As I reflect on a Eucharistic Church, I believe we have “missed the mark,” as a church, in teaching and living the truth of ourselves in light of the gift of life and the reality of who we are in Christ. So many of our brothers and sisters, who are utterly empty of hope and belonging, are turning to violent means of ending their own lives and sometimes taking the lives of others. We say we are children of God and we have dignity because of this truth. Yet, so many of us walk on the road to Emmaus with our heads down, lost in our own worlds, not recognizing our fellow humans with Christ within and in our midst.

Carl Jung first wrote about the phenomenon of the two halves of life. During the first half of life, a person develops confidence in his or her identity (ego), shaping it through life’s experiences and desire for success, need for belonging, importance and security. As a person grows spiritually, though, he may find that the conscious things that initially shape his first half of life no longer help him in a path to self-discovery. If he seeks growth, he begins to face the second half of life where he must look inward and beyond what he perceives as acceptable to others.