By DONALD DeMARCO
The word “potential” has very broad implications. We all have a potential for doing both good and evil. And which potential for good we should follow can be difficult to discern. Over the course of my lifetime, I have turned down jobs as a factory worker, librarian, fund-raiser, high school teacher, encyclopedia salesman, and a piano player in a band. I suppose I had some potential for each of these enterprises. But I always thought that something more encompassing was at stake. It had to do with my destiny, and that would be worked out only in collaboration with God.
At the same time, love must be an ever-present counterpart. I cannot say to another, “Sorry, I can’t help you, I need to fulfill my potential.” My potential as a faithful husband and responsible father, however, would be congruent with my destiny. But my overarching destiny would be the result of that mysterious interplay between my freedom and God’s will. “Our peace,” as Dante famously stated, “is in His Will.”
There is a great deal of talk these days about fulfilling one’s potential. But there is just too much potential in any of us to be fulfilled. Even a centenarian does not have enough time to fulfill all of his potential. Sir Isaac Newton made ground-breaking contributions to science and mathematics. Nevertheless, he saw himself toward the end of his life as just a little boy enchanted by a few pebbles strewn along the beach while the great ocean of truth lay before him yet to be explored. Despite St. Thomas Aquinas’ extraordinary accomplishments in the fields of philosophy and theology, he felt that all his writings amounted to nothing more than a heap of straw.
Today’s meaning of “fulfilling my potential” is usually associated with an award of some kind or public recognition. But these factors are conferred upon a person and are not truly in themselves personal fulfillments. More deserving individuals may not receive such honors even though they have brought a great deal of their potential to fulfillment. A grave mistake some people are now making is to assume that becoming a mother interferes with fulfilling one’s potential.
In a 2021 podcast, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi talked about abortion. The former Democratic candidate for the presidency noted that between her and the Speaker of the House, they have twelve grandchildren. “So,” Mrs. Clinton went on to say, “we have a dozen perfectly good reasons to get up every day and continue to fight for the future we want, not just for our grandkids, but really every child to live up to his or her God-given potential. That’s what it is all about.” One might hope for more positive aspirations for one’s progeny. God has also given women the potential to be good mothers.
Two contradictions should jump out at the listener. No one can live up to his or her “God-given potential” if he is dead. Reading between the lines, it is as if Hillary said, “I am in favor of everyone fulfilling his or her potential. Therefore, I want to destroy human life in its earliest form so that fulfilling one’s potential for that individual is not a possibility.”
Moreover, “it’s too bad our mothers did not abort us and thereby missed out on fulfilling their own potential.” We should expect better logic from women who occupy high places of authority
It is insulting, of course, to every loving mother to suggest that having a child interfered with fulfilling her potential. It is also cruel to hope that one’s grandchildren would gratefully avail themselves of the opportunity to destroy the lives that are developing within them. Consider the curse that King Lear placed on of his daughter, Goneril: “Hear, Nature, hear, dear goddess, hear! Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intend to make this creature fruitful. Into her womb convey sterility. Dry up in her the organs of increase, and from her derogate body never spring a babe to honor her” (King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4). Lear fully understood that having a child is a blessing.
Let us imagine that Mary of Nazareth said “no” to the Archangel Gabriel. Would she have gone on to fulfill her potential? We have no reason not to believe that, having rejected God’s offer, her name would ever have been known to us. It would have remained, like so many names, wrapped in anonymity, relegated to the precincts of obscurity. But she did say “yes” and the world has never been the same.
As Fulton Sheen stated, “Christianity came into the world because a woman was willing to make a child the center of her life.” Mary brought not only Christ but also Christianity into the world. There is no other womanly accomplished that remotely compares with what was achieved by this “handmaiden of the Lord.”
“My soul doth magnify the Lord,” she proclaimed in her Magnificat. “And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden. For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath magnified me: and holy is his Name” (Luke 1:46-55).
We do not believe that all generations will refer to Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton as “blessed.” Mary’s humility allowed God to come into her life and also into the world. Self-concern has a way of keeping God at a distance. Mary was not in the least concerned with fulfilling her potential. She was obedient to God and, as a result, became the most blessed and glorified woman in all of human history. She did far more than fulfill her potential; she fulfilled her destiny.
(Dr. Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus, St. Jerome’s University, and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College. He is the author of 39 books and is a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest book, 12 Pillars of the Culture of Life and Why They Are Crumbling is posted on amazon.com.)
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