Praise The Lord All You Nations

Twenty-first Sunday in Course

There’s one thing you can count on when you open a news site, and the same thing is true when you open the Scriptures. You will find that human beings are most frequently motivated by what Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas calls passions, and those emotion-driven actions more often than not get us human beings into trouble. Murder and other violence are almost always driven by anger. Sexual assault by uncontrolled lust. Theft by greed. People lie, cheat and steal because they make bad decisions based on how they feel, not what they rationally conclude.

Today we have read from the letter to the Hebrews, this passage that is a continuation of last week’s reading. The author wants to share wisdom about our struggle against sin, and so first asks “have you forgotten?” as his prompt. When we sin, we are emotionally attracted to some good that we have no business claiming. The girl or the boy we see is so attractive, that we desire sexual union, even though we have no interest in building a relationship that might lead to marriage. Or we see a piece of jewelry we can’t afford and we want it NOW. Our emotions cause us to do two things–forget those rules that keep our emotions, our passions in order, and act before our reason kicks in to remind us of our responsibilities and the probable consequences of that immoral action. I remember that my desire for peaches drove me when I was five or six to cross the street and take one without permission from the neighbor’s tree. My dad found out about it and exercised some discipline so that I would think twice the next time. I had to go back across the street, tell the neighbor what I did, apologize, and see what restitution needed to be made. Believe me, I’ve been very scrupulous since then to leave other people’s property alone. I had learned “the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Jesus, who was present at the creation of humans, understands our nature better than any mere human being ever will. Note that when someone asks Him if only a few humans will be saved, He tells a parable. The gate of righteousness is not infinitely big. Those who fail to heed the commandments to love God and to love neighbor, who are ruled by their passions, won’t pass through the narrow gate. Just because we come to Mass on Sunday and say and sing “Lord, Lord,” to our God, that’s not enough to show Christ at our deaths. If we do not follow His law of love, if all we do is sing and smile and eat and drink the Sacrament in His presence, we’ll find our entrance ticket to be invalid. We have to put Christ first in our lives, not consider Him to be one on a bucket list along with all our illicit lusts. We can find ourselves excluded from the kingdom of God while all kinds of people who have followed Christ faithfully are taken in and have eternal joy. We cannot want that–an eternity of grinding our teeth and crying our eyes out in hell.

You see, Jesus came with the intention to gather all humanity together into the kingdom of God, to use the members of His Church for that gathering, to create something that attracts millions and billions of men and women and children to right living and right worship. Isaiah saw us doing that, three thousand years ago. And we shall all then sing the shortest psalm in Scriptures together: Praise the Lord, all you nations; glorify Him all you peoples. Steadfast is His loving kindness toward us, and the fidelity of the Lord endures forever and ever. Amen