ARE WE STUCK IN OUR OWN CHOICE?

“The eleven disciples went to Galilee,
to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
Then Jesus approached and said to them,
‘All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.’”  Mt 28:16-20

“The eleven disciples went . . . to the mountain, . . they saw and worshiped him, but they doubted.”

Let’s consider that you and I are told by whoever is atop our professional fields, be it a star actress, athlete, dancer, author, professional of any field, “You’ve got what it takes to be the very best at this.” Would we believe them? And would we be willing to sacrifice – to do whatever it would take  – to make that happen?

Jesus’ mission includes letting us know that we are capable of making disciples of anyone and everyone. He preceded telling us that we are capable by saying that “all power in heaven and earth has been given to him,” (that is, he can do anything)  and he ends by saying that he is going to be “with us always, until the end of the age.”

WHICH DO I CHOOSE TO FOCUS ON: THE MEASURABLE ABYSS OF HUMANITY REJECTING GOD or THE UNFATHOMABLE ABYSS OF GOD’S IMMEASURABLE GOODNESS AND LOVE FOR US?

“Go, make disciples of all nations. . . . And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

Those words of Jesus should engender confidence in our God-given ability and God’s ever-available help, but at times they may drag us more into the uncomfortable abyss of an unwillingness and assumed inability to respond to the love for us shown by Christ’s selflessness. Blessed Madeleine Delbrel calls this a “measurable abyss”¹ caused by the erroneous feeling that we have to do something that we don’t feel like doing in response to all that Christ has done and wants to do for us. We see the abyss of all the corruptness, injustices and evils in the world, just as Jesus saw them, and we wonder why God doesn’t simply make a miracle to remove it. But, as Jesus shows us, God did make a miracle to remove it. It is us. It is we, allowing God’s love and graces to flow freely in and through us in every minute and experience of our everyday lives. It is we, the ordinary discipling people in today’s streets and homes and cities and churches, who are the miracles!

STUCK IN OUR OWN CHOICES

Blessed Madeleine says that if we are stuck in a “measurable abyss,” it is not a bottomless pit. It’s finite – measurable. And it is of our own making! Our stuckness is by our own choice. “There is always an alternative available, because on the other side, if we choose to turn our attention to it, is the unfathomable abyss of God’s mysteries, God’s action, God’s presence, God’s gift in Christ, in the Church, in the Sacraments.”  Rowan Williams, Koinonia Lectures

Let’s meditate on the two abysses as we enter the ordinary doorways of our ordinary days: the doorways of our houses, our cars, our schools, stores, workplaces, restaurants, gyms, etc. Which abyss are we going toward? May we choose the one leading us deeper into the warmth and brightness of God’s love, the one where gifts flow through our graced ordinariness into the streets and paths of everywhere we go.

Sister Loretta

Madeleine Delbrêl, We, the Ordinary People of the Streets (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000).