13 October 2022
Thursday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
The political pundits identify the problems of American society as the curious desire to place everything in opposing camps. Noting that there are so many individual experiences it may, they argue, be an outdated methodology to attempt to situate human experience within the realms of an either/or dichotomy. The first reading today would argue against such a position. Paul, in today’s epistle, states that God has … “a plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.” By the mid 19th century, the battle lines were being drawn between those that saw human existence as the ongoing struggle that started from pond scum. Human reality, many argued, was different in degree but not in kind than the blue spotted salamander. Consciousness, motivation, and desire for comfort whether it be the lunch menu for either bug or a burger, were simply actions of a continuous spectrum in the great progression of biological life. Of course, if the human person is viewed on a spectrum, quantification and qualification of different types of persons is a logical consequence, just as the same scientific community judges the abilities of different types of animals. Others viewed the human condition as something different, seeing in the creation of humanity as part of plan that incorporated creation but stood apart from the rest of the physical world. Each world view has its advocates and each group advocates for structures in support of their ideas. Christianity, of course, has stood and stands with the dignity of the human person and argues by defenses supplied by reason and faith that members of the human community are not simply subject to the physical laws of nature. There is a plan, and it does not consider human persons to be simply different from in degree from a blue spotted salamander.