Choose… on the day after

“Jesus Christ, Lord of history, we need you…”. Thus begins this prayer that the Argentine Episcopal Conference spread in 2001 and that has accompanied us throughout these years. Its text is as current as it was then and continues to challenge us all, because, as the Creole saying goes: “To God praying and with the hammer giving.”

The most important thing is that both at the beginning and at the end of that prayer the emphasis is placed on the lordship of Jesus Christ above all. It is worth remembering after the presidential runoff. Whether or not we agree with the president-elect, God remains God, and only in Him do we place our absolute trust.

But our “ability to choose” cannot be relegated and abandoned only to an election day; The day after needs our responsibility and protagonism, because life continues.

This is how the writer Fyodor Dostoevsky considers it: “All of us are responsible for everything and for everyone before everyone, and I more than everyone else.” Also, the Chilean singer Alberto Plaza, several years ago, when dedicating a song to his newborn baby, said: “I am going to change the world and I am going to start with me; “I’m going to do it for you.”

The experience of the Catholic Church, in its Compendium of Social Doctrine, teaches us: “Authentic social changes are effective and lasting only if they are based on a decisive change in personal behavior. An authentic moralization of social life will never be possible if it is not based on people and in reference to them…” (134).

Without dismissing the necessary responsibility of the State, he later reaffirms: “It is evidently up to people to develop moral attitudes, fundamental in all truly human coexistence (justice, honesty, truthfulness, etc.), which in no way can be expect from others or delegate to institutions” (250).

Human dignity demands that each one act according to his or her conscience and free choice, moved by personal internal conviction and not under external pressure or coercion. The fullness of freedom consists in the ability to dispose of oneself with a view to the authentic common good.

In this way, no one is exempt from collaborating, according to their own capabilities, in the construction and development of our beloved Homeland. Now, the real challenge before us is: choosing… the day after!

* Catholic priest; member of the Interreligious Committee for Peace (Comipaz)