Choosing to Love
The word “choose” appears three times in the First Reading in the form of an an invitation to us, that we would choose to follow the Commandments and stretch forth our hand, not to what is evil, but to what is good. The word, “choice,” however, is used by the world very often these days to promote the idea that the human person is ultimately self-defining choice; that life is not a gift from God. Maybe that’s why the devil goes after the word, since choosing to love is a profound way of becoming more like the God who chose to create us, and then chose to call us, and now chooses to bless us. Jesus even said, “It is not you who chose Me, but I who chose you.” The point is that God is never forced to love us, so when He invites us to choose Him He’s inviting us to love Him freely, of our own accord.
Israel understood itself to have been “chosen” by God from among the nations, “a people peculiarly His own,” as the Scriptures say. The first Christians, too, came to know themselves to have been chosen, indeed The Chosen, as has been made popularly known these days with the help of Jonathon Roumie. To choose someone is to prefer that person. And to be preferred by another is to be loved. Even the Church’s exhortation not to forget the poor is expressed by Her wish for a “preferential” option for the poor. Love the poor, the Church says, not because you have to, but because you choose to.
But who would ever prefer or choose the poor? It seems unnatural, even offensive, to the human inclination toward health and well-being and success. But, of course, Mother Theresa (the person most widely associated with the poor, even in popular culture) would say, “God doesn’t call us to be successful. He calls us to be faithful.” Faithful to what, if not to what happens in our hearts when we ourselves are preferred by God - when we allow Him to look at us the way Mother Theresa looked at the poor.
This past Wednesday was February 11th, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. And reading the accounts of Saint Bernadette, as she describes her encounters with The Blessed Mother, one can’t help but be moved by how she describes the way Our Lady looked at her. It was a loving gaze that led Bernadette to ask, “Why have you chosen me?” You see the connection between being chosen and being loved.
The children of Medjugorje are said to have asked Our Lady that same question when she appeared to them in 1981. And they say that The Blessed Mother replied with a gentle smile, saying something like, “God does not choose the best.” It was a motherly, even playful, response, similar to the question she herself asked Juan Diego in 1531. He was trying to avoid the inconvenience of a Marian apparition by going around the hill where she had appeared to him the day before, but she met him on the road and asked, “What is this road you’re taking, Juanito?” And he begged her to “choose someone else.”
Her response was both tender and firm, rejecting his request to be replaced by reassuring him and reminding him of her own election. “Listen, my youngest son, and understand this well. Do not let anything frighten or distress you. Let not your heart be troubled. Do not fear illness, nor any other anxiety or pain. Am I not here, I who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not under my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need anything more?”
If to choose is to love, consider prayer in this way. Choosing to spend time with God is a gesture greater than “staying focused.” By preferring His company, we are already pleasing Him. Jesus’ dying request was that we “keep watch with [Him].” This Lent, let us resolve not to judge our prayer by how focused we can remain. Let’s forget ourselves altogether and let prayer be about Him again. +