25th Sunday in Course 2020
It’s seems like the political yard signs this election cycle have been cropping up for two years, like the rain lilies that sprout overnight after a heavy downpour. If your convictions about the relevance of your faith to society have made you politically aware and active, then it may be as you drive down local streets you look at some of them and have negative thoughts. “How stupid they must be to try to convince me to vote for them?” More on that in a minute. We really need to subject that conversation to the continuing need for the repentance called to us in Scripture.
Because we are called to die to our old habits and vices, and live in Christ. We are to imitate Jesus and His Blessed Mother every day. Jesus, we must remember, is God-become-human. That means we are called by God to act towards others as God acts toward us. And Isaiah is exactly correct. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and God’s ways are not our ways. Good for Him! If our first reaction to a wrong done to us is to curse or lash out, aren’t we glad that God’s first reaction to our many sins has not been to curse us or lash out at us?
St. Paul today is torn between two deep desires. Once He experienced the presence of Jesus, on the road to Damascus, when He realized He had been trying to persecute His Lord, who was one with the Christians, He never wanted to be without that presence. He had a taste of the kingdom of heaven numerous times in his life, so he dearly wanted this life to end so he could experience the Trinity’s love always. But Paul had a mission to complete. His preaching, teaching, and worship with the communities he founded in Asia Minor and Greece were very fulfilling to him. He wanted to save more souls through right understanding and right worship. He especially desired to bring his kinsmen, the Jews, to life in Christ, their Messiah. So he wrote to his friends in Philippi: “Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.” One mind and one spirit in Christ, something we all should want and strive for.
We all are laborers in the Lord’s vineyard, no matter when in life we heard the call to Christ and responded to it. And, yes, at the end we will all get the same reward, whether we have worked and prayed and believed for one hour or since being baptized as babies. But what a reward–everlasting happiness in God’s presence, at the forever banquet of heaven! And we get to live in this pre-heaven world in the best way possible, loving God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves. It’s a daily challenge, but it’s also a daily joy, because we are living in Christ, and we are doing it together, as one family.
So here’s an idea about what to do in any election season, but particularly in this one where there are such passions erupting on both sides. Take God’s point of view while you are driving. Whether the sign you see causes you to think, “what an idiot” or “this family agrees with me; they must be brilliant!” do the same thing. Pray for them. Pray that their minds all be attuned to the mind of Christ, a mind of love of God and neighbor. Pray that the hearts of fear or hatred be converted to hearts of flesh and spirit. Pray every time you get into the car for a peaceful nation and world, free of violence and disease. Pray the Rosary daily for our land and people, and let the Lord, who is good to all, use His sacramental presence to make you more like Himself.
