196. Catholics, then, have strategies and precedents for living the faith in a world which does not understand their beliefs or agree with them. If our way of life is different from the world’s, we nevertheless have a firm hope and a clear mind, “a plan bigger than our own ideas and undertakings, a plan which sustains us and enables us to surrender our future entirely to the one we love.” We have a firm foundation for independence from destructive forces in society and culture, and it is this same foundation which orients us to love and participation in society and culture. The “love which moves the sun and the other stars,” the love which created and sustains all that is, is the same love which animates our marriages, our families, our homes, and our Church. We can be confident that if we follow this love, even to the foot of the cross, our sufferings are actually making us more real, more authentically human, and that resurrection and vindication are coming, because we are following a trustworthy Lord. This love will give us the fortitude to live distinctively, as salt of the earth.