October 28, 2014
When you read this, I will have cast my ballot for the November elections. Because I will be away on Nov. 4 at a Washington, D.C., meeting of the Paulist Fathers, I will have exercised my right to vote as an absentee voter. Will my vote count for much because it will probably only be added after the polls have closed and the winners declared? Maybe not. But I will still have exercised one of the most precious rights we have as Americans –the right to vote in order to determine who will run our various governments: city, state and nation.
And more and more frequently I have noticed that sometimes absentee ballots decide an election. So, even though I will not be here on Nov. 4, I made sure that I voted. I was deeply impressed by the fact that at least 80 percent of the people in Scotland voted earlier this fall on whether that country should remain a part of the United Kingdom or move out on its own. The numbers of Americans who vote is so dismal it’s almost a scandal to let the numbers be known. The average for the whole United States was 53 percent. And we were being called on to choose a president.
Are we called as Christians to vote? Yes, we are. How you vote is up to you; but the Church has always urged people who have the privilege to be sure that they vote in order to preserve the common good. The confidence of people in the current Congress is at level lows. If we keep on electing nearly the same people to that Congress election after election, how do we expect a change to take place? For our, or any nation, to prosper we need good government as well as a good economy. And we only get good government when we take the time to vote and to vote according to our conscience.
I have always liked the title of the book edited by Nicholas P. Cafardi titled, Voting and Holiness.
Whoever thinks that voting is part of a holy life? Not many, but it is. Cafardi writes: “On a very basic level, we know that holiness requires the imitation of Christ every day, day in, day out. What is the mind and heart of Jesus, and what does it require me to do in these circumstances? That prayerful conversation with Jesus is so very essential to holiness. We must seek to imitate Christ in the circumstances by ‘reflecting on faith from the historical present and reflecting on the historical present from faith.’”
How will you vote? How will you measure the historical present with the eyes of faith? Doing so will only mean that as you study the issues and the candidates and try to come to a decision about who will best represent your way of life and your faith at the same time – you will become holier because you took the time to vote as a way of imitating Christ.