Lectio Divina — “generation”
Day 16 of the Season of Creation
Memorial of Saints Cornelius, Pope, and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs
1. Lectio — generation
> “To what shall I compare the people of this generation?”
— Luke 7:31
Jesus asks a question that refuses to remain safely in the first century. What shall he compare my generation to? And more uncomfortably: what shall he compare me to?
I belong to a particular generation, formed by its achievements and failures, its hopes and fears, its prosperity and wounds. Yet the Gospel does not permit me simply to analyze my generation. It asks whether I have allowed Christ to transform me within it.
Cornelius and Cyprian belonged to another generation. Their world had its own powers, anxieties, divisions and demands for conformity. Yet both discovered something worth more than security—even life itself. Their martyrdom asks me whether I merely inherit the assumptions of my generation or possess the freedom to surrender them when Christ calls.
During this Season of Creation, the question becomes still more concrete. What will the generation after mine receive from my hands? Will there still be living water flowing for them?
2. Meditatio — What will my generation leave?
At The Glenn I look at the bright yellow daylilies my Dad planted, with the American flag flying behind them. The flowers themselves are a kind of inheritance. My father planted; another generation now looks upon what he planted.
I am a Baby Boomer. My generation came of age amid enormous cultural change and participated in movements that reshaped American life. We learned to speak out. And I have certainly learned to speak out.
But perhaps I have not always learned the equally Christian art of knowing when my own grievances are too small for the language I give them.
Today Saints Cornelius and Cyprian confront me with that uncomfortable distinction. They knew persecution of a kind I do not. Their fidelity ultimately cost them their lives. Christians in parts of the world today likewise experience grave restrictions, violence, imprisonment, displacement, and sometimes death because of their faith. Against such suffering, I should be cautious about casually describing every opposition, insult, criticism, or frustration I experience as persecution.
Perhaps I sometimes enlarge my suffering because I do not want to examine my privilege.
And that brings me back to those daylilies.
My generation inherited much. We accumulated much. Homes, land, retirement savings, machinery, conveniences, technology—stuff. There is nothing inherently sinful about possessing these things. But the Gospel turns possession into a question:
What did my generation do with what it received?
And the Season of Creation makes the question sharper:
What will the next generation receive after I am finished with it?
The water beneath The Glenn did not begin with me. The soil did not begin with me. The grasses, birds, sheep, trees and sky did not begin with me. Even those yellow daylilies remind me that I am living among gifts planted by somebody who came before me.
So why should I behave as though everything belongs to my generation?
Living water exposes the absurdity particularly well. Water refuses to respect my illusion of ownership. It falls before I am born, sinks beneath soil I did not make, nourishes creatures I do not own, and—God willing—continues flowing after I am gone.
Perhaps Christian wisdom is learning to receive without clutching.
Cornelius and Cyprian surrendered even their lives rather than make preservation of themselves their highest good. I may never be asked for martyrdom. But I am certainly asked for surrender.
Maybe my martyrdom begins much smaller:
letting go of the conviction that my generation knows best;
letting go of grievances I have polished until they resemble persecution;
letting go of possessions that have quietly begun possessing me;
and conserving living water that I will never drink because it belongs also to people I will never meet.
The flowers my Dad planted have outlived the moment in which he planted them.
What am I planting for the generation that will stand here when I am gone?
3. Oratio — Prayer
Lord Jesus,
You ask what You shall compare this generation to,
and I am tempted to point toward everyone except myself.
Turn Your question toward me.
Thank You for the generation that came before me,
for my parents,
for what they planted, built, preserved and handed on.
Thank You also for the generation into which You placed me,
with all its courage and contradictions,
its accomplishments and excesses.
Forgive me when I confuse opposition with persecution,
comfort with necessity,
possession with entitlement,
and speaking loudly with speaking truthfully.
Through the intercession of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian,
give me courage without self-importance
and conviction without bitterness.
During this Season of Creation,
teach me to receive creation as inheritance rather than property.
Let the living water I receive
remain living water for those who come after me.
May I leave behind more than stuff.
May I leave fertile soil,
water carefully guarded,
creatures lovingly tended,
faith faithfully handed on,
and something beautiful planted
whose flowers I may never live to see.
Amen.
4. Contemplatio — generation
The yellow daylilies become my icon today.
My Dad planted them.
I behold them.
Another generation may someday behold what I plant.
And suddenly Magnifica humanitas’ warning about artificial intelligence becomes part of the same examination of conscience.
AI may appear astonishingly new, but the moral question beneath it is ancient: Who possesses the power, who receives its benefits, who bears its costs, and what is handed to those who come afterward?
My generation has already witnessed extraordinary concentrations of wealth, technology and information. AI can intensify those concentrations because those possessing capital, computing infrastructure, expertise and vast stores of data possess advantages unavailable to most individuals and communities.
But living water teaches me another economy.
The spring does not drink itself.
The river does not invoice the tree.
The rain does not ask whether the lamb has sufficient purchasing power.
Creation continually whispers the principle of gift.
That does not eliminate legitimate ownership or responsible stewardship. It does, however, challenge me whenever ownership becomes absolute—as though a resource owed nothing to the common good or to generations yet unborn.
The same question therefore reaches from the Ogallala beneath my feet to the data centers powering the digital world:
Who gets the water? Who gets the data? Who gets the power? Who gets a voice? And what remains afterward?
If data is generated through the lives, words, labor and activity of countless human beings, then Magnifica humanitas challenges me to think beyond a world in which its benefits become concentrated among only a few. Participation and subsidiarity mean that communities should not merely receive decisions handed down by distant centers of technological power; people affected by these systems need meaningful ways to participate in their governance.
And now Saints Cornelius and Cyprian stand before me.
They remind me of something no artificial intelligence can calculate into existence: witness.
A martyr does not merely possess an opinion. A martyr gives himself.
That is the wisdom my generation—and every generation—needs.
Perhaps the great question is not whether the Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z, or whatever generation comes next proves wiser than another.
Jesus’s question is more personal:
“To what shall I compare the people of this generation?”
Standing among my father’s flowers during this Season of Creation, I pray that Christ might compare us not to owners guarding what we accumulated, but to gardeners tending what we received.
My father planted flowers whose beauty became mine.
Can I conserve living water that will become someone else’s?
Can I use technology whose benefits become someone else’s?
Can I relinquish power so another person’s voice can be heard?
Can I plant something I will never see bloom?
That may be the wisdom I still need to acquire from my generation:
I am not the culmination of the generations that came before me.
I am a bridge to the generation that comes after me.
And beneath that bridge, God willing,
may there still flow living water.
Memorial of Saints Cornelius, Pope, and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs on Day 16 of the Season of Creation
