Translating a World on the Edge

In fairytales, each character is usually either good or evil. A dark, menacing character or a bright hero. We usually chose the good character.

But we don’t live in a fairytale. We live in a real world with real people. And real people are not completely good, or completely evil. People are more complicated, with many hues that come genetically or from our environments. But each hue does bend us toward either what is good or what is not good. Each of us has the ability to decide between the two. And we do it numerous times in any given day.

But do we realize that each time we decide on one way or the other, we are putting our personal humanity in that decision? We are either lifting ourselves higher, or lowering ourselves. We are becoming closer to attaining our highest purpose, or further away from it. Life does not make our choices easy. Many not-so-good situations reach out to pull us toward evil. And every day of our lives we will battle them.

We can be heroes in the battle by utilizing the good gifts we have been given to fight with. And what are those good gifts? Well, they are God-given and we all have them within us, but the choice to use them is ours. They are prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, and charity. When we choose any one of them, we are being faithful to the God who loves us.

However, we often selfishly give in to the opposite of those gifts: greed, envy, anger, lust, gluttony, or sloth. We forget who made us and why we were made. We were CHOSEN by God. He did not have to create a particular you and me. Because He did create us, we have a purpose in being here on earth.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.–Jeremiah 1:5

Take a look at the first four questions from the Baltimore Catechism of the Catholic Church. This is an old catechism, but many churches have brought it back, searching for clearer answers.

1. Who made us?

God made us.

In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. (Genesis 1:1)

2. Who is God?

God is the Supreme Being, infinitely perfect, who made all things and keeps them in existence.

In him we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28)

3. Why did God make us?

God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven.

Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love him. (I Corinthians 2:9)

4. What must we do to gain the happiness of heaven?

To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love, and serve God in this world.

Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth; where the rust and moth consume and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven; where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. (Matthew 6:19-20)

It is by holding to, and using, the weapons of virtue that we can become the person our Father God meant us to be when He chose to create us.