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The Election That Truely Matters!
Devotional/Discussion thought of the Day….
If God’s Love has chosen you out and called you to follow him, you have a duty to respond to him… and it is also your duty, an equally serious duty, to lead and to contribute to the holiness and good progress of other men, your brothers. (1)
As I am a bit late writing my devotional blog today, I have to think of all the political hype that is dominating everywhere I look. Driving down the streets, the television, the radio, Facebook and Twitter. It is as if many believe our very fate as a nation, or as a state, depends on this election. Not just the presidency, but even ballot measures at state and local level. In one ballot initiative here in California – the amount of money being spent could underwrite 6 private/parochial schools for 50 years! (Nearly 120 million!)
The word for church is from the root word for being called out, being selected or chosen or elected to fulfill a role – that role of being the family of God. It is our primary vocation in life, this relationship we have with God, this relationship He has, not just with an individual, but with His family – what we call the church.
I would say, knowing that many would disagree. that it is the “election” that truely matters, and I would go so far as to say, it is the ONLY election that matters. For you can win or lose another election, and it will not have the impact of responding to this election, or denying it.
St. Josemarie Escriva points out something obvious here, that being elected changes things. He uses the word “duty”, some may refer to it as an Obligation. I tend to think it is simpler than that. If you are elected to office, your role, your responsibility changes in life. You are not as free to do certain things, you may have to even have limits on your personal freedom. The same is true in our lives. As we have become children of God, our life dramatically transforms, we change priorities, and yes, in a way, we lose some of our personal freedom. We have a new relationship, a new role in life, we are the children of God. As such, in that transformation, we realize the heart of our Father, we realize His love and mercy, we realize His peace. And we realize that we respond to that love, and being to see the need to respond to it by bringing those God also calls to be part of His family.
There is such a difference, that we become driven to see people come to know our Father, our Lord, the One who called, chose, selected, elected us to be His. And so we begin our work to see others begin to comprehend that they two have been elected to be transformed into being a son or daughter of the Father.
And they will, eventually, even as we do, realize this is the only election that matters…
(1)Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 1422-1424). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.(10
Government and Faith….
Discussion/devotion of the day….
It is amazing to me, how much we get caught up in the intrigues and plots and plans of government. How much anxiety, how much sin, how much pain is created when we look to our governments, when we look to our candidates to provide that which can only come from God. (somehow we also do this with athletes, which is even more perverse…)
Do we really think that the problems caused by sin will be overcome if our guy wins? Is there any proof that if our opponent wins, that somehow he can override the will and work of God? How much of God’s peace can be stolen from us by politicians? How much of what really matters can be overcome?
A survivor of the Spanish Civil War, which was brutal on both sides, which had believers on both sides, which had pastors and priests killed by both sides, wrote this,
“The measures taken by some governments to ensure that the faith in their countries dies out reminds me of the seals set upon the tomb of Jesus by the Sanhedrin. He was not subject to anybody or anything, and despite those seals, he rose again!” (1)
It isn’t rocket science to realize that in this day, people have turned politics, like so many things, into a form a idolatry. Can we, for a moment, for a day, trust in God more than we trust in the war for “right” or “wrong” in the elections? Can we find our unity in the one who didn’t run for office, but ran to the cross for the joy set before Him? Or will we be like the Israelites, who forsook God’s reign, to have a king…
Lord Have Mercy on us! Help us to look to you for the peace that the world and its governors and kings and presidential candidates cannot deliver…
(1)Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 1084-1087). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
The Broken: Repair or Replace?
Discussion/Devotional thought of the day:
Last week I was at a convention of my district. As things progressed, as people were elected and resolutions considered, debated, passed or passed by, it hit me.
We live as a “reactionary” church.
Most of the resolutions seem to either try to correct past resolutions of past conventions, or strengthen that which was decided, and proven to be too week to be effective. Rather than deal with past errors – we keep treating the symptoms, rather than the cause. Examples abound, as we struggle with the vocations of laity and the pastoral office, as we struggle with having a governance which is basically a representative democracy, and how that works in a manner where those elected have pastoral/ecclesial responsibility over those who elect them.
So we try to fix what’s wrong, we elect people who we think are wise, or at least persuasive, or who we know someone who knows their pastor…and we make our judgments that way. We take that which is broken, and try to bend it back, use duct tape, whatever will allow it to function – even if it functions barely…. and we become satisfied for another three years, and pride ourselves on getting it done.
It is reminiscent of our spiritual lives as individuals, and as the church at large. Rather than deal with issues, we deal with the repercussions they cause. An example – the debate over abortion and insurance. We fight (or at least gripe about) the legislation, and battle those who pass it. What if the majority of our time and money was expressed in the teaching of God’s love, and explaining how God created us to live? If we worked for actually brining the means of grace to broken lives, which doesn’t just “cover up” the cause of things, but recreates them anew in Christ?
What if people understood what it meant to be baptized, and began to cherish that which they had been given?
What if we grasped verses like this….
5:17 So for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old order is gone and a new being is there to see.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NJB)
What if we understood that God doesn’t just repair us, but has made us new?
We pray, “Lord, have mercy!” Now go, and live this day, confident in that mercy that just doesn’t repair the consequences, but completely renews our hearts and our minds.
AMEN
