Holy Radiation

Absorb before you radiate.

Few things fill me with more fear than the blank page. Trying to start an essay from scratch is a recipe for writer's block.

One writer suggests “gathering supplies” before sitting down to write and then beginning “once you have so much information that you can’t not write.”

As the writer Sebastian Junger says, “If you have writer’s block, you don’t have enough ammunition.”

This dynamic of needing to be filled up before we pour out is not unique to writing.

“Nemo dat quod non habet” is a Latin maxim that means “no one gives what he does not have.”

In looking at the gospels, Archbishop Fulton Sheen noted, “Our Lord’s first word to His disciples was ‘come!’ His last word was ‘go!’”

Sheen continued, “You can’t ‘go’ unless you’ve first ‘come’ to Him.”

Before we radiate love out to others, we need to be rooted in love.