Friends, the modern conception of the self is built on autonomous choice: “This is my life; these are my choices; don’t tell me what to do.” That’s legitimate—up to a point. In Catholic thought, the self isn’t the sheerly autonomous, self-reliant individual of modernity. There is also the reality of participation: “I’m me, but I belong to something bigger than myself: a family, a community, a faith.” Paul Tillich spoke of a polarity between individualization and participation. These two poles of the self should live in a creative, healthy tension. But we’ve lost sight of the second, and it’s the side we need more of today.