Life choices

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today resonate with the Lenten theme of making choices with the progress of our life.

Two paths

The Book of Deuteronomy presents the life and death choice that Moses offers the People of God.

The Choice Before Israel1 

Psalm 1 views life as activity, as choosing either the good or the bad.

* [Psalm 1] A preface to the whole Book of Psalms, contrasting with striking similes the destiny of the good and the wicked. The Psalm views life as activity, as choosing either the good or the bad. Each “way” brings its inevitable consequences. The wise through their good actions will experience rootedness and life, and the wicked, rootlessness and death.2 

In the Gospel from Luke, Jesus makes the First Prediction of the Passion and He outlines the Conditions of Discipleship.

* [9:23] Daily: this is a Lucan addition to a saying of Jesus, removing the saying from a context that envisioned the imminent suffering and death of the disciple of Jesus (as does the saying in Mk 8:34–35) to one that focuses on the demands of daily Christian existence.3 

Tom Drzaic senses that Moses is speaking to the whole community and not to each individual, and is telling them that if a long lasting and strong society is to occur, this will happen only by following God’s commandments, and if they are not followed the results will be a weak culture that will eventually wither and die.

 Luke then takes this another step farther and with much more clarity tells us that to truly follow God one must “deny himself and take up his cross daily.”  This gives a much richer explanation of what it is to truly follow God, sacrificing one’s own needs and leaving your desires behind for the benefit of others, all with no guarantee of earthly blessing. Quite the contradiction from what is often promoted on the airwaves, but in that calling lays the truth.
So as preparations begin for Lent, it is a good time to take stock of where I am at in following God’s commandments and exploring the reason I strive to obey them.  Am I expecting God to pour Blessings upon me as a reward for my faithful efforts or am I truly giving of myself to serve the Lord out of love without expectations, trusting that God is with me when hardships appear?4

Don Schwager quotes “God calls us to conversion,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 AD.

 "God calls us to correct ourselves and invites us to do penance. He calls us through the wonderful gifts of his creation, and he calls us by granting time for life. He calls us through the reader and through the preacher. He calls us with the innermost force of our thoughts. He calls us with the scourge of punishment, and he calls us with the mercy of his consolation." (excerpt from Commentary on Psalm 102, 16)5

The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 9:22-25 comments on Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel: “He must deny himself” (Luke 9:23). Those words might give the impression that following Jesus means living a joyless, austere existence.

But God loves you too much to want you to be miserable all the time. Most likely, he is asking you to deny something that’s keeping you from him. Perhaps a hobby or pastime has taken over too much free time. Maybe you need to cut back on your time binge-watching TV or surfing the Internet. Maybe you are too focused on your career, and your prayer life suffers.6 

Friar Jude Winkler notes the typical choice offered in Deuteronomy is a path to life or a path to death. Choosing not to love is choosing a path of loneliness. Friar Jude marks the distinction in the Gospel that Luke underlines Jesus direction to choose to deny ourselves.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, quotes Theologian Sallie McFague (b. 1933) who presents an excellent model of the universe as the body of God.

We have suggested that God as the embodied spirit of the universe is a personal/organic model that is compatible with interpretations of both Christian faith and contemporary science, although not demanded by either. It is a way of speaking of God’s relation to all matter, all creation, that “makes sense” in terms of an incarnational understanding of Christianity and an organic interpretation of postmodern science. It helps us to be whole people within our faith and within our contemporary world. Moreover, the model does not reduce God to the world nor relegate God to another world; on the contrary, it radicalizes both divine immanence (God is the breath of each and every creature) and divine transcendence (God is the energy empowering the entire universe). Finally, it underscores our bodiliness, our concrete physical existence and experience that we share with all other creatures: it is a model on the side of the well-being of the planet, for it raises the issue of ethical regard toward all bodies as all are interrelated and interdependent. . . . (Sallie McFague, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology (Fortress Press: 1993), 150, 179.)7 

The choice offered by Moses is a path to experience Divine immanence and transcendence as we journey through Lent and in Life.

References

1	(n.d.). Deuteronomy, chapter 30 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Retrieved March 7, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/Deuteronomy/30:15
2	(n.d.). Psalms, chapter 1. Retrieved March 7, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/Psalms/1:1
3	(n.d.). Luke, chapter 9. Retrieved March 6, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/luke/9:22
4	(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections .... Retrieved March 7, 2019, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
5	(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 7, 2019, from https://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
6	(2019, March 7). Mass Readings and Catholic Daily Meditations for .... Retrieved March 7, 2019, from https://wau.org/meditations/2019/03/07/
7	(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archive: March 2019 - Center for Action and .... Retrieved March 7, 2019, from https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/2019/03/