Message: People will come from east and west…to the Kingdom of God. May you and I be part of that number.
Once someone asked an evangelical preacher if he could keep chewing tobacco and go to heaven. The preacher thought for a second and said, “Yes, but, to spit, you will have to go to the other place.”
That humorous story illustrates an important point: Certain things are incompatible with heaven. Chewing tobacco of course is a somewhat silly example. But more serious things we do have to give up to enter heaven. The seven capital sins sum up what we have to renounce: lust, anger, gluttony, laziness, envy, greed – and above all, pride or arrogance.* Those sins have no place in heaven. If they got in, they would wreck the place. Think about it. The Communion of Saints is like a symphony with each member playing his specific part. If someone brought anger into the Communion of Saints it would be comparable to someone scratching their fingers on a blackboard while a group of expert musicians perform Mozart.
Jesus puts it more directly: God will say to say to some, “Depart from me.” Those are terrible, frightening words that we must take seriously. They don’t come from a medieval theologian. They come from the lips of Jesus: Depart from me. You do not belong here. I do not know you.
Hell is a real place. You or I could wind up there. That is the bad news. Now, I also have some good news: None of us has to go there. The story is told about Calvin Coolidge when he was vice-president. One day while he was presiding over the Senate, a fierce argument broke out between two senators. One of them got so angry he told the other he could go straight to hell. The offended Senator approached Vice President Coolidge. “Did you hear what he said to me?” He asked. Coolidge looked up from his book and said calmly: “You know, I have been reading through the rule book. You don’t have to go.”
None of us has to go to hell. It depends on our own choice. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “God predestines no one to go to hell.” (1037) To go there requires “a willful turning away from God, that is, a mortal sin.” Moreover, one must persist in that mortal sin until the end – never repent. The Catechism defines hell as the “state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed.” (1033)
Now, a person might think, “No problem. If hell is simply a state of self-exclusion, well, I would never exclude myself.” Do not be so sure. Take something as common as lust. Lust is a form of idolatry. It can easily take the place of God in one’s life. Moreover, lust distorts other human beings, makes them into objects. Lust takes something very good – the desire for union and procreation – and twists it into something destructive. A person cannot cling to lust and enter heaven. When the Blessed Virgin appeared to the children at Fatima, she told them, “More souls go to Hell because of sins of the flesh than any other reason.”
After the Virgin Mary warned the children how easy it is to fall into hell, she taught them an important prayer. The prayer is: “Oh, my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell and lead all souls to heaven, especially those who have most need of thy mercy.” Those who pray the rosary generally say this prayer at the end of each decade. We should earnestly pray for the salvation of all, that no one suffer eternal separation from God. Even if someone has made your life miserable, you must pray for their salvation. Our own salvation depends on desiring the salvation of others. In today’s Gospel people were excluded precisely because of their desire to exclude others.
Jesus once again confronts us with the fundamental issue: that you and I have to make a choice. We are making that choice every moment: We are either connecting with God or fleeing him. We are either growing accustomed to sin or repenting of it. We are either knocking others down – or placing ourselves at the service of others. Jesus says, “Some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.” And to encourage us on the narrow path, he say, “People will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.” May you and I be part of that number!**
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*Acronym to remember: LAG LEG PA
**And for our parish, as we celebrate our centennial, the only ultimate measure will be how many souls we kept from hell and how many we helped enter the eternal banquet.