Making the right and good decision

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It may seem that making the right and good decision in every situation we face is a difficult thing to do. But I am here to say, “It’s really not that hard.” Making good, right, ethical decisions comes down to the habits we form each day, which eventually form us to become the people we are.

You see, for Christians, our faith tradition provides the opportunity, according to St. Teresa of Avila, to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world. We can only do that on a consistent basis if we have formed the habit of understanding Jesus’ perspective on the world and interacting with others from a place of love.

According to Aristotle, whom St. Thomas Aquinas studied intensely, we are to understand and advocate for the Golden Mean, or moderation between opposites. Rather than be influenced by one extreme opinion or another, Aristotle encouraged people of his day, and us today, to move toward the middle, or the mean, because it is golden. Additionally, Immanuel Kant, the 18^th century German philosopher, encouraged people of his day, and us as well, to follow the categorical imperative, or to do the right and good thing in every situation we encounter.

We are encouraged to think about the decisions we make and determine if they are virtuous and ethical. This may sound like an impossible concept in this post-Christian era, in which social media does so much of our thinking for us, which does not form us to become the hands and feet of Christ in our broken world. When we allow another entity, such as the internet, to tell us the right and correct decisions, especially regarding our interactions with others, we are abdicating our responsibility as Christians.

In his 2020 book “Rescued: The Unexpected and Extraordinary News of the Gospel,” which I mentioned in a previous column for The Catholic Spirit (“Freedom amid chaos,” Feb. 10), Father John Ricardo, a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, states “One doesn’t become a Christian by the use of reason alone. As important as the intellect is, we don’t ‘think our way’ into faith because Christianity isn’t primarily a matter of intellectual debate. The early Church grew, and the Church continues to grow, when people are impacted by the witness of genuinely Christian lives: lives that are radically different, lives that lead to profound changes in the culture.”

There is something we can do about this culture: We can embrace our faith and live our Christianity in all the simple, ordinary situations we face each day. We can move away from extremism and move toward the middle, listening to the opinions of others with whom we differ. Jesus did this every day of his ministry. He did not push away from those who hated him, but went toward them and engaged them in dialogue. We must also choose to do the right and good thing in every situation we face, which we know from the cross, is exactly what Jesus did.

We must ask ourselves who we are and what we stand for. If we are Christian in name only, and we are hesitant to live our Christian faith in the everyday experiences of our lives, we are not people of the Gospel. The word Gospel means “good news,” and to live the good news that Jesus is raised from the dead is our mission as Christians. Father Ricardo explains that from the Acts of the Apostles, the world at that time believed Christians turned the world upside down. The early Church grew, he argued, because it engaged and radically transformed the culture. That is what is needed today in our troubled, broken world. The question before each of us is: Are we willing to enter into a dialogue with others about our Christian faith and are we willing to do the right and good thing in every situation?

Soucheray is a licensed marriage and family therapist emeritus and a member of St. Ambrose of Woodbury. She holds a master’s degree in theology from The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul and a doctorate in educational leadership from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.