Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle B

Am 7:12-15
Eph 1:3-14 or 1:3-10
Mk 6:7-13

The apostles were called to “to preach repentance,” as is the Church today. This is a key aspect of being a “prophet” (First reading). It’s not so much about telling the future as it is about telling the present, pointing out to God’s people how fidelity to Him today means we have to change.

A key aspect of repentance in our present circumstances is suggested by the Second Reading, which is all about God’s choice. He chose us in Christ before the world began. That in itself is a subject for profound reflection. Before anything ever existed, before the first event that any history book relates, we were already chosen to exist, to believe, and to be holy. God knew us, wanted us, and loved us.

What this reveals is that God’s choice is primary. Human choice is secondary. “It was not you who chose me,” Jesus teaches elsewhere, “But I who chose you” (Jn. 15:16). “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Since God first chose each human person to exist, no human can choose for them not to exist. “Pro-choice” is a mentality that puts our choice above God’s, and therefore is contrary to the lesson of these readings. “Pro-choice” essentially says that we have responsibility only to those lives for which we choose to have responsibility. Scripture teaches, on the other hand, that we have responsibility for others before we choose, and that in choosing, we have the duty to take that pre-existing responsibility into account. Here lies a key aspect of repentance, for us personally and for our culture.