From The Director - God's Special People
Fr Noel Connolly
In the Book of Exodus, Yahweh tells the people of Israel, “You, out of all peoples, shall be my special possession, for the whole world is mine” [Ex. 19:5]. Unfortunately the possessive spirit deep in the human heart often led Israel and later the Church to misunderstand being special. Eugene Cuskelly once pointed out the syllogism whereby we pervert the meaning of God’s choice. If we are “His” then he is “ours” and he is “not yours”. We end up owning God and yet the actual verse reads quite differently. It says we are special, because “the whole world is mine”. We are to be a special sign that God loves the whole world. Yet there is something in us that prevents us from feeling special when everyone is loved.
There are at least two bad side-effects to a possessive understanding of being special. One is we have an exaggerated idea of ourselves and secondly it blinds us to virtue elsewhere.
There is a humbler and healthier attitude to our calling. God loves and forgives us in the way he loves others. We may be in a mess at times but God still loves us. We may get it wrong time and time again. Israel got it wrong at almost every turn. It complained during the Exodus, messed up the Promised Land, corrupted the Temple, and is exiled in Babylon. In the New Testament the disciples frequently misunderstood and betrayed Jesus. Yet God stayed faithful.
We and the Jews are like everyone else, even more so. We may carry God’s promises but we need them as much as anyone else. We may be special but not always the most virtuous. It may be in our humanness and our pettiness that God’s love shines through most brilliantly. When we are truly human we may be most loveable and the best sacrament of God’s love.
Our vocation is not to be special as apart from the world. Instead of being children of the light looking out with some superiority on a darkened world, we should be shining whatever light we can. Whatever light and love we have is not a privilege for our glory but something to share with everyone.
