I AM WHAT I AM

A MESSAGE FOR THE 11th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Every one of us has an individual personality.  "By the grace of God," writes St. Paul in today's Epistle, "I am what I am."  Here is true diversity, not the racial, religious and cultural diversity so celebrated by the pushers of the globalist agenda, but the individuality of our human nature, each one of us profoundly different from one another, from our facial features down to our very fingerprints, and more importantly in our personality.  Like the snowflakes that fall from the sky, we are every one of us different from the next, and this diversity is surely one of the miracles of God's creation.

We are not different because we want to be, or because of our environment, or our sign of the zodiac.  We are different "by the grace of God."  It is because God wants us to be truly individual in the way we think, the way we act, and the way we love God.  It is the grace of God, therefore, that has led mankind to divide into separate cultures, each with its own language, laws, architecture, cuisine, and so forth.  God loves us every one, and takes delight in our own personal characteristics.

And yet, in the midst of so much diversity, there is unity.  There is unity because God is one.  He is three Persons united in one God, and that unity of the Trinity forms the basis for all other unity that exists.  This is why he gave us only one single Church, not the myriad of "churches" that exist since the Reformation, but one Church that is also holy, catholic, and apostolic.  This Church is the one and only means of salvation, as it was given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ himself.  It is the only Church that is based on the fullness of truth that he revealed to us, the only Church that possesses the guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit to teach those truths infallibly.  This is the Church through whom God permits his graces to flow to all the single, individual elements of mankind by means of the seven sacraments that he instituted.

So yes, I am what I am.  But I must remember that what I am is firstly a creature of God, one who has been made to know him (through the faith taught by the Church), love him (by keeping the moral law taught by the Church), and serve him (strengthened by the sacraments provided by the Church).  In this we are all united.  Or should be.

Thus, it matters not that one person's politics differ one from another.  Our answers to our nation's problems are bound to differ.  Whether we are black or white, conservative or liberal, these things are of minor importance.  What matters is that we subject our views, our politics, to the one God, united in this alone—that in all things we seek to love him and serve him.  Unfortunately, the world is full of individuals who deliberately or through negligence choose not to know him first, and thus deprive themselves of salvation, and the rest of us of that unity that God intended to be the supreme perfection of our diversity.