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You Have Called Me by Name

5 April 2004, 10 am | Prayer

Oh, Lord my God,
      you called me from the sleep of nothingness
      merely because in your tremendous love
      you want to make good and beautiful beings.
You have called me by my name in my mother’s womb.
You have given me breath and light and movement,
      and walked with me every moment of my existence.
I am amazed, Lord God of the universe,
      that you attend to me, and more, cherish me.
Create in me the faithfulness that moves you,
      and I will trust you and yearn for you all my days.
Amen.

— Joseph Tetlow, S.J.

Comments

  1. Serious question, and not meant to be facetious:
    What if, because of circumstances and the things you see around you, you DON’T believe God “cherishes” you or is even very loving at all toward the majority of the world’s people? How do you convince yourself otherwise?

    ∼ πλ · 5 April 2004, 6 pm · by micheailin ¬

  2. Hard question. The short answer is that I believe the circumstances around you are mostly due to the choices people have made. (Do we blame Satan or ourselves?) Most people forget that the choices he or she makes has consequences for others too. (What you choose has repercussions for others, no matter how small the decision may seem. That is one of the reasons why Christianity stresses community.) God gave us free will to choose to follow Him or to choose to go it alone. Unfortunately, most people choose to go it alone; and thus, we live with the consequences of those choices.

    If we take the opposite of the statement, God is love and loves everyone, then it follows that God would only love a select few and would hate others. This creates some irreconcilable contradictions about the nature of God. For one, it would violate the second commandment Jesus gave us, that is, to love one another like He loves us. He did not tell us to pick and choose who to love. He told us to love everyone. He set *the* example for us. And the example Jesus set contradicts the idea that God hates certain people.

    To cherish seems to be a natural conclusion to loving someone. I can see why many people do not believe that God cherishes them because of the things that happen to and around them. But again, most circumstances around people are due to the choices they have made (or least others have made before them). The Bible does not guarantee that life is supposed to be easy or even fair. But, God is always there for us, whether we know it or not.

    “How do you convince yourself otherwise?” This is a matter of faith. You can’t necessarily do it by yourself. It took me nearly 40 years to step outside of my doubt and skepticism to finally say yes, I believe. I didn’t do it by myself. I needed help from some special people around me, and of course, the help of the Holy Spirit too.

    ∼ πλ · 6 April 2004, 9 am · by Mark ¬

  3. Thank you for your answer, and I agree with you about suffering the consequences of your actions, but when innocent creatures suffer because of the behaviour of other people whom they cannot control—such as happens in child abuse or animal abuse, for instance—then how can it be the plan of a loving god? If you think about it, the food chain, which no one but God invented, is inherently cruel and does not speak to me of love and peace. You don’t have to answer this because I don’t think there is an answer. I’m not denying that there is a god because I know I certainly can’t make what I see in the universe, and I think that to some people God might seem very loving and protective, but I see too many completely innocent beings suffering unspeakably to convince myself that God is Love. And even though I am Catholic, I do not believe that all things deserve to carry the guilt of whoever came before them way back when, so therefore, when something bad happens, it is because “Eve” offered”Adam” the apple. Which philosopher said that if God is omnipotent, then why does he allow such evil; and if he is NOT omnipotent, then why would we want to worship him? Sorry to take up your comment room. I will stop this.

    ∼ πλ · 6 April 2004, 11 am · by micheailin ¬

  4. micheailin — I wish we could sit together and talk this over a cup of coffee, or a soft drink, or a beer.

    “…about suffering the consequences of your actions, but when innocent creatures suffer because of the behavior of other people whom they cannot control…” — That is why justice is called for in the Fourth Beatitude: “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”

    As for your example of child abuse (and this equally applies to just about any victim), the sin is not of the child, but of the abuser. It is the abuser who makes the choice. The child unfortunately has to deal with the consequences of that choice, and that will be the cross that child will bear. I know that last sentence sounds cold hearted. My heart goes out to those children and other victims. (I have them in my classroom everyday.) But, everyone is a victim of something sometime. This leads us to several other beatitudes too (see Matthew 5:3-10)

    Free will can be a royal pain in the arse. To have it, you have to accept the good along with the bad. I believe that God is willing to accept the situation as it is because of love. It has to come down to love. Love developed from free will makes *everything* worth it. It has to. I stake my whole basis for faith and hope on it.

    Unfortunately, from our point of view, things are not fair. Part of me (the fiercely independent part) dislikes having to fall back to this next statement (it also sounds so passé too), but *we must* trust in God. Of course, that is the trick—how much do we really, truly trust in God? He sees the whole picture. We don’t. There has to be more to it than all the caca that we go through.

    ∼ πλ · 6 April 2004, 3 pm · by Mark ¬

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