Within
the life of every human, one of the things that can be said to be a universal
aspect of our condition is the reality of choice. Just think about it, each and every day we are faced with
many decisions that will effect or lives.
Some of those choices may be as simple as what should I eat for
breakfast? Or what should I wear today? Now these choices in and of themselves
do not seem to have much bearing on the general well being of our day, but in
reality the little choices such as these will effect the habits that one
develops with regard to how he/she relates to the world. For example, eating breakfast even if
it is something small has great benefits to your general health as well as the
amount of focus that you may have in completing your daily responsibilities. Likewise, the way you dress for any
given day may have effects on you beyond just being fashionable. The first effect that it may have is
purely practical—“Does what I wear allow me to adapt to my environment?” Namely, is it weather appropriate? And secondly, what you wear may have an
implication on how the world responds to you. For instance, “does what I wear allow me to be treated with
dignity and respect or does my manner of dress allow others to view me as an
object for their personal pleasure?
As
you can see the little choices that we make do have an implication on one’s
life, but today’s blog is mainly about the major choices and specifically the
fundamental choice that all of us make in our lives. That fundamental choice is either to be for Christ or
against him. When reflecting upon
this choice and when writing this article, it is somewhat providential that I
was inspired to write this article today.
The reason that I say this is because today is the day that our Holy Father
Pope Benedict XVI has chosen to open the Year of Faith. But why did Pope Benedict XVI choose to
do this? The main reason is
because currently there is a crisis in the faith. In his motu propio document Porta Fidei (The Door of Faith)—the document in which he chose to
announce the year of faith—our Holy Father articulates this crisis by writing, “It
often happens that Christians are more concerned for the social, cultural and
political consequences of their commitment, continuing to think of the faith as
a self-evident presupposition for life in society (§2).” As the Holy Father puts it, this crisis
is not the same type of crisis that the Church has encountered in the past. In the past, the Church would defend
the faith by speaking out against an overt heresy that was leading people away
from the heart of the Church. Now
that crisis is more subtle. Rather
than overtly working against the hearts of Christians, the evil one has chosen
to act by attacking our fundamental choice. In any given parish, in the western world one common
thing that is often seen is the complacency of the faith. Rather than attending Mass to worship
and adore, many find themselves there merely to meet the social obligation/expectation. Unfortunately, in many hearts, there is
a loss of the passion that once guided our fathers in the faith. Rather than hearts on fire, we are
faced with people who are inconvenienced by the Gospel.
In
order to address this reality, I would like to turn to two models of the faith
and how it is that they answered the call of Christ; namely, St. Peter and Our
Lady. The first model that I wish
to look to is the witness of our first pope St. Peter. To do this lets turn to the Gospel of
St. Matthew and see how the Apostle recounts St. Peter’s call:
“As
he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter,
and his
brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. He said to them, ‘Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ At once they left their nets and
followed him (Mt. 4:18-20).”
Due to the briefness of this call account, it is easy to miss the
profoundness of the event. Just think about it, St. Peter was a fisherman. That is what he did and that that is
what he had known for his entire life and now, some guy who he hardly knew is asking him to leave
everything behind and trust that his basic needs were going to be met so that he
could survive. Now, there is no
way for us to know the internal dialogue that went on in St. Peter’s heart, but
what we do know, as spoken by St. Matthew, is that St. Peter was willing to lay
down every part of his life in order that he might be able to truly give his
heart to Christ. Modern readers would say that this is no minor
inconvenience but more like and act of craziness. You see, our society says get in line, go with
the flow, get educated and get a job but the Call of the Messiah asks us to lay
all down for the Glory of God even if that means leaving everything behind.
Our
second model of faith is none other than the Blessed Virgin Mary, the
Mother of God. If anyone could be said to have been "inconvenienced" by the Gospel it could be her. According to the Gospel of St. Luke, Mary was a young girl
from Nazareth and suddenly, in a life altering encounter, the Archangel Gabriel
appears to her and tells her that she would become the Mother of God. In that moment, Mary’s heart was not so
much concerned about the social consequences of her choice but her only
response was “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according
to your word (Luke 26-38).” In
that moment, Mary was more willing to say yes than to worry about the fact that
according to Jewish law she could be killed for being pregnant out of
wedlock. What bravery this woman
had to be so willing to die so that “The Way, the Truth, and The Life” could
become our own.
As
we can see, this basic commitment to the faith is something that is
livable, but just because it is doable that doesn’t mean
that it will be easy, and it is precisely because of that
perceived difficulty, many people have
abandoned the pursuit of holiness.
As G.K. Chesterton put it, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and
found wanting. It has been found
difficult and left untried.” So if
we want to genuinely pursue of life of holiness, we must remember that anything
that is worth doing is going to be difficult. Just imagine how hard we work at other pursuits in our life,
whether that be athletic ability, the pursuit of knowledge, or the development
of other musical or artistic talents.
These talents where not just developed by saying I want it therefore I
can automatically win the Super Bowl.
Rather, it took many years of training and learning to develop those skills. Well the same thing is true about our faith. We cannot just say I want holiness and therefore
I am entitled to salvation. But as
St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, the same attitude that athletes take
towards training should be given to the pursuit of the Christian life. If our hearts want to burn for Christ
again we must take the pursuit of holiness seriously for the commitment is not
just a onetime event but an event that begins a lifelong journey. In order to see the truth of this
reality, all we have to do is look at the history of the Church. In that history, there have been many who
have gone before us who have made that commitment. It was that commitment that led St. Peter and the Blessed
Virgin to radically change the directions that they thought their lives were
heading. It was that commitment to
faith that inspired the Apostles to go and boldly profess the faith to the
world. It was that faith that
inspired to hearts to be willing to lay down their lives for the Truth, and it
is that faith that inspires us to do the same so that we might walk through
that “Door of Faith” and become the saints of today.
