An excerpt from Cardinal Leo’s Nov. 5 address at the annual Cardinal’s Dinner in Toronto.

As we enjoy a succulent meal, soothing background music, each other’s company and a glass of vino or two (but not more!) – we are nevertheless conscious that so many of our fellow human beings, our sisters and brothers across the world, including the GTA, are struggling in many ways and have been for a long time now, striving to make ends meet, to just get by, and for some, to survive tragic and devastating realities of everyday life. I wish simply to draw our attention to the fact that we all have a role to play, either big or small, in healing our broken world. 

It is too easy to blame those in power, who are elected, appointed or chosen to guide, lead, govern and serve. Each one of us needs to embrace his or her responsibility and contribute to patch up the holes of the garment of our common humanity. In doing so we will honour God Himself and effect true, lasting and transforming change.

Let us briefly go back in time. The year was 1914, and the French army suffered dreadful losses at the Battle of the Frontiers and the First Battle of the Marne. You can imagine the heart-wrenching inquiries swamping the Red Cross information service in Paris. The newly arrived director was none other than Gabriel Marcel, a young 24-year-old philosophy graduate. 

His responsibility was to track down information about soldiers missing at the front and then relay it to their families. In his autobiography, Marcel wrote of this unnerving task: “For me it was a question, as much as possible, of taking every particular case that was handed to us by an anguished mother, wife, fiancée, or sister and of gathering the necessary evidence that would allow me to shed light upon the disappearance of a soldier.” That experience remained with him for the rest of his life as he then understood his mission, as a philosopher and social thinker, as a way to 

He developed an understanding of the human condition which is hopeful and life-giving. He understood that the missing soldier was a “problem” that was solved when he discovered the soldier’s status, his whereabouts. To put it bluntly, the missing soldier became a variable in a formula derived from catalogue data. This was level one. Level two, deeper and meaningful, was one that necessitated personal encounters. Whenever Marcel had to deliver the horrifying news to the parents that their son had been killed in action, it was manifestly apparent the soldier was not a variable but a singular human being. 

Marcel is well-known for forging the insightful distinction between problem and mystery. He stated that our broken world is one that is “on the one hand, riddled with problems and, on the other, determined to allow no room for mystery.” A problem is something external to us. It can be solved with a technique. 

In his words: “A problem is something which I meet, which I find completely before me, but which I can therefore lay siege to and reduce. But a mystery is something in which I am myself involved, and it can therefore only be thought of as a sphere where the distinction between what is in me and what is before me loses its meaning and initial validity.”

A problem is a question, an issue in which I am not involved, in which the identity of the person asking the question or experiencing the trial and tribulation is not an issue. As such, a problem is something that bars my way, placing an obstacle in front of me that is addressed and overcome impersonally, detachedly by means of the technique. He noted that the modern broken world only sees the problematic insomuch as it can be addressed with a skill set, an algorithm, e.g., changing a flat tire on a car or downloading security software on one’s computer. 

A mystery, on the other hand, demands participation, personal involvement and from which we cannot extricate ourselves or remain indifferent. Marcel called a mystery a “problem which encroaches upon its own data.” It has roots in the depths of our being, but it also reaches beyond us. There is no general technique for addressing a mystery. It can only be lived out with a wisdom responsive to the particulars of the situation and the people involved. Birth, love and death are central mysteries for Marcel.

Cardinal Leo’s address can be watched in full at archtoronto.org