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Ted Turner, the famous media mogul, once memorably said that Christianity is for losers.
In his opinion, religious faith is a crutch for those who are too weak to stand on their own two feet and simply acknowledge that we are alone in the universe.
What he hurls at us as an insult, we should actually wear as an epithet of honor. Christianity is for losers!
Our faith is custom-designed by God for those who are humble enough to acknowledge that they are sinners in need of a savior, those who do not have it all put together, those who need Christ’s help.
Needing a savior
This painful year has seen the death of many people because of COVID, both from the illness and the social isolation and depression associated with it. The global economy is shattered. Our nation is divided as never in our lifetimes over race, politics, and the pandemic.
Millions of people have lost their jobs, children struggle to learn online, and our social fabric is torn, certainly beyond immediate repair.
Anger, fear, anxiety, and hatred abound. If 2020 does not bring people to the Lord, I don’t know what would. We radically need a savior.
How freeing it is to admit our sins in Confession, to apologize for mistakes, to say that I don’t know enough about a certain topic to have an informed opinion, in short, to acknowledge that we are weak and limited.
St. Paul reminds us that when we are weak, we are strong. How can that be? The answer lies in Jesus Christ.
The Lord can only enter our lives through portals of humility, suffering, and need. If I rely only on my strength, wisdom, and power, God has no room to act within, because my pride takes up all the space.
Paradoxically, God is most efficacious and powerful precisely when we feel most out of control, but He needs our voluntary surrender to save us.
If we do not let God be God, then we must be our own God.
How exhausting to always need to be in control, to be right, to have the upper hand, to hold it all together.
Because we are limited, fallible human beings, we cannot keep up such a charade of self-sufficiency forever, so inevitably any attempt to be God will crash and burn.
Perhaps, that explains why Jesus seemingly had the harshest words for those I would term the “religiously self-sufficient,” the smug ones who think they are fine just as they are, those who do not need Christ and all that He has to offer.
When we have the world by the tail, possess all we need, and have no worries or needs, how easy it is to forget God and rely on our own self-sufficiency.
But, in times like these, when everything seems to be coming apart, that naïve belief that we can do it all on our own painfully shatters before the current harsh reality.
And hopefully our complacency shatters along with it.
Faith challenges us to look at this moment as a grace-filled opportunity to turn to the Lord as never before and delve into our relationship with Christ.
If you have not started attending Mass in person, continue to watch it on screen. Read a little section of the Bible every day and ponder what it means in your life.
Carve out a quiet place and time to pray and enter into that secret inner chamber where heart speaks to heart, in that interior conversation with God.
Pray the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet daily.
Look toward Jesus
So much lies beyond our control these days. We wonder with fear what lies ahead. In all of this turmoil, God invites us to look with confidence and trust towards His Son, knowing that Jesus will always be with us, even to the end of time.
The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared at Fatima in 1917, in the year of a world war, a pandemic, and a Marxist revolution. She calls us now, as she beckoned humanity then, to convert our lives, to pray, to fast and do penance, to offer the Rosary and our lives for world peace and the salvation of the human race.
This “kairos” moment is one of decision. We can either give in to despair, fear, anger, and depression or we can deepen our life of faith and do the work of the Lord, even in these radically changed circumstances.
We can either mourn the fact that the world seems to be falling apart or we can trust that God is working His purposes out and doing something new, beyond our understanding and even imagination.
I encourage all of us, including myself, to turn to the Lord as we perhaps never have before, calling on Him in prayer and resting in the abundant consolation of the Heart of Jesus.
I especially ask your prayers for the fruitfulness of our Go Make Disciples evangelizing initiative, as our pastors and parish leaders are currently building their relationships with God and each other through prayer, study, and discussion.
Only Jesus can heal what is broken, heal what is sick, correct what is false, and bridge our divisions.
Jesus, we trust in You!