15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
First Reading: Am 7:12-15
Second Reading: Eph 1:3-14
Gospel Reading: Mk 6:7-13
More than once, people asked Jesus what they must do to inherit Heaven. Jesus answered, “love God and your neighbour,” “believe in me,” and “do God’s will.”
But what is God’s will for me?
“My problem is not obeying God’s will,” one man said, but “finding out what it is!”
Does God have a “plan” for me? If so, why does he not tell me clearly what it is instead of just giving me signs I might miss or misinterpret?
As we hear in this Sunday’s readings, God did tell certain people, like Amos and the apostles, exactly what he wanted them to do; but what he said to them was for the benefit of humanity as a whole.
Today, Jesus tells us what to do through his Church. If we want to discover God’s will for us today, then, we must listen to her. What does she tell us?
The night before he died, Jesus called his apostles “friends” rather than “slaves,” because, he said, he had told them exactly what he was about. If you have ever had an assistant, you will recognize two kinds: someone who does not know what you are “about” and has to be given orders continually, and someone who knows without being told; all the latter needs is to be told the general plan.
St. Paul details God’s plan for us in the second reading: essentially our salvation, but also the “renewal” of the world, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In both of these jobs, we are his co-workers, not his slaves.
Accordingly, God made us “subject” to our own “free choice,” says the Catechism; we are persons who can initiate and control our own actions. God is the “sovereign Master” of his plan, but he has made us “intelligent and free causes” in its accomplishment—initiators, whose actions really do make a difference.
In carrying out God’s plan, then, we work with him, not just go along with him or passively fall in with his design. He wants our deliberate, willing, and free co-operation, not just our meek resignation.
God has filled his world with good things. Here, “in the realm of what is good,” there opens up before us “an infinite interplay of creative possibilities,” said Pope Benedict XVI. Here our “freedom really finds its creative space,” for here God invites us to take upon ourselves, of our own free will, the “potential” of our being.
“Confronted with our human freedom”—which he has given us—“God decided” to make himself powerless, said Pope John Paul II.
It is foolish, then, to “wait for a sign from God” as we decide what to do with our lives. It is even more foolish—in fact, sinful—to try to compel God to give us such a sign; e.g., through divination or sorcery.
In the case of a sacrament, like matrimony or holy orders, God does give us a sign, but only after we have made our choice. Before we choose, he holds back, as it were, relinquishing his power lest the weight of his influence diminish or destroy our freedom.
I was very aware of my own free will right up to the moment of ordination. I lay there on the carpet thinking, “I am not ordained yet. I can still get up and walk away. I have free will. I am not a priest yet. I am not a priest yet...”
Then Archbishop James Carney laid his hands on me, and by that sacramental sign I knew it was God’s will that I be a priest.
Our free will is a “terrible mystery,” the Lady marvels in C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra.
“I thought we went along paths—but it seems there are no paths. The going itself is the path.”
Father Hawkswell has now finished teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English, however the course remains available in both print and YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Starting Sept. 22, he will again teach the course in person on Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 Saint John Paul II Way, 33rd Avenue and Willow Street, Vancouver, and Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon in St. Anthony’s Church Hall, 2347 Inglewood Avenue, West Vancouver. The course is entirely free of charge and no pre-registration is necessary.
Your voice matters! Join the conversation by submitting a Letter to the Editor here.