God is Pro-Choice

(This is a continuation of the thoughts I expressed in A Mother’s Greatest Honor and Why Was I Born, back in May and July of this year.)

God created man and offered him, by His death, eternal life. Each life is a new song, sung to praise God.

“Sing to the Lord a new song; His praise is in the assembly of His saints.” We are urged to sing a new song to the Lord, as new men who have learned a new song. A Song is a thing of joy; more profoundly, it is a thing of Love. --- St. Augustine

Each life is a new song because each life is unique. Meant to fit into a particular spot in the puzzle of creation, meant to be a particular portion of the total portrait of life, meant to be a particular receptacle of God’s love, each life is like no other. And each life is not alone, but it fits into the lives it comes into contact with, blending its colors with theirs. All life, fitting together, is a beautiful symphony of music to the Lord.

But the perfection that all life “could” be is not always as it is. We have free will, that we might choose to love God, and be as he created us to be --- or not. And some don’t choose to be as perfect as they could be, if they would choose wisely. They sin, and choose not what God wants for them, but what they want for themselves (Adam helped make them more aware of this option, to choose as they please, and they haven’t learned from his mistake.)

God is “pro-choice.” He gave man the option of eternal life with Him, but allowed man to choose otherwise. But even if man should sin, should choose to turn away from God, like the Prodigal Son, God still loves him and provides a way for him to “choose” to come home. Through Confession, bad choices can be forgiven, and all can be made well again between God and man. The portrait of life was meant to be a thing of total beauty and joy, but like any good artist, God can allow for areas of darkness, of chaos which by itself doesn’t seem to belong in the picture, but He can make even these pieces fit, and blend in the all the colors, even the shadows and darkness. These points of life, our sins, can become points of contrast, to highlight how bright and beautiful the other areas of the portrait are. He makes all things good.

The real sadness of our sins, however, isn’t just their impact on us. We can correct that impact through Confession. But our sins do not just impact us; they impact others: “No man is an island unto himself.” To the degree we choose not to be who we were created to be, then others around us also are not as they were created to be. One poor out-of-tune instrument destroys the harmony of the whole orchestra. At mass we ask “the Blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you my brothers and sisters, to pray to the Lord our God” for we have sinned, and all these created beings are impacted by our sin. God allows us to choose, but we must never believe that when we choose to sin “we are impacting no one else.”

We never sin alone. We pull all mankind down with us, and the beauty of God’s creation is a little less perfect, the painting has a little more darkness. When we sin, we and other humans, who were created out of God’s love, specifically designed to receive His love --- the purpose of all creation --- we are choosing not to receive that love. As a spouse choosing adultery, we are choosing to reject the one who pledged to love us forever, and hurting Him immeasurably.

God chose to create us so he could love us; by sin we are telling Him we don’t want His love. We are saying our choices are more important than His. We are saying, in effect, we are more important than God.

What a horrible thing this can be, our choice not to accept God’s love, but even this blot we create on the picture of creation can be covered over and repaired, and somehow made to fit in. That possibility too, was part of His love. Our choice of sin destroys the perfection of His creation portrait, but our choice to repent too creates a thing of beauty, albeit perhaps not as perfect as He wished it to be. But the final portrait of creation, of all creation at the end of all time, is ours together --- us and God. And we are meant to sit back in all eternity and admire it, even with its flaws.

There is almost nothing we can do to ruin the beauty of God’s creation, and our partnership in it. We work together to create new life, as He did, bringing us and our families into the beauty of life, the creation that was made for Him to love.

This beauty of earthly creation, it is good, is the beginning of the union of God and man. Man, made in God’s image, is meant to be united with God, forever. His earthly life is meant to be a stepping stone into eternal life, a time when he is created, grows in holiness, and then is deemed fit to be with God in heaven. And God, in His love, helps make all that possible, even for the least of men.

Only man can choose to prevent his own union with God. And unfortunately, horribly, some men can also choose to keep others from God. If there is ANYTHING on this earth that can give the devil pleasure, it is that men can choose to reject God, AND can also choose to prevent others from choosing God. Scripture says that even Jesus did not know who would be seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven, but if anyone could be identified to be seated at the right hand of the devil in hell, surely it would be these men. They can turn the beauty of choice into the ultimate evil.