Words on the Word
Choose Life
This homily was given to conclude a course given under the title, ‘Arise, and fear not!’, on present and future perspectives of religious life.
Ephesians 6.1-9: Guide them as the Lord does.
Luke 13.22-30: Will only a few be saved?
In the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, we read of how Judas at the end of the Last Supper rose up, took his purse, and went into the night. Having eaten and drunk in Christ’s company, he proceeded to betray his friend and host.
It is possible, then, to receive inestimable grace one moment, and to throw it overboard the next; to be immersed in uncreated light, yet to opt for darkness. Indeed, we have seen examples, far too many examples, of this in our time. We know the nefarious consequences of infidelity.
Today’s Gospel reminds us that we shall be held to account for our response to God’s gift. God ‘desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’ (1 Timothy 2.4), yes; but we must proceed towards it. We must turn away from untruth, be converted. Death has lost its sting; but we must choose to let that sting be extracted, choosing life instead of death.
In the final years of his papacy, John Paul II warned that a ‘culture of death’ was encroaching on the ‘culture of life’ that is Christianity’s gift to the world. He wrote in Evangelium Vitae, ‘We find ourselves not only faced with but necessarily in the midst of this conflict: we all share in it, with the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life’ (n. 28). The choice does not just involve the key issues of abortion and euthanasia. It involves every aspect of existence.
‘Is this an option for life?’ The question is a criterion for every decision we make, great or small. Christian life as such, and religious life specifically, is about more than self-preservation. The Lord calls us to give life, to be fruitful. Where we tend to live like ants, seeing only the pine-needle we carry, God has a cosmic perspective. He sees each part of the universe in relation to the whole. His commandment in the beginning, ‘Be fruitful, fill the earth’ (Genesis 1.28) is paralleled by his commission to the apostles, ‘Go and make disciples of all nations’ (Matthew 28.19).
Even as the four primal rivers — Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates — carried paradisal water everywhere, the Church’s charismatic conduits, her religious institutes, are set up to irrigate the earth. Each of us is a micro-component in these waterworks. Wherever Christ is, there is paradise; and from paradise a spring of living water gushes forth. May we be found to be accessible founts of that water, apt to help slake the thirst of parched humankind.
Thereby ‘men from east and west, north and south’ will taste the goodness of the Lord and be drawn to his banquet, queuing at the narrow door, which will in fact show itself broad.
Wherever we serve, whatever our task, we play our part in preparing that great convocation. Let us rise, then, and cast off pusillanimity and fear. God can do all things. He can make water into wine, swords into ploughshares, enemies into friends, dry places into fruitful land.
Remember: ‘He who calls you is faithful, he will do this’ (1 Thessalonians 5.24). Only choose life. And he will make it flourish. Amen.
