Your choice continued …

Last week Emily stood at the crossroads and made the decision to take the road that led to the forest where she would feel a wave of contentment rather than take the road into the town filled with lights and excitement. She made the right decision and found a new understanding about her ability to make a choice amid the current chaos of a nation where peace and justice is challenged daily. She also came to the realization that we now live in a post-Christian world, a thought that never occurred to her but now makes sense.

Emily continued to ponder the reality of her life not as it was in the past but as it is in the present. She has observed that many people have left organized religion and seek happiness in the American Dream filled with money, pleasure, self-determination and notoriety with family and friends. She wondered why so many of her friends pretended to be happy but were not really satisfied with life in general.

Moses told the people to observe the laws and decrees that he was teaching them to observe. They were not to add to what he commanded or subtract from the law as he received it from the LORD. If they observed what he taught, they would give evidence of their wisdom and intelligence to other nations around them. They would be a great nation! What about contemporary times in this post-Christian era? Can greatness be found again? People are looking for a return to the peaceful and happy time of the past. Is it all doom and gloom now? How long will this last? Where is hope? Where is joy?

As society falls deeper into secular religion, many profess this new liberty: “I don’t need the Church to tell me what to do. I don’t need any organized religion to tell me how to live my life.” A new morality, a secular reality, begins to promise freedom, a release from the old restrictions of organized religion. What was once considered evil is now thought to be good. So, some seek wealth by taking (stealing) from others with no consequence because civil authority has no control to enforce what was thought to be criminal activity. “Take from others whatever you want because there is no one to stop you.” Find happiness in whatever gives pleasure. Forget relationships built on altruistic love. Finding pleasure in sex outside the commitment of love and marriage is scorned. Enjoy sexual relations whether heterosexual or homosexual. Everyone has the right to pleasure wherever it can be found. Don’t worry about unwanted pregnancy; abortion is a legitimate right in our enlightened society.

Peace, joy, and happiness in the post-Christian society is illusory. Is evil now considered good? Where is Truth? The Christian Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is present amid this chaos. What did Jesus say two thousand years ago and is his word relevant today? Some Pharisees and scribes observed that the disciples of Jesus did not observe the traditions of the elders. Jesus answered that they, the scribes and pharisees themselves, disregarded God’s commandments as given by Moses.” Jesus continued: “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” Jesus continued “From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within, and they defile.” Surely Jesus is speaking to us today!

God is our authority, and we are called to live and act close to God. How will the voice of Jesus be heard today? Listen to Saint James, the disciple who speaks the Truth: “All good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change. He willed to give us birth by the word of truth that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls.”

Humility is the total dependence on God’s Will accepting one’s inability to master the present situation. This total dependence relies on obedience. Jesus, the Word and Truth of life, was obedient to Joseph and Mary. The Incarnate Word was obedient to his Father, God, who gave Him the mission to redeem humankind, saving those who seek Life by his death and victory over death by his resurrection from the dead.

St. Paul visited Athens and noticed that the city was full of idols. He found an idol on an altar dedicated to “an unknown God.” He proclaimed “The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. Rather, it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything. He made from one (man) the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from anyone of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’

Hope can be found in listening to and accepting the Word of God who gives life through his victory over evil by this passion, death, and resurrection. The post-Christian community needs to return to God by living in Christ, with Christ and for Christ who gives true peace, not the peace given by the world. It is your choice: life with God or life without God.

God be blessed! Now and forever. Amen.