“There was a man that said to Him, ‘Lord, is it only a few that are to be saved?’ Whereupon He said to them, ‘Fight your way in at the narrow door; I tell you, there are many who will try and will not be able to enter. When the master of the house has gone in and has shut the door, you will fall to beating on the door as you stand without, and saying, Lord, open to us. But this will be his answer, I know nothing of you, nor whence you come. Thereupon you will fall to protesting, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence; thou hast taught in our streets. But he will say, I tell you, I know nothing of you, nor whence you come; depart from me, you that traffic in iniquity. Weeping shall be there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets within God’s kingdom, while you yourselves are cast out. Others will come from the east and the west, the north and the south, to take their ease in the kingdom of God. And indeed, there are some who are last, and shall then be first, some who are first, and shall then be last.”
Gospel of S. Luke, 13: 23-30 [link]
Our readings this Sunday are about the evangelising mission of the Church, and the work of bringing all the races of mankind into communion with God. The above lines are quite obviously a warning to the Jewish audience, for it mentions their patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their prophets, implying that they were first on account of these men, and if they were not careful they would be last, for the first seats in the Messianic kingdom would fall to others. Others who are not Jews.
If you hear me say ‘Jews and Gentiles’ or ‘Jews and non-Jews’ a lot, it’s because that is one of the great themes in the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New. It depends upon the marital theology, that I’m always talking about as well. For God created our human race in love, and created us with the capacity to know and love Him, with the intimacy of a woman’s love for her husband. But He doesn’t command that love; He invites it of our free wills. He asks for it, He pursues us for it.
After the initial rejection of that love by Adam and Eve, He made the proposal again to a single race through their patriarch Abraham. The Old Testament (aka. the Hebrew Bible) is built upon the yes of Abraham. God responds to Abraham’s faith by promising communion to him and to his descendants, giving them properity in the Holy Land. But the Hebrews were meant to be only a seed community, and God in Christ makes the invitation to all the races of mankind. This last chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah is a prophecy of the Church of Christ, and you can see it clearly in our first reading this weekend.
“Trust me, I will hold assize upon all such deeds and devices of theirs; ay, upon all nations and races. All must come and see My glory revealed, and I will set a mark upon each of them. What of those that find deliverance? I have an errand for them, to be My messengers across the sea; to Africa, and to Lydia where men draw the bow, to Italy, and to Greece, and to the Islands far away. They shall go out where men never heard of My Name, never saw My glory yet, to reveal that glory among the nations. And out of all nations they shall bring your brethren back, an offering to the Lord, with horse and chariot, with litter and mule and waggon, to Jerusalem, the Lord says, to this mountain, My sanctuary. A bloodless offering this, for the sons of Israel to bring, in its sanctified vessel, to the Lord’s house! And some among these newcomers, the Lord says, I will choose out to be priests and Levites.”
Prophecy of Isaias, 66: 18-21 [link]
The rallying point in this reading is the holy mountain in Jerusalem, what was called Moriah in the time of Abraham, where David planned and Solomon built the first Temple, very near where Our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, died and was buried. Traditionally, there was one tribe of the twelve tribes of Israel – the tribe of the Levites – that was permitted to conduct and support sacred ritual for the Hebrew nation, and one clan within that tribe – the clan of the Aaronites – who could offer ritual sacrifice as priests. Now, the prophet declares that of all the tribes of mankind circling towards Mount Moriah God will make priests and Levites/deacons.
So, let us take a moment on this Sunday to consider the universal Church, and the many men and women who have been and today are her missioners, the messengers of the Holy One to the lands beyond the seas, as in the reading above. It is so very easy for us to be insular in our parishes, and it has been easier in the past, when our local churches here in England have been predominantly English, or because of the accidents of history (especially, sadly, the English reformation) predominantly Irish in some parts. But, as we all have experienced and experience today, that is changing rapidly.
Thanks to the media also, and more especially the new media (online media, social media), it is possible to have an easy window on the Catholic world in other countries, further and further away than we have ever managed to reach with travel. The new media is marvellous indeed, for now there are in countries where it is very difficult to be a Catholic, or even a Christian, hidden souls who have discovered the ancient promise of Isaiah and are quietly (and often, without baptism for the impossibility of it) joining the procession of the nations to Mount Moriah, and the foot of the Cross. Our dioceses and Rome are all now spending more time and money on the new media and we must make our own efforts wherever possible if we use these things, finding new ways to live out our faith publicly and to invite others to share it. As the great pope Benedict XVI use to say, ‘A great joy cannot be kept to oneself. It has to be passed on.’
If we think our ancient Catholic faith is a good thing, we can’t but pass it on.
But making an offer to somebody is always a risk. Offers can be accepted, but more often rejected. God took a great risk with Adam and Eve and their descendants, allowing us wills free to accept Him or reject Him. That He feels every rejection is obvious when He often expresses Himself in Scripture as a jilted lover in the Old Testament, or as a heartbroken Father in the New. The second reading speaks of receiving instruction and discipline from God our Father, sometimes with great suffering and pain. Not everybody wants that sort of instruction or the great responsibility that results from living the Christian life. Most of us want to receive only good things from God our Lord, and certainly not challenges, either physical or mental. More recently, in the Sacred Heart apparition, Christ has presented Himself as a rejected Messiah, rejected even by His Christians. The substance of that apparition was that the Sacred Heart has for all its efforts for mankind received much mockery and blasphemy, even from Christians, and that He desires that those who love Him make efforts in love to comfort Him for it. So, then, He is injured by the rejection He suffers from His own Christians.
All our own attempts to draw souls to Christ are similarly subject to either acceptance or rejection. As the gospel story this weekend asks, ‘Will there be only a few saved?’ Christ is clear if bleak in His answer: not everybody will be able to enter through the narrow door, even if they get safely up the narrow pathway to that narrow door. Christian hope is a virtue, and we dare hope that all will be saved. But we have a realism about us, and we know that not everybody will choose for Christ, and that they who have hated Christ and His Church in this world might not easily change their minds for the next.
But this is the evangelical enterprise: in spite of everything, and even if we face more rejection than acceptance, we must bring the infectious love of God to a world that needs it, and so to conquer hearts. We may do more through acts of charity, generosity and good cheer than with many words or the handing out of pocket bibles. Christianity, contrary to what we may sometimes be told, is not a religion ‘of the book,’ but rather a religion of the heart. Its object is not the legalistic following of a moral code, written in some book. Its object is a person, Jesus Christ.
Christianity and Catholicism will always be a love story.
“…you have lost sight, already, of those words of comfort in which God addresses you as His sons; My son, do not undervalue the correction which the Lord sends thee, do not be unmanned when He reproves thy faults. It is where He loves that He bestows correction; there is no recognition for any child of His, without chastisement. Be patient, then, while correction lasts; God is treating you as His children. Was there ever a son whom his father did not correct? No, correction is the common lot of all; you must be bastards, not true sons, if you are left without it. We have known what it was to accept correction from earthly fathers, and with reverence; shall we not submit, far more willingly, to the Father of a world of spirits, and draw life from Him? They, after all, only corrected us for a short while, at their own caprice; He does it for our good, to give us a share in that holiness which is His. For the time being, all correction is painful rather than pleasant; but afterwards, when it has done its work of discipline, it yields a harvest of good dispositions, to our great peace. Come then, stiffen the sinews of drooping hand, and flagging knee, and plant your footprints in a straight track, so that the man who goes lame may not stumble out of the path, but regain strength instead.”
Letter of S. Paul to the Hebrews, 12: 5-13 [link]
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 