The Price of Ignoring God

Today’s Mass readings tell such a story!  The tragic story of a people who strayed from God.

“Abandoning the Lord, the God of their fathers, … they followed the other gods of the various nations around them. … They were quick to stray from the way their fathers had taken, and did not follow their example of obedience to the commandments of the Lord (Judges 2: 12, 17).

The result?  They mingled with unbelievers and, imitating their ways, turned to idolatry and “sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons” (Psalm 106: 35-37).

It speaks to me of today.  I have often wondered how people who are basically good, basically rational (including many Christians), can tolerate and even support such an evil and irrational action as abortion.  I believe it’s because we, as a society, are living as if God doesn’t exist.  We may occasionally give lip service to God, but essentially we just ignore Him.  We have mingled with non-believers and adopted their ways, indifferent to God’s presence and living in disobedience to His teachings.  The human being is created with a need to worship.  If we abandon the right worship of God, we will inevitably worship someone or something else – idolatry.  And we always become like what we worship.  When we de-throne God and give our hearts over to anything that doesn’t include God, our perception of truth is clouded, our hearts are hardened, and we can even find reasons to justify the destruction of life, “sacrificing our sons and daughters to demons.”  It is vitally important that we have people who can argue against the culture of death in the public forum. Not all of us are called or gifted to do that. But we are all called to recognize the ways we ignore God, to identify and cast out our idols, and to put God back on the throne in our hearts.

I firmly believe that no one in right relationship to God could ever accept abortion, could ever swallow the lie of pro-choice.  The more each of us can grow in our own relationship with God and encourage others to do likewise, the more hearts and minds will be freed to recognize truth and serve to build a culture of life.  As the words of an old hymn express it, “Cast out each idol from its throne. The Lord is God and He alone.”

Look to the Lord

Funny how words you’ve seen many times can suddenly jump off the page at you with new power and meaning. For some reason, the opening lines of the responsorial psalm at Mass one morning leaped out at me and stayed with me throughout the Mass.

Look to the Lord in his strength;seek to serve him constantly. (Ps 105:4-5).

Nothing really new, just a familiar bit of pious instruction. But somehow that morning the words had a different energy, hinging especially on the two action verbs: “look” and “seek.”

What struck me was that we’re not talking about a casual glance here, but a conscious, earnest, fixed gaze – and not just at the Lord, but at his strength.

How many times a day do I end up focusing on myself – my work, my concerns, my plans – in light of my own strength, my own ability (or lack thereof)? Sure, the awareness of God is there, but often relegated to the back of my mind. After all, I’ve got things to do. I can’t just pray all day.

Or can I? If I can just remember to stay present to the Lord, rejoicing in all he has done and trusting in all he can do, then all my daily activities can be done “through him, with him, and in him. As St. Paul writes, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).

This intentional, continual looking to the Lord’s strength in all I do needs to be balanced by a second intention, capsulized in the next action verb of the psalm: “seek”.

I’m not just looking to the Lord’s strength to help get me through the day or accomplish my agendas. I’m actively trying to serve him constantly – in everything I do – striving to do his will, accomplish his agendas.

How do I do this? The next line of the psalm provides another active verb: “Recall the wondrous deeds that he has wrought.” I need to remember who this God is! Remembering all he has done, I can trust what he can do – and perhaps most importantly, what he wants to do. He wants to fulfill his covenant of love, and the psalm refrain echoes this reality into my heart: “The Lord remembers his covenant forever.”

Lord, in all I do, help me to remember that you are always remembering your love for me. Help me to rely on you as a child relies on his father, remembering that you are always faithful to your fatherhood.

The Bond of Love

“I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator …” (Apostles Creed)

Ever notice that in this prayer God is referred to first of all as “Father” and only then as “creator”? There’s a whole teaching here. Pope John Paul II, in Rich in Mercy, explains that God is not just the creator, but “He is also Father,” and He is linked to us “by a bond still more intimate than that of creation. It is love, which not only creates the good but also grants participation in the very life of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For he who loves desires to give himself” (#7).

God doesn’t create as an all-powerful but distant artisan with no real interest in His creations. He “fathers-forth” from His heart, not just creating beings, but begetting children who are to be His own. Lovingly and tenderly he forms each of us in our mothers’ wombs, fashioning us in His own image and likeness, and breathing His Spirit into us, so that one day we may return to Him “holy and spotless” to live like Him and with Him forever. For “such is the ‘plan of his loving kindness,’ conceived by the Father before the foundation of the world” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #257).

What should our response be to such a gift? To simply live as His children, trusting that His love never changes, His fathering never ends. In the midst of life’s busyness, we can rest in His heart, trusting and rejoicing and giving thanks, letting our daily lives form an endless song of praise.

“He fathers-forth whose beauty is beyond change. Praise Him”
(Hopkins, Pied Beauty).

Vinny Flynn