Choose life, we are asked in today’s first reading, Dt. 30:
15-20, by turning your hearts to the Lord, listening to God and not allowing yourself
to be “led stray and adore and serve other gods.” Moses reminds the Israelites that he has “set
before[the] life and death, the blessing
and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by
loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life
for you to live on the land that the Lord swore he would give to your fathers/[mothers]
Abraham [and Sarah], Isaac [and Rebecca], Jacob [and Leah and Rachel].”
The questions you and I need to ask ourselves are: Am I
choosing life? Am I choosing blessing? Am I choosing to love the Lord, our God,
with my whole heart, mind, soul and will? Am I heeding God’s voice and
holding fast to the Lord? Or am I making choices that are not life-giving? Am I holding fast to promises that are not in line with what God is asking of me? Am I serving idols, non-gods, God-substitutes? Am I seeking security in wealth,
money, an accumulation of material things, sex—running from one relationship to
another and another and giving sacrificial love to no one?
In today's Gospel, Luke 9: 22-25, Jesus says to us: If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily..." Am I refusing to
take up the cross of serving others, making sacrifices for others in my love for them, of being faithful to the vows I have taken in
marriage or in religious life?
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