Denver Catholic

T he striking thing about the story of salvation his- tory, the desperate rescue mission of God to get his world back that we have been telling over the last three issues of the Denver Catholic, is that it did not happen in some mythical Anytime, in a mythical Any- where, in a galaxy far away. You can go, today, to the place where a man, in the relatively recent past, who claimed to be God, is said to have risen from the dead. His apostles were so convinced of his bodily Resur- rection that almost all of them were gruesomely killed for their failure to recant that story. How easy it would have been, while you were being skinned alive, like St. Bartholomew was, to just say, "We're kidding. It's a joke. People don't rise from the dead." Instead, it would be Peter, impetuous and cowardly Peter, who would request to be crucified upside down on a hill in Rome because he felt unworthy to die the same way his crucified and resur- rected Lord had. Having traced this story of salvation history, beginning with the creation and fall of humanity, and culminating in God's urgent rescue mission through the preparation, birth, death and resurrection of His Son, only one thing remains: you and me. How are we going to respond? Our response really depends on a simple question: is it true? Through the centuries, billions of people, including some of the world's greatest thinkers and scientists, have, based on their own rational inquiry and lived experience, said they find the story we have been recounting in these issues to be utterly credible. Many of these have chosen to live in response to this story in ways that are completely countercultural to the world around them, often at great cost to themselves personally. Many more, including millions in the last century alone, have gone to their own death proclaiming this story's truth. If this story is a pious myth, then it does not demand even the smallest part of me. If it's all just a nice fable, then I should not even trouble myself with Catholicism in the least. However, if, by some incredible occurrence, this story of a God who stepped into history to rescue us from sin and death is true, then there really is only one response we can give: everything. We are of such value to God that He came to live among us... and to guide us home. He will go to any length to seek us, even to being lifted high upon the cross to draw us back to Himself. We can only respond by loving God for His love." ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA Not of this world What the apostles, as well as the great saints and martyrs through the centuries intuited is that, for every baptized Christian, regardless of their state in life, the only adequate response to a God who has given everything to rescue us from sin and death is a life that is dramatically oriented to a Kingdom that is, "not of this world." This was the driving force behind their radical availability to a grace that changed them permanently. The story of the Gospel reveals who we are and who we are called to be. If we are open, and respond with gen- erous hearts, the Gospel has power to change us, to bring freedom. Christ did not come just to make bad men and women good. He came to make dead people live. Objectively, this story became our story at baptism. In that moment, all of salvation history came crashing down on our heads. What is often missing, however, is us living like that is the case. This great story of rescue becomes lived as my story through a complete and total surrender of my life to God. If I want to live to live like the Gospel is true, I must hand my life over in such a way that it is "no longer I who live but God who lives in me." God must truly become the architect of my life. Too often, Catholics fall into the temptation of thinking this kind of total self-gift to God is reserved for the privileged few. Rather, the very clear teaching of the Church is that, if you are baptized, then you are called to holiness, to become a saint. Full stop. Now, how do we do that? ⊲ 6 MAY 2021 | DENVER CATHOLIC

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