In The Image of God - Free Will

What is our poverty? It is what we cling to that keeps us away from God. That is what truly makes us poor.

We have to give from our poverty. What does that mean? I means that we have to give to God whatever is keeping us poor spiritually. Like the widow that gave all she had to live on, her widow’s mite, we have to give to God the attitude that we will be fine as long as God does not ask us to… give up our money, give up our family, give up our resentments, put ourselves in situations or with people we find repulsive. We have to give up the comfortable or treasured things that we love more than we love Him.

We are free to choose to love God, or something else.

written by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael

IF YOU LIKE, READ ALONG WHILE YOU ARE LISTENING:

It is not a coincidence that Catholic Charities has chosen this week to ask for contributions.  We see in the stories today something that is very important for our relationship with God, and the story comes from two widows, who basically, as Jesus described them, gave from their poverty.

Now in the ancient world, less so in Israel than other places, being a widow was almost a condemnation to die because there weren't obligations to take care of the widows.  And the widows had to supply themselves, just as the widow from Kings was taking care of herself and her son.  There weren't jobs.  She couldn't go out and get a job, so she was basically dependent on others.  And others, many times, simply did not support the widows.

Similarly in the New Testament reading, there was a poor widow, and she basically has no support and she gave from her poverty.

And in this reading, these two reading, we see something very important about our relationship with God, and how we deal with God and the coming of Christ.

The first thing is, and you know, we are made in the image of God.  I woke up this morning. I take my shower.  I look in the mirror and I go, "No, that's not it.  That's not the image of God. That doesn't work."  So what is there, that we're made in the image of God?

We have the ability to think. 

Think about the picture of Michelangelo that we have in the Sistine Chapel where God is reaching out to Adam, and Adam is reaching out to Him.  Look at what surrounds God.  That is the image of the human brain. One of the ways that we are made in the image of God is that we have the ability to think. 

And another important way, a very, very important way, that we are made in the image of God is that we have free will.  We see free will exercised by Adam and Eve with terrible results.  We see God exercising His free will in giving His Only Begotten Son.  We see Jesus exercising His free will in the Garden of Gethsemane.  "Thy will be done."  The Virgin Mary at the Annunciation.

We, too, have free will.  We are called to exercise our free will in accordance with what God wants us to do as taught to us by Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

You notice that Jesus very rarely gives you an explicit thing that you have to do.  Love God and love neighbor.  What does that mean?  It means something different for every single person alive.  And the way that you know it, is you have to think.  And the way that you do it, is through the exercise of free will.

And we see in the Gospel starting with the scribes.  This reading always makes me a little bit nervous because they go around in their long robes, you might notice I'm wearing a long robe.  They go around greeting people and greet them, I greet people.  I take a place of honor in the Mass.  Makes me a little bit nervous.  They are exercising their free will, but they are not exercising it in accordance with the teachings of God.  "They devour the houses of widows."  "They recite lengthy prayers." "They will receive severe condemnation."

We go through our lives exercising our free will.  We come to the Mass.  We give charity.  We do these wonderful things.  But do we give from our poverty?  Do we do the thing that God is calling us to do, to exercise our free will in accordance with the teachings of Christ?

Yes. We do all those things.  That's our free will.  But we are given the lesson that with regard to the poor widow who gives from her poverty, we have to ask ourselves, remember we have to think, in the exercise of our free will are we giving what God wants us to give?  Are we giving from our poverty?  And that in a very real sense is something that we have to think about and contemplate. 

I used to go to a hospital and deal with sick people.  On my computer at work there is a little cartoon that says, it is an older doctor teaching a younger doctor, or doctorettes, or whatever they are called.  And one of them asks, "Do we have to touch them?  They're icky."  That's exactly right, they're icky.  And much in the course of our lives is icky.

I love small children.  I love babies.  But they do icky things.  People get old.  They get sick.  There are circumstances where God places in front of us things that are hard to do.  He looks at the very core of what we are.  God has this bad habit of presenting to us the things that we need to contemplate and to do.  He knows what is this thing that we treasure inside and protect that is the icky thing that becomes our poverty.  “Oh, I can give, I've got lots of money.  I'll give and give and give.  It doesn't matter to me.  Oh...you mean I'm supposed to do that!  I'm supposed to take care of the old?  I'm supposed to smile?  I'm supposed to love my neighbor?”

Think of all the things that Jesus goes through like with the young man who has wealth that he has to give up. When Jesus tells us that to be His follower you have to hate your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, the list goes on.

These very things that we treasure in ourselves that we can't give up.  One of the most central things is, I will do everything that God wants me to do, but don't ask me to do that!  Don't ask me to be a martyr.  Don't ask me to become totally poor.  Don't ask me, like Mother Teresa, St. Teresa of Calcutta, to deal with these sick people all the time.

We all have these things and God is presenting them to us so we can exercise how we are in His image of knowing Him and understanding and doing His will.  And like this widow, both widows, to give from our poverty.

And what happens when we do that?  We are doing His will.  "Thy will be done."  We're gonna pray that shortly.  "Thy will be done."  But when we allow ourselves to address our poverty before Christ, the things that we withhold from Christ that we are not willing to give up, or we cannot give up, those are our poverty. 

And when we look at them and think about them and exercise our free will, we are coming closer to God.  And in this coming closer to God, of being like the widow and giving from our poverty, we are preparing ourselves to spend all eternity with Him in Heaven, in the relationship defined by love.  Because of you look at these things that are our poverty, every one of these things is a restraint on our ability to love God and love neighbor.  It is the very thing that we are called to do, is to love God and love neighbor, that our poverty prevents us from doing.  Our poverty prevents us in these situations from saying, "God's will be done," because I would rather do it myself.  “I can decide what I need to do.  I can do this.”  And we are providing a barrier to God.

And we are called to be like the widows that we read about.  "Thy will be done."  And in the exercise of our ability to think where we are made in the image of God and the ability to exercise free will where we are again made in the image of God, we are given the opportunity to bring ourselves to spend all eternity in Heaven.  Don't allow yourself to hold and nurture and love the poverty and keep yourself from God.

November 11, 2018 2