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May 6, 2023: We Have Been Chosen by God
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God chooses all of us for some good purpose, or many good purposes throughout our lives. Lest we forget, we have been chosen. Jesus told the Apostles they did not choose him, but he chose them. He chose them to spread the Good News that God has come to us in the Person of Jesus to bring salvation to a broken world. And, to not allow death to be the final arbiter, having the final say at the end of our days.
God has chosen every person for some good purpose, or for many good purposes. The true good we reflect in our lives reflects in turn the beautiful truth that God has chosen us to extend the life of Christ Jesus through our minds and hearts, through our bodies and wills. Jesus always chose the good, even if it meant overturning a few tables in the Temple of his Father’s house. Which remains always a good image for us. I can say with honesty there have been a few tables that needed to be turned over in my own life in order to bring it to a point where God can at least crack a smile when he looks into my heart and soul. Overturning a table or two or three is central to the process of ongoing, daily conversion. Our spiritual growth that needs work and attention every day of the year.
But the fundamental understanding of who we are before God, and how we remain in relationship with the Lord Jesus, is to accept with heartfelt gratitude that he has chosen us as his disciples previous to and before we can say, “Yes, Lord, I am yours. Do with me what you will.” By choosing us first, we are now capable of choosing our Savior in every part of our lives. And I’d like to think we all know what this means, and how this gets translated into the living out of our Catholic faith in all areas of life. Obedience, of course, is at the heart of our choosing Christ. We don’t choose Jesus for the purpose of fighting with him, or moving on from him, or rejecting some of what he has given to us through his Church, the Bride of Christ. We don’t choose Jesus and tell him to move aside as we go and give in to desires that contradict our choosing him. To choose Jesus after he has chosen us to bring Good News to those we encounter, which is consistent with why we choose to be his disciples. If I choose to sign a contract with the Boston Celtics, it would be more than awkward if I chose to support a team I play against. Or to fight with my teammates or the owner. If I choose Jesus after he has chosen me for good purpose, why would I choose the devil at any later point after my choosing the One who is all good and loving? Yet, this is what disobedience does to one who previously chose Jesus.
I recently performed the Sacrament of Anointing on a middle-aged woman at her home after receiving a call. At her home was one of her brothers, a very nice man. As we waited for someone else to arrive, the brother and I began a conversation that revealed he entered the Catholic Church some years earlier. After he entered, having chosen Jesus, he went through some spiritual training with the Society of Jesus, aka, the Jesuits. My thought was, “OK, he likely places a solemn emphasis on works of mercy, which, of course, is all good.” To love in action is to love God for real, which is a very good place to be in our relationship with Christ. A very good place. Then came the words, “I have a few issues with the Church.” Unfortunately, when I hear these words nowadays, my mind has been trained to proceed in a certain direction that almost always will enter a spiritual zone that says, “This person is referring to some moral teaching of the Church, or possibly the issue of male priesthood only.” Seriously, has anyone who professes Catholicism and says, “I have issues with the Church” ever gone on to say to you, “My issue is, I really don’t believe Jesus is raised from the dead.” Or, “I really don’t believe Jesus is the Son of God, and he really is not present in the Eucharist.” I’ve never heard such words spoken from anyone who professes to be a faithful Catholic. “I have issues with the Church” almost always falls back to a moral or gender issue. Most every time, this is what rubs and scrubs the soul of someone who has issues with God’s Church.
Anyway, the conversation continued without my responding to his comment about issues with the Bride of Christ. A short moment later, he said again, “I have a few issues with the Church.” Now I’m thinking, “My friend, I just want to anoint your sister and prepare her to meet Jesus in a few moments time, ensuring the salvation of her soul, which reception of the Sacrament of Anointing will do in short order. Which is why every Catholic, if possible, should receive it before they die.” In fact, I personally think every person in the world should receive such grace and a guarantee of salvation. But, I gave in and said, “You are referring to the human side – the sinful occupants - of the Church, correct? And not to the Divine nature of God’s house of which the Holy Spirit is the Guide, correct?” Gladly, he agreed with this statement provided by the Spirit of God in the moment. We never did discuss his said “issues with the Church,” for, as the other person we were waiting for entered, the Spirit now moved us from the living room to the bedroom where his sister lay dying. The room where God’s grace won out that evening.
I use this above example because, by all appearances, it seems to be widespread, and touches directly on the spiritual issue of “choseness.” I do not use it to put a person down, but hopefully to raise them up to see how the virtue of obedience is not an enemy, but a dear friend to us in our faith lives, even while a spiritual struggle takes up room in our hearts and minds. The above conversation is one that can be had with too many folks every day of the week. As a priest, I understand concerns about certain moral issues that affect us and/or our families personally. But I also understand and fully accept as eternally binding the teachings that come from God, not us.
This connects squarely to us being chosen first by God, entrusting us to protect and pass on his holy deposit of faith that will lead others to the everlasting promises God has prepared for us after this quick life. In turn, a central purpose of our choosing the Lord Jesus in our lives pertains, not so much to how we have “issues with the Church,” but how we present them and attend to any issues we may have. If a moral or some other teaching in our faith is possibly incorrect, or has been misunderstood by Church leaders for centuries since the beginning, or shortly thereafter, then the alter-understanding must be explained within the context of our free choice to follow Christ Jesus as his disciples, who first chose us. In other words, said “issues with the Church” cannot be explained through reasons that raise the culture we live in to be the supreme teacher and arbiter of how we live out our faith in Jesus. This, my friends, is profoundly weak and most unstable if culture is the central guide to why and how anyone has “issues with the Church.”
If our culture is a person’s supreme guide for making moral choices, then I pray such persons make it to Purgatory, at least. Personally, if the dominant culture in which we presently reside was my supreme teacher, I believe I would be walking a path to somewhere other than heaven, which is supposed to be the goal. This is written not to condemn anyone, for that job belongs to God, the just Judge. However, I would understand I’d be making a sinful entity- culture – my supreme guide on issues of faith, superseding the Divine holiness of Scripture and Tradition. I would definitely feel like I was not choosing Christ in totality, honestly, and humility if our sinful culture was raised to a divine stature by my choices, practice, and thinking. My choosing Christ Jesus would be deeply flawed if I had the wherewithal and audacity to inform Mother Church that she is in error on certain moral teachings, or other teachings, based on, not my religious knowledge that rationally reveals said teaching to be in error, but on my personal opinion that, in the end, contradicts my having chosen Christ Jesus.
The centrality of our Christian faith is the Person of Jesus Christ. He is everything to one who professes to be Christian. He is the beginning and the end, with not too much other stuff in between, I pray. He is the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega. To get away from this central truth in our lives opens a door or gate that will water down our choice of Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, after he first chose us. The Lord is the One who keeps our path straight, extending his guidance to his Blessed Mother and all the Saints. If we falter, or live a life of disobedience to some degree, this belongs to us. We own any misdirection and all “issues with the Church,” unless a person can explain with logic and reason said issues as being consistent with God first choosing us, and then we choosing Christ Jesus. My strongest sense is that having “issues with the Church” is code for having strayed a bit too much away from the Good Shepherd, having created a new “shepherd” in one’s life known as Mr. Culture. This is not where Christians belong in our having been chosen by our Creator, and certainly not in our having chosen Christ Jesus.