(Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17; 1st. Corinthians 15:20-26, 28; Matthew 25:31-46)
Following the Gospel of Matthew we have recently heard
Jesus warning us in parables, first of all, to be faithful and responsible, after
the example of the wise and faithful servant set over the household whilst his
master was away; then -- in the parable of the 5 wise and the 5 foolish virgins
-- to be prepared and alert at all times; and finally, last week, He admonished
us -- in the parable of the talents – to put to good use the gifts we have
received by bringing forth fruit for eternal life.
And now, just before the chief priests and elders of the
people meet to plot Jesus’ death, Matthew puts before us this awesome scene of
the Last Judgement pictured for us by the Lord Himself:
When the Son of Man comes in His
glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit upon His glorious throne, and
all the nations will be assembled before Him. And He will separate them one
from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
Jesus goes on to make clear the grounds on which the sheep
are to be separated from the goats, and in doing so He fills in with greater
detail the advice given us previously in His parables by showing us how to
remain faithful and responsible, ever alert and prepared, and how to invest for
the future by bringing forth fruit for eternal life:
I was hungry and you gave Me
food, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, a stranger and you welcomed Me,
naked and you clothed Me, ill and you cared for Me, in prison and you visited Me
Those, on the left hand, who do not remain faithful, alert
and prepared, who make little or no effort to gain profit for heaven, will be most
severely judged and condemned, and the immediate continuation of our first
reading from the prophet Ezekiel tells us why:
Then the King will say to those
on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared
for the devil and his angels.
“As for you, O My flock,”
thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, I shall judge between sheep and sheep,
between rams and goats. Is it too little
for you to have eaten up the good pasture, that you must tread down with your
feet the residue of your pasture -- and to have drunk of the clear waters, that
you must foul the residue with your feet?"
St. John Chrysostom, a Greek Doctor of the Church, when
commenting on today’s parable of the Final Judgement, told his congregation at
the imperial court in the city of Constantinople some 1600 years ago that God
does not demand great things of us, for He is gracious enough to reward even
little things:
And in return for
what, do they receive such a great reward as a share in heavenly glory? For offering the covering of a roof, for
giving a garment, some bread to eat and cold water to drink, for visiting one
languishing in the prison. In every
case it is for what is needed; and sometimes not even for that, for
surely, as I have said, the sick, and he that is in bonds, seeks not only a
visit, but the one to be loosed (from his chains), the other to be delivered
from his infirmity. But the Lord, being gracious, requires only what is within
our power.
At times this parable of the Last Judgment has been wrongly
interpreted as though it asserts that
our salvation will ultimately depend exclusively on works of fraternal charity
done or omitted by us. However, when
looked at in the whole context of St. Matthew’s presentation of the teaching of
Jesus, works of fraternal charity are valid and valuable only in so far
as they are true expressions of love for God.
A lawyer, asked Jesus a
question, testing Him, and saying, "Teacher, which is the great
commandment in the law?" Jesus said
to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all
your soul, and with all your mind.' This
is the first and great commandment.
The second is like it: 'You
shall love your neighbour as yourself.'
On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." (22:35-40)
Love God with all your heart, soul and mind; love your neighbour, as yourself.
St. Matthew elsewhere (19:16-21) quotes Jesus showing love
of neighbour to be a necessary preparation for love of God when he tells how one
day a rich young man, who, though having long kept the commandments and shown
love toward his neighbour, came to Jesus because he still felt himself to be
far from perfect:
"Good Teacher, what good
thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" Jesus said to him,
"Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you
want to enter into life, keep the commandments, go, sell what you have and give
to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."
There Jesus obviously wanted to lead this promising young
man on to the fulfilment of charity in personal love of God.
In our parable today, notice that those called to His right
hand by Jesus had indeed shown love of neighbour, but they had not sufficiently
recognized God, Jesus, in their neighbour:
Then the righteous will
answer Him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty
and give You drink? When did we see You
a stranger and welcome You, or naked and clothe You? When did we see You ill or in prison, and
visit You?’
They still needed to learn much from Jesus in order to recognize
and truly appreciate the pearl of great price.
The rich young man, however, by his life-long endeavours to
find God, merited Jesus’ Personal invitation to “Come, follow Me”: only three
short words but of surpassing significance. “Come and learn from Me how to love both God
and neighbour; come, learn to love My Father and your Father so much as to be
able to embrace the Cross with Me for His glory and for the salvation of
mankind”. He speaks those same words to
us this very day, for we should recognize that there is much for us to learn concerning
which none but Jesus can teach us through His Spirit, recalling His words and
actions and, in the Holy Eucharist refreshing our charity to respond ever
better to His perennial truth and love .
Our world’s greatest need is for divine wisdom to understand God’s will
in the signs of the times, especially today under the looming cloud of
Sodality, where human beings are presuming to think that their ‘synodal’ thinking
is more suitable for the spiritual well-being of modern humanity than the
supposedly ‘time-aged’ or ‘not up to modern life-experience’ teaching and
example of Jesus, handed down to us by the Apostolic Tradition and brought
‘refreshingly’ to our present-day minds by His most Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit, being with Jesus a truly
divine Person in the one godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the
supreme leader and ruler in Jesus’ present-day Church, as He is also
Personally active in our individual lives as Comforter and Strength – not some
government-trained psychological tyro – but a divinely-gifted source of
spiritual peace and sustenance for all the circumstances of our daily lives, no
matter what the earthly pressures,
sorrows, difficulties or trials. Dear
brothers and sisters in Christ, we – ordinary faithful Catholics
-- can now know more of Jesus’ words than did those ordinary disciples of old,
because the Holy Spirit has brought, and is constantly bringing to the Church’s mind for deeper understanding
and love, ALL that Jesus said and did, ALL that Jesus intended to
be for us and wants of us, and we must always be awake and ready to defend
Jesus’ legacy in our lives, as did His Apostles who shed their blood for
Jesus and in fulfilment of the mission of truth and grace He had given them,
just as Jesus Himself had shed His blood for the salvation of all of us.
‘Do gooders’ always think their idea of goodness is
best for the people of their day, but today, those synodal do-gooders
apparently inside Mother Church have a far more seriously defective
understanding, not only of ‘goodness’, but of the very word ‘God’ if
they think Our Lord Jesus’ teaching out-of-date for today’s Church.
Once Jesus’ coming into our lives has freed us from the slavery
of sin then, by the gift of His Spirit, those God-given gifts of understanding
and love can begin to reform and renew our darkened minds and stony hearts for God’s
glory and the blessing of all around us.
If, therefore, we aspire to be counted among the sheep at God’s right hand we must make a beginning by fulfilling, as St. John Chrysostom explained, the first and easiest demands of Him Who will, ultimately, be our Judge. Only little words and actions capable of expressing both sincere love for God and neighbour are asked of us, for it is only as the ordinary, everyday, attitudes of individual men and women become spiritually healthy and strong through Christ living in them, that the Holy Spirit of Jesus will be able to gradually correct and efface the social and political evils which afflict our country and our world, until that time comes when Christ -- reigning supreme in hearts and minds of His disciples—will be publicly manifested as King of Glory ushering in the Kingdom of God. Towards that end every disciple of Jesus is able and called to contribute, since all of us have a personal role to play in the development of that Kingdom and a necessary function for its fulfilment.
