Why Me?
“Why me?” So often I find myself asking this question.
Why was I born into a Catholic family and shown truth?
Why did you pursue MY heart all those years ago?
Why am I here in this place or this role when there were so many chances to leave the faith?
Why have you called me to build up the Church in this way?
Why me, when there are so many others in this world and this time and place who could do the same thing, Lord?
“Why me?”
The readings this past weekend really answered this simple question for me. (Don’t you LOVE when Scripture speaks directly into your life?!)
In the first reading, Isaiah, seeing a vision of the heavenly glory, the Lord on his throne and angels all around filling the temple… he says, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips.” In the second reading, Paul says, “I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Finally, in the Gospel, Simon Peter says, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
As I sat in a room filled with over 500 college students this weekend and heard these words during mass, I thought… this is perfect! We need to hear this! We live in a culture that defines beauty by looking perfect; defines greatness by being successful; defines identity by the image put out to the world of a glamorous life; defines holiness as never messing up. And this false reality… filled with pressure to be flawless makes it so difficult to understand unconditional love.
God loves each person UNCONDITIONALLY! That is his free gift! “’God is Love’ and love is his first gift” (CCC 733). But then there’s that whisper we all hear; the whisper that gets louder and louder that we all ask ourselves. Does God really love me? If only he knew what I’ve done… he wouldn’t love me. He couldn’t love me. That whisper that sounds all too familiar… “Did God [really] say, ‘you shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’” (Gen 3:1). Why is it that we so quickly believe the words from the serpent… the “father of lies” but even quicker question the words from he who is Truth and Love (Jn 8:44)? Christ says, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Lk 5:32).
This is the theme the Lord spoke to me through the readings. Each person in the passages can humbly recognize his faults and his sins. And what do they all have in common? —that God called them, and they each followed him. No doubt all three men asked themselves “why me?” Why choose a man of unclean lips to be a great prophet speaking the Word of God through those very lips? Why choose a man who persecuted and murdered Christians to be a great evangelist converting people to Christianity? Why choose a “sinful man” to be the “rock” of the Church, the first Pope?
Because Christ did not come for the righteous. He did not come for the people who have it all together. He did not come for those that have never sinned or never fall short. Jesus came to call SINNERS to repentance.
I felt God answer my question this weekend. “Why me?” He said… “Why you, Kara? Because you are a sinner. Because you fall short. Because you cannot do this without me.” These were not the discouraging words of the father of lies, but the loving and freeing words from my loving Father in heaven. In this reminder he was saying “I have chosen you because you need me.”
This is true for every one of us! We NEED God, and so He loves, He comes, and He calls.
“Come, Follow Me.” Mt 4:19
