Elections and second chances

So I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, because of their hardness of heart, they have become callous and have handed themselves over to licentiousness for the practice of every kind of impurity to excess. That is not how you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard of him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus, that you should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth. (Ephesians 4:17-24)

Was your candidate elected? 

Does it matter? 

Our God is the God of second chances. When God’s people are faithful to Him, He showers them with grace. When they turn away from Him and towards self-gratification, He withdraws His grace. When they finally give in and return to Him, His grace returns. Biblical history teaches us this; do we listen? 

For many years, God has been slowly withdrawing His grace leaving us increasingly to face the natural consequences of our choices. Despite His loving attention to us, we’ve allowed schools at all levels to become cesspools of self-absorption focusing more on sexualizing children than on their character formation. We say, “Oh, that’s horrible” then dive right back into our lifestyle of eating, shopping, and screens. Afraid to speak up, we engage in entertainment that has grown increasingly sexual, violent, and embedded with lies against God’s natural law; then sensitized to it, no longer see anything wrong with it. We are inundated with soft porn displayed under the guise of ‘advertising’ and, rather than rebelling, buy their product. As we blindly participate in the eradication of God from public view, we join society in the heightened anxiety, depression, and loneliness that has naturally followed. Hence parallel to all of this has been the transformation of medicine away from the purpose of healing to instead the avoidance of suffering. How many prescriptions do you take, and how does that compare to your parents when they were your age? Christian Americans are now indistinguishable from our secular counterparts. And we Catholics have the greater responsibility because the Church carries the fullness of Truth. 

What we have before us is the opportunity for true change, and that begins with us. Many people have been fasting and praying for our Church and our country. Yet they remain unwilling to give up those things that are barriers in their relationship with God. The one thing we absolutely won’t give up is the very thing we must give up. God wants from us a true sacrifice, not a compromise. That may be refusing to give up salt, sugar, soda pop, or other foods and drinks. It may be refusing to exchange yoga for Pilates. But it is more likely a person or collective of persons who represent a movement or ideology that unconsciously meets our innate needs for security and safety. These people make us feel we are part of a group and less isolated, or purport to have answers to complex issues, or give us future predictions. Fears are suppressed but not truly relieved. Whether one follows what is deemed a ‘leftist’ crowd that provides worldly definitions of ‘happiness’, or a traditionalist movement clinging to the words of false visionaries and their promoters who claim to be representing the Word and His Mother, the root of it all is satisfying these innate needs for safety and security. Those needs exist to cause us to seek God not celebrities, social media icons, or visionaries. 

The solution lies in our relationship with God and our answer to His call to holiness. Our personal holiness manifests from our relationship with Him and affects not only the body of Christ but the whole world. As the saints say, we become ‘little Christs’. Yet God cannot recreate us into the ‘new self’ when we cling to our old self, and that includes those people or things we cling to. We are responsible for our own personal healing and surrender to God’s will so that we are His vessels of grace to those around us. When Christians begin to focus on excellence and virtue in the smallest details of their lives, things will change. 

Regardless of the election results, our response is the same. Our God is the God of second chances, and He has given us yet another opportunity to accept His invitation to a personal relationship with Him, one not mediated by social media pundits, news anchors, comedians, or visionaries. Like the rich young man who (upon hearing from Jesus the one thing he must give up to come into His kingdom) walked away sad: are you willing to give up that one thing you absolutely will not give up? 

Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers, and observe those who thus conduct themselves according to the model you have in us. For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their “shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things. But our citizenship* is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. (Philippians 3:17-20)

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam 😊

(Image by Wilhering Abbey Austria-Stift Innenraum Uoaei1 from Wikimedia)