Going My Way, or God’s Way?
Human
beings are members of a proud species. They usually think they can work
independently, think independently, and live independently. Yet there
never was a human being who did not have to learn from others and follow
others. In the end, this leads either to our salvation, or to our
condemnation.
Even
Jesus Christ, although He was a Divine Person, spoke of Himself as a
follower: “Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself,
but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever he does, this the
Son also does in like manner” (Jn.5:19).
The
first human beings to think they could be independent, even from the
God who made them, were Adam and Eve: “But the serpent said to the
woman, ‘No, you shall not die; for God knows that when you eat of it
(the forbidden fruit of the tree), your eyes will be opened and you will
be like God, knowing good and evil’” (Gn.3:4,5). Since Adam was head of
the human race, and Eve the “mother of all the living” (Gn.3:20), the
results of their sin were disastrous for all of us.
We
are followers from the day we are born until the day we die. And we had
better ask ourselves whether we are following God or the devil, since
ultimately we follow one or the other. There is no middle, “independent”
road by which we can make our own way and arrive at some kind of
do-it-yourself salvation.
The
world at this time seems to have decided to give it a try nonetheless.
It refuses to follow God, or to acknowledge His Son, Jesus Christ. It
has set out on the road to perdition, upon which most of the human race
can now be found. Pity the innocent and the young, who are being led
along this dark path which ends only at the gates of Hell. Who will now
teach them to find the straight and narrow path that leads to life? They
are as good as lost, unless God in His mercy gives us a wake-up call, a
warning, a personal revelation of the state of the conscience, and the
grace to repent and turn back to Him.
If
we follow what passes for news from the newspapers, our radios, and TV
and internet sources, we can see our civilization crumbling before our
very eyes. Our entertainment is heavy with immodesty in dress and
actions, and gross immorality. The saddest thing is to see beautiful
young people, those hardly more than children, turn into monsters and
human wrecks – faithless caricatures of human beings who fall into all
the vices and pitfalls of life.
How
can we throw off this terrible curse, since we must live in the world
surrounded by a generation which does not know God or obey His
Commandments? And how can we save the children? There is only one
answer. We must belong to the New Humanity of which Jesus Christ is the
Head – the New Adam.
Upon
meeting Him for the first time, Andrew and John asked Jesus where He
lived. Jesus replied: “Come and see” (Jn.1:39a). He also says to us,
“Come and see.” What Jesus will show us is that we need not be bound to a
race which is spiritually dead and condemned. We don’t have to accept
their standards or live like them. All the baptized members of the
Church have been “born again” as members of a New Humanity, of which
Jesus Christ, the New Adam, is the Head. Moreover, the Blessed Virgin
Mary is the New Eve, the Mother of all who are reborn as members of the
New Race. St. Irenaeus says:
“Mary,
betrothed to a man but nevertheless still a virgin, being obedient, was
made the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race. .
. . Thus, the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of
Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed
through faith” (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3:22:24, A.D. 189).
We
are dead to the old humanity, says St. Paul: “Do you not know that all
we who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his
death? For we were buried with him by means of Baptism into death, in
order that, just as Christ has arisen from the dead through the glory of
the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life” (Rom.6:3,4).
But
our full cooperation is required if we are to walk in this “newness of
life”. We must be “in the world, but not of the world”. Our Lord prayed
to the Father for His disciples: “I do not pray that thou take them out
of the world, but that thou keep them from evil. They are not of the
world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Thy word
is truth” (Jn.17:15-17).
At
all costs, we must avoid sin. These words of Our Lord should wake us up
in a hurry: “Woe to the world because of scandals! For it must needs be
that scandals come, but woe to the man through whom scandal does come!
And if thy hand or thy foot is an occasion of sin to thee, cut it off
and cast it from thee! It is better for thee to enter life maimed or
lame, than, having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the
everlasting fire. And if thy eye is an occasion of sin to thee, pluck it
out and cast it from thee! It is better for thee to enter into life
with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell-fire”
(Mt.18:7-9).
If
you’ve tried and failed, you would not be the first. For all of us
failures, Our Lord sends us exactly what we need to leave our sinful
lives behind and become saints. The Lord sends us Power from on High,
the Holy Ghost. These are the Lord’s words:
“If
you love me, keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father and he
will give you another Advocate to dwell with you forever, the Spirit of
truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor
knows him. But you shall know him, because he will dwell with you, and
be in you… But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to
your mind whatever I have said to you” (Jn.14:15-17;26).