True or False?

Today’s second reading from Romans struck a chord with me: “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you many discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”  (Romans 12:2)  The message is timeless and as meaningful today as it was 2000 years ago when Paul wrote it to the fledgling Christian community in Rome.  First century Europe was dominated by the Roman culture which was deteriorating fast, as their Republic devolved into a dictatorship after Julius Caesar successfully waged civil war against the Republic and seized power as emperor and god.  His next four successors were increasingly vile, controlling the Roman Empire by dint of force, while themselves, practicing all forms of debauchery, devoid of any virtue.  It’s no wonder that within a few centuries the empire would crumble and be overrun first by invaders from the north, then Moors from the East.

Sound familiar?  While our government is often referred to as a democracy, it is by law, a Republic, set up in the constitution with checks and balances to prevent any of the three branches of government from seizing power.  In a true Republic, power is vested in the people, whose will is supposed to be carried out by their congressional representatives.   Unfortunately, our legislators in both parties have become professional politicians, more dedicated to wielding power and prestige than serving the common good.  In their effort to get elected and remain in office, our legislators pass laws they think will be popular with voters, appealing not to the virtues our founding fathers espoused, but rather the moral relativism that puts self-interest ahead of virtue.  In doing so, they have created a nanny state that deprives millions of the dignity of self-sufficiency.  This is no exaggeration: more than 100 million Americans now receive some form of assistance from our government, and this does not include Social Security or Medicare.  If a single mother of two on welfare receives the equivalent of $55,000 in benefits, why in the world would she consider taking a job where she would have to earn approximately $75,000 before taxes, just to breakeven?  This is the very real, “welfare trap.”

This is the age in which we live.  Modern science and technology have improved vastly over that of ancient Rome, but we have abandoned the values upon which our nation was founded, and which made us the most powerful economy the world has ever known.   Instead of promoting personal responsibility, we have legalized excuses for it, and in many cases, immoral solutions to the problems we create for ourselves.  Legalized abortion is offered as a solution to “crisis pregnancies,” (as if a baby is a crisis, or as our president has said, the ‘punishment for a mistake’).  In addition, our government helps pay for many of these abortions with direct funding  to Planned Parenthood, or by requiring abortion coverage in the Obamacare plans, many of which are subsidized with federal tax dollars.  

Rather than enforce existing immigration law, and strengthen it so that we can welcome law-abiding, well-intentioned immigrants in larger numbers, we make it difficult to immigrate legally.  Instead, we encourage illegal immigrants to come here with the hope of scoring not just jobs, but free health care, free education, and very likely, welfare benefits.  Our politicians make it sound like enforcing immigration law is cruel, but their real motivation is to attract new voters who will keep them in office, as long as there is no voter-ID law to requiring proof of identity or legal status.

In today’s gospel, Jesus rebukes Peter who is mortified that Jesus might have to suffer and die.  Like all of us, Peter wants to avoid pain, suffering, and death, and would prefer a safer, easier route to salvation.  But Jesus tells him:

“You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  (Matthew 16:23-25)

Jesus is right, we tend to think like mortal humans, wanting ways out of our problems that avoid pain and preclude suffering (“saving ourselves”).  In doing so, we invite false solutions and we rationalize answers to our problems, thinking we’ve dodged the bullet, but in reality, only making matters worse.  For example, refusing to confront emotional problems and choosing to self-medicate with alcohol, food, or drugs; or refusing to take responsibility for a pregnancy, then living with a lifetime of regret.  Whenever we make excuses for ourselves and refuse to work through the inconvenience and pain of our problems, we are engaging in “moral relativism,” (trying to save our life).  When we do this collectively as a society, we create a culture of death.   Not only are human lives sacrificed, so are personal dignity, self-respect, and the common good.

When Jesus speaks of taking up our cross and following Him, He invites us to adhere to the Truth as revealed by God.  There is no avoiding the fact that our life on this earth is short, and every single one of us will endure pain, suffering, and death.  If we believe that this is all there is to life, we are likely to avoid pain at all cost, choosing easy (false) answers to our problems, even if they involve immoral actions.  The result is that we end up only hurting ourselves and others around us.  This is the false promise of moral relativism.  But the Truth reveals that there is more to life than our human bodies and life on earth.  God has promised us eternal life through His Son Jesus Christ who, like us, suffered and died.  During His short life on earth, Jesus revealed the depth of God’s love for us, even to the point of great suffering and a horrific death, in order to make it possible for us to share eternal life with God our Father.  The path to this eternal life is “through Him, with Him, and in Him,” as we say at every Catholic Mass before receiving the Eucharist.  It is through Him we receive salvation; it is with Him we find the courage to live a life of Truth, even if it means carrying a cross once in a while; and it is in Him that we discover the magnificent beauty of God’s Truth:  We are loved beyond imagination, and we are called to live with Him for all eternity… if we are willing to lose our life and embrace the Truth.