Month: October 2021

“Freedom’s goal is to lead us to flourish not to fail.  Freedom’s goal is Truth, Beauty and Goodness.”  These words from the September Joy of the Family Blog, are still ringing the bells of conscience and still ringing the bells in the pursuit of excellence.  God has given us the gift of Free Will!  Essentially, God is Pro-Choice!  That’s right God is Pro-Choice! The difference is that God desires us to choose what is good and true so we can truly flourish as human beings.  God gives us the ability to choose, however, He also gives us the 10 Commandments and the Beatitudes for us to form and live in good conscience.  It is the good choices we make that set us apart and give us strength to love one another and serve one another.  When we make worldly choices, we are only thinking about ourselves and most often we fall into sinful choices.  G. K. Chesterton said, “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”  Dare to be different and make Good Choices!  Dare to swim against the stream of our culture.

So how do we choose what is Good?  How do we pursue excellence, that is, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness?  In today’s world how do we make choices and act in ways that are faithful and honor God?  Again, remembering the Beatitudes and the 10 Commandments, the Catechism gives us the wisdom we need for good choices.  First, we must be sure that the action of our choice is Good.  Even if the intention is for the best…the action itself must be Good.  Second, our actions must be with good intention.  We should always have in our thoughts helping and serving others, not our own selfish intentions, or the intention to hurt or wrong someone.  An example would be to befriend someone only to get ahead or to benefit in some way.  The third way to make sure our choice is good is to be sure that no matter what the circumstances of your action, if it is a sinful action, it is not good, period.  Pope Benedict XVI said, “Truth is not determined by a majority vote.”  How can you dare to be different?  How can you show that Christian freedom is different than how our culture views “freedom” today?

Here’s what the Scriptures and our Catholic faith have to say…

Galatians 5: 1 – For Freedom Christ set us free; so, stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

1 John 3:19-20 – We will know by this that we are of the truth and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

Galatians 5: 13– For you were called for freedom, brothers.  But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love.

CCC 1742 – Freedom and Grace.  The grace of Christ is not in the slightest way a rival of our freedom when this freedom accords with the sense of the true and the good that God has put in the human heart.  On the contrary, as Christian experience attests especially in prayer, the more docile we are to the promptings of grace, the more we grow in inner freedom and confidence during trials, such as those we face in the pressures and constraints of the outer world.  By the working of grace, the Holy Spirit educates us in spiritual freedom to make us free collaborators in his work in the Church and in the world.

Proverbs 16:9 – The mind of the man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.

There are matters of faith in the beginning of Genesis which are essential to our faith and always important to reflect upon.  As we face so many opportunities and challenges within our lives, it is always good to put them in perspective especially about to how God envisioned life and the world from the beginning.  This may be especially important for us today as we recently commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the horrific event of 9/11 and as we face so many tragic situations in our world today.

In the beginning we see that God created the world. It did not come into existence by an accident but from the very being of God Himself.  The account of creation in the book of Genesis makes very clear that God created the world out of nothing but with a purpose and order. We read of the creation of light, water and all those elements which give and sustain life from God.  All of these follow a natural rhythm as we experience from the movement of the day into night and from one season into another.  Genesis then tells us that God created both plant and animal life which are sustained by these elements and natural rhythm.

The Book of Genesis helps us to appreciate better that the world is indeed God’s. His purpose and laws are at the basis of all others.  There is a natural law which comes from God Himself. All other laws must be in conformity to His.  Genesis also helps us to appreciate better the beauty of creation which so many times we can take for granted.  Each day, God reveals Himself to us in nature as the earth moves around the sun reflecting the very grandeur of God.   Too many daily preoccupations and concerns can interfere with the joy that comes from appreciating this basic beauty.

When the creation of the world is complete, the Book of Genesis makes clear that God then created the pinnacle of His creation which is the human person.  Everything else which God has created is given to and meant to sustain the human person.  It is here that Genesis reveals to us one of the most basic truths, which is that the human person is created in the very image and likeness of God.  Unlike the rest of creation, to be human means to share in the very depth of the life of God Himself and to reflect that life in the fullest way.  This means that every person is given a dignity which comes from God and can never be taken away.

When God created the human person in His image and likeness, another basic truth of life is revealed to us.  The Book of Genesis tells us that God created the person as male and female, “God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them,” (Gen 1:27).  It is here that the nature of marriage and family life is understood as a participation in the life of God Himself.  For as Genesis also tells us, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them shall become one body,” (Gen 2:24).  God lives for all eternity as a communion of love in the Persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Marriage is a reflection of that communion through which life comes into existence.  Every single life, from the moment of conception, has an inherent dignity which comes from God.  In the family, that dignity and purpose are brought to fruition as a participation in God’s life.  Marriage and family life are not a creation of society but a reflection of God’s very life.  How much this basic truth needs to be better understood and appreciated in our society today.

The beginning of the Book of Genesis also makes clear another basic truth.  God created us to be happy.  He placed the human person in the Garden of Eden in a natural state of happiness.  God wants us to be happy and to know the joy that is His.  It is only by living as He created us that we find this happiness. Living life in a manner that is forgetful of God and the natural order and beauty of His creation is what leads to unhappiness and frustration.

In this context the Book of Genesis places before us another fundamental truth.  The first man and woman decided not to live in the manner for which God had created them but attempted to find happiness in another way and disobeyed God’s natural law.  Once they did this, they put themselves in an unhappy state and caused a disruption in the order and plan of God’s creation. Original sin entered the world and with original sin came an accompanying disorder.

The Book of Genesis also makes clear another reality of our faith and that is the existence of the evil one – Satan.  Man and woman were tempted to go against God’s plan by Satan who fooled them by making evil look good.  They chose evil, and its accompanying unhappiness, because they thought it would make them happy.  The devil works in subtle ways, and we must always be cautious in this regard.  God has given us, as He gave the original man and woman, freedom.  Freedom is not the ability to do whatever we want but the ability to choose the good. It is Satan who works against this and is most effective when his existence is denied.  That is why the first baptismal promise, as well as the one made by a young person to be confirmed, is “Do you reject Satan, and all his works and all his empty promises?”

As we reflect upon these basic truths given to us in the very beginning in the Book of Genesis, it is also essential for us to reflect upon the basic truths given to us in the Person of Jesus Christ who took our human nature to Himself in order that He might free us from ourselves.  The Gospel of St. John begins with the words reflecting the opening Book of Genesis, “in the beginning.” The Son of God became one of us to bring us back to the beginning which God had planned for us in creation.  Not even sin can hinder God’s plan and prevent us from experiencing His love in the original way for which He had created us.  God had a plan for us from the very beginning and it is Christ who restores us to that plan.

The Book of Genesis reminds us of fundamental truths.  It is Christ who sheds light upon those truths and brings us back to them in order that we might have the joy for which God created us.

It is always good to go back to the beginning.

Here’s what Scripture and Tradition have to say…

Genesis 1:27 – God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 2:24 – That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.

Colossians 1:15-20 – He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  He is the head of the body, the church.  He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he himself might be preeminent.  For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross whether those on earth or those in heaven.

Catechism of the Catholic Church: 289 – Among all the Scriptural texts about creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place.  From a literary standpoint these texts may have had diverse sources.  The inspired authors have placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn language the truths of creation – its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation.  Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living Tradition of the Church, these texts remain the principal source for catechesis on the mysteries of the “beginning”: creation, fall, and promise of salvation.