Hunting, especially deer hunting, is a sort of a right of passage here in Northern Pennsylvania. It is so integral to life here that the schools shut down for the first Monday of deer season. “Deer Day” as some call it. Likewise, there are many events during the year that are associated with hunting. Raffling off guns is a common way of raising funds for many good causes here in the Northern Tier. So this is the context surrounding a dinner that I attended several weeks ago. It was called the “Big Game Dinner” and featured a buffet dinner and auctioning off of many hunting related items. In addition, there was a featured speaker who spoke on the art of tracking deer in the woods. The speaker was considered to be an expert in his field and it proved to be a well received talk.
The speaker was also a Christian and he took some time at the end of his talk to share his testimony of how he came to Christ. It turns out that he was raised Catholic in the Boston area but drifted away from the Church and drew closer to a more evangelical or Protestant leaning. At one point in relaying his family history he discussed the concept of faith versus works in being saved and he commented that he believes we are saved by faith. Not like the Catholics, he continued, who believe they can work their way to heaven. Now readers of ACM know that this is NOT Catholic teaching. The Church teaches that we are saved by the gift of God’s grace that we then either choose to accept or reject. And works are a natural byproduct of the acceptance of God’s grace. Works are the fruit that indicate whether the tree is either a good tree or a bad tree. But for the audience at the dinner, the die was cast. The views of this “expert” on hunting carried weight at this moment and I am sure many took his view of Catholic doctrine as Gospel. And, as a result, any contact with Catholic teaching in the future is now tainted by falsehoods.
In The Chosen, in the scene “The Calling of Matthew”, we see Jesus motioning to Matthew, while he was working in his tax booth, to follow Him. Matthew seemingly drops everything on the spot and follows Jesus. But what the Chosen had shown in previous episodes was Matthew’s heart being softened as he followed Jesus and listening to His teachings. He was prepared when Jesus called him that day. All that remained was for him to choose. Nicodemus came to Jesus at night (out of fear of being discovered) to ask Him questions and understand His teachings. And when Jesus later asked Nicodemus to follow Him, he declined. Not willing to give up his station as a Pharisee. The trappings of the Law kept him from hearing the truth and then responding to it in a positive way.
In today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles….OK, I need to step in here to tell a joke based on the name of this book of the Bible: Q: What did Jesus’ disciples use to cut firewood? A: The AXE of the Apostles.
Back to our regularly scheduled reflection…. In this first reading we see a very key verse.
All who were destined for eternal life came to believe,
and the word of the Lord continued to spread
through the whole region.
“destined for eternal life” So reading this it appears that we have no say so in the matter. That God pre-destines each of to be saved or not to be saved. Doesn’t matter what we do in this life. It is a done deal. Apparently, this is the position of the Calvinists largely based on this verse. So why not just throw our hands up in the air and say “what’s the point?” Because that is not what Scripture means by “destined”. The Greek translation (the Septuagint) of the original Hebrew can better be translated as “prepared” instead of ordained or destined. And this changes everything. What this translation seems to indicate is that when we are faced with the choice to accept Jesus’ teachings or reject them, it is what has happened in our lives prior to this key moment that can either open your heart or close it off. The people at the Big Game Dinner who heard the speaker relay a false teaching of the Church will now be conditioned to reject any other Catholic teaching when confronted with someone speaking badly about the faith.
So, are we predestined to believe or not believe? I would say no. That stance would invalidate, in my opinion, all that Christ went through for us. His sacrifice and death were meant to give us a choice. A choice to either say “Yes, I believe in what you taught” or “No. I reject your teachings” And He gives us the free will to make that choice. I think God puts people and situations in our lives that can lay the ground work to be prepared when faced with that choice but, in the end, it is up to us to allow His teachings into our hearts.
