Choose Life
From WhippleshireBlog………
Deuteronomy 30: 15 - 20
15 “See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil.16 If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you this day, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to take possession of it.
17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them,
18 I declare to you this day, that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land which you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.
19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live,
20 loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him; for that means life to you and length of days, that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”
This was the Mass Reading from the Old Testament for Feb. 26 and the Psalm was very familiar;
Psalms 1: 1 - 4, 6
1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away.
6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
And then our Lord’s own words from the Gospel of Luke;
Luke 9: 22 - 25
22 saying, “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”23 And he said to all, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
24 For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it.
25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
As we have begun this season of Lent, the time of reflection, fasting and almsgiving, we are indeed given a very clear choice. We fast to remind ourselves of the privation that Jesus went through in his own forty days in the wilderness but our privations are miniscule and while it helps to turn our hearts toward God in a spirit of repentance we are reminded by Jesus today that our salvation is dependent upon more than just giving God a little piece of our life. It is an “all in” proposition.
Preaching from that first reading from Deuteronomy in the Mass on EWTN, Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life made the powerful point that God through Moses was giving the people of Israel the choice between life and blessing or death and a curse upon them. They could choose one or the other, but they could not mix and match. They could not choose death and blessing.
The people of North America and much of the world cannot choose the culture of death and expect the blessing of God, for themselves as individuals nor for their nations. God does not give us that choice.
At this season we should pray all the more that those around us in our communities and our nations will repent and choose Life.