Choose Life

Feb 23: Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Feb 23, 2023

Have you ever seen Trainspotting?1 It starts with a pre-Star Wars Ewan McGregor reading a long, sarcastic, nihilistic monologue, criticizing modern materialism, beginning with the phrase “choose life.” Over the course of the movie, his life falls into an out-of-control spiral of crime, drug over doses, and death, until he finally escapes back into regular life and returns him. Just before the credits roll, he repeats the speech, still with an edge, but (I believe) unironically.

Because he thought “choosing life” meant hedonism, but he gradually learns it means something more.

Reading 1

Dt 30:15-20

Moses said to the people: "Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy. If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods, I tell you now that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy. I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

God gives us a choice. It’s the primary gift we all have.

Your choices have consequences beyond yourself, too. Choosing life means your descendants live. Choosing to do good means others around you are more likely to. When you love, that love can change a life.

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6

R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

Again, we get to choose whether we want to plant ourselves near God, or blow away in the wind.

That’s because it’s a relationship. God will always love us, so returning that love (through praise, loving our neighbor, and so on) is how we complete the circle and hold on. If we disobey God, hurt others, we’re moving away from God. He doesn’t move, but we’re choosing to leave.

Verse Before the Gospel

Mt 4:17

Repent, says the Lord;
the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.

When john the Baptist says it, he means the Messiah is coming soon. When Jesus says it, he means the Kingdom of Heaven is here, right now. We get to decide whether or not we act on it.

Gospel

Lk 9:22-25

Jesus said to his disciples: "The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised."

Then he said to all, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?"

We read the Mark version of this just last week. Luke adds just one word: “daily.”

Picking up your cross isn’t a one-time thing, like it is for Jesus. You’re going to have to bear your cross every single day. You may add crosses, or exchange one for another, but you’ll always have a cross.

So, you might as well follow Jesus and choose life.