Catholic Charities USA

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

I have set before you death and life. Choose life! (Dt 30:19)

During this second day of Lent, our readings can be seen as a wakeup call for our Lenten journeys. Moses doesn’t beat around the bush in the first reading when he preaching to the Israelites that they have two options as they enter the Promised Land. They can either choose life and prosperity, or they can choose death and doom. Moses warns them to choose wisely because each choice has consequences. Unfortunately, the Israelites didn’t listen. Once they reached the Promised Land they did “what was right in their eyes” and suffered a lot of negative consequences for their choices.

But Jesus is all merciful. In today’s gospel, Jesus gives another opportunity to choose life, and we’re warned to choose wisely. “What profit is there for one to gain the whole world, and yet lose your very self?” God in his love wants to set us free, but he wants us to choose that freedom, knowing that we will be faced with every temptation telling us that to choose God is a waste of time.

In the Old Testament, God gave us the Ten Commandments, which are still relevant today. In the New Testament, God sums up the Ten Commandments down to just two. To paraphrase, He asks us to love him with every fiber of our being and love each neighbor as ourselves, because He is in each person we encounter. God calls us to choose to die to self in order to live for God in Christ. When we choose God, then we choose the poor, the elderly, the unborn, the disabled, the suffering, the displaced, the broken, the discarded. When we live his commandment to love Him and see Him in all who we encounter, then we have His beautiful promise that we will prosper in His Promised Land.

Theresa Chamblee is the Director of Social Concerns for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, Indiana. She is also a member of the Catholic Charities USA Parish Social Ministry Team.

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