: pay the bills, control one’s temper, etc. Once the often unpleasant tasks have been accomplished, the role of adult can be cast aside, to be reassumed at a later time. But there must come a time when we put aside “childish ways,” as St. Paul admonishes. Only in laying aside our “I” and embracing the good of the other, wholly and selflessly, can we reach human maturity. This issue takes up the theme of adulthood and the current coming-of-age crisis.

To be embodied is to be vulnerable. Vulnerability strikes us as negative and with reason, rooted as it is in the word “wound.” But the ability to be wounded is also the capacity to be affected—moved—by another. To be vulnerable is to be in need of help, in attaining something, in growing up, or just in being. “I am wounded with love,” says the Bride of her Bridegroom. Our bodies open us to the world and to God, even though that openness also makes us susceptible to a host of wounds in the more obvious, negative, sense. This issue takes up the full range of that vulnerability in man.

As the late political philosopher Augusto Del Noce said, the sexual revolution was the most revolutionary because it was “not only against civilization and values but also against the very principle of reality.” By separating the “inseparable meanings,” as Humanae vitae puts it, mother was set against child, woman against man, and finally, children against their mothers and fathers, and with them their Creator. This issue is about the inescapable reality of sex, the inseparable link between sexual love and children which always reasserts itself, even as we try to escape it.