Friends of the Missions

“Many people seem to worry themselves a great deal more over the things they cannot help than over the things that they can. … This want of proportion is doubtless observable in myself. Do I think more of the accidents of birth, fortune, and personal appearance than of the self that I have created? For I myself am responsible for myself. ‘To be born a gentleman is an accident; to die one is an achievement.’ Other things, then, I may not be able to help; but myself, I can. As I am at this very moment, as my character is—truthful or untruthful, pure or impure, patient or impatient, slow to wrath or quick-tempered, eager, enthusiastic, energetic, or lazy and dull and wasteful of time—I have no one to thank but myself … the fact remains that I myself alone am responsible for my own character; for character is an artificial thing that is not born, but made.”

— Fr. Bede Jarrett