Dear Friends,

In the past, I have mentioned that I am a big fan of the show The Chosen. In case you don’t know, The Chosen is a multi-season series that dramatizes the life and ministry of Jesus through the perspective of his disciples. The finale for the fourth season, ending with the start of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem five days before his death (spoiler alert!), was released two weeks ago. Filming of season five is happening now and the plan is for two more seasons after that.

Like many fans of the show, I was a bit skeptical of it at first. But I was quickly won-over by the imaginative and moving way in which the show “fills-in” the many gaps in the Gospel accounts. One of the things I have found intriguing about The Chosen is its title. Who is/are the “chosen” to whom the title refers? A New York Times article from 2022 about the show argues, “The title The Chosen can be interpreted as referring to Jesus himself, his disciples or even any of his followers – including those watching a television show about him in 2022.”

Recognizing the various ways that the title The Chosen can be interpreted can help us ponder and engage with the Scripture readings that we hear proclaimed at Mass this Sunday. That’s because all three readings invite us to recognize that the God whom we worship is a God who choses people to collaborate with him.

In the first reading, we hear the Prophet Amos defend himself against the attacks of Amaziah by asserting that it was the Lord who had chosen him to prophesy to the people of the ancient kingdom of Israel. In the Gospel, we hear how Jesus summoned the Twelve he had chosen to be his closest disciples and “began to send them out two by two” to preach and heal.

But that is not all. In the great benediction with which St. Paul began his letter to the first Christians in the city of Ephesus, which we hear in today’s second reading, the Apostle wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” Did you notice what Paul said in the middle of that long sentence? God chose us in Christ! While Paul was writing about himself and his contemporary fellow believers, this truth also includes us.

Paul doubles-down on this bold claim by proclaiming, “In love [God] destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved.” He goes further, writing, “In [Jesus Christ] we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will, so that we might exist for the praise of his glory.”

For Paul, at the very heart of the gospel message is the truth that God chose Jesus to be the one through whom all of us would be chosen to receive freely the very life and love of God. According to Paul, the great sign of the fact that we have been chosen in Christ is that we “were sealed with the promised holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of his glory.”

Notice that at the center of God’s incredible act of choosing us is his desire that we live for “the praise of his glory.” This is not a self-centered desire on God’s part for us to “fawn over” him for all eternity. No! Instead, God chose Jesus to be the one through whom all of us would be chosen to receive and reflect the very life and love of God, which is to share in his very glory.

When God the Father gathers us on Sundays to praise and thank him through Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit, you and I are invited to discover more deeply and embody more fully, in a way that even a show as beautiful and moving as The Chosen can’t do for us, what it means for us to be chosen by God to receive and reflect his glory—his life and love—in our world today.

Peace,

Father Leo