“Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few be saved?”
Jesus said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.”
Could it be that Jesus is saying: “If that’s what matters to you, then you’re making the door narrow, and you making it more difficult, not just for others, but for yourself too, to enter that narrow door. But that’s not what I want you to preoccupy yourself with. I want you to think instead of those whom you may have thought are beyond the scope of God’s mercy. If you’re a narrow door person, you’ll be in for a big surprise!”
We need to take the reading in the context of the full gospel of Jesus. In three weeks time, on the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we’ll have Luke Chapter 15, where Jesus is criticised for associating with sinners – even eating with them! In reply we have the joy of the finding of the lost sheep, and the lost coin, and the joy of welcoming back a lost son.
Joyce makes fun of a Jesuit brooding on “the number of the elect” in Ulysses. It is a mark of theological decrepitude that some still waste their brains on this question. The warnings of Jesus can be read off from our human existence. To the pharisees he represented a scandalously broad path of salvation. The idea that he secretly knew information of otherworldly realms stems from poor Christology. Any suggestion that ” you need to make a better effort in order to be saved” tends to miss the abundance of grace, which despite the mess Augustine made of it with his predestinationism, is the essence of the Good News.
Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it”
I have been paying particular attention to the readings from Hebrews this last few weeks given the overwhelming influence whoever wrote this has had on the evolution of Christianity, for good or ill? — now that’s a question. However, leaving that aside just now, I was really struck by the reference to discipline in today’s 2nd reading. I wonder what would contemporary psychotherapists, psychologists and psychiatrists make of that . Not very much, I would guess. This reminds of one of the key points the late, great Fr. Seán Fagan made in “What happened to sin”. If I remember correctly, he challenges the old argument that given so much of church teaching and doctrine has existed for hundreds of years it must be well founded, it must be right. Seán put forward the argument that much of it was formulated at a time when there was virtually no knowledge of the human sciences, anatomy, physiology, psychology etc. One example he gave us was the fact that anatomists only discovered the existence of the female ovary in 1850. Until then it was believed that the male sperm contained everything!! Was this part of the reason he later wrote about the “spiritual abuse” young people suffered in the confessional.
Joe@2., please tell us more about the mess Augustine “made of it with his predestinationism.” When I read that I became aware of my lack of formal theological education. I was aware that he got it right as far as Atonement was concerned and in his understanding of the Real Presence but got it disasterously wrong as far as sexuality is concerned. I suppose, in the famous words of Meatloaf “Two out three ain’t bad” though he did admit to “Bat out of hell” tendencies.
Since the predestination nightmare is a thing if the past, gently put to rest in Barth’s great 600 page discussion in Church Dogmatics II/2, I think it is more fruitful to tackle the pull-up-your-socks Pelagianism,that has made so much preaching spiritually ruinous. Here Augustine is of great help.
“Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few be saved?”
Jesus said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.”
Could it be that Jesus is saying: “If that’s what matters to you, then you’re making the door narrow, and you making it more difficult, not just for others, but for yourself too, to enter that narrow door. But that’s not what I want you to preoccupy yourself with. I want you to think instead of those whom you may have thought are beyond the scope of God’s mercy. If you’re a narrow door person, you’ll be in for a big surprise!”
We need to take the reading in the context of the full gospel of Jesus. In three weeks time, on the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we’ll have Luke Chapter 15, where Jesus is criticised for associating with sinners – even eating with them! In reply we have the joy of the finding of the lost sheep, and the lost coin, and the joy of welcoming back a lost son.
Joyce makes fun of a Jesuit brooding on “the number of the elect” in Ulysses. It is a mark of theological decrepitude that some still waste their brains on this question. The warnings of Jesus can be read off from our human existence. To the pharisees he represented a scandalously broad path of salvation. The idea that he secretly knew information of otherworldly realms stems from poor Christology. Any suggestion that ” you need to make a better effort in order to be saved” tends to miss the abundance of grace, which despite the mess Augustine made of it with his predestinationism, is the essence of the Good News.
Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it”
I have been paying particular attention to the readings from Hebrews this last few weeks given the overwhelming influence whoever wrote this has had on the evolution of Christianity, for good or ill? — now that’s a question. However, leaving that aside just now, I was really struck by the reference to discipline in today’s 2nd reading. I wonder what would contemporary psychotherapists, psychologists and psychiatrists make of that . Not very much, I would guess. This reminds of one of the key points the late, great Fr. Seán Fagan made in “What happened to sin”. If I remember correctly, he challenges the old argument that given so much of church teaching and doctrine has existed for hundreds of years it must be well founded, it must be right. Seán put forward the argument that much of it was formulated at a time when there was virtually no knowledge of the human sciences, anatomy, physiology, psychology etc. One example he gave us was the fact that anatomists only discovered the existence of the female ovary in 1850. Until then it was believed that the male sperm contained everything!! Was this part of the reason he later wrote about the “spiritual abuse” young people suffered in the confessional.
Joe@2., please tell us more about the mess Augustine “made of it with his predestinationism.” When I read that I became aware of my lack of formal theological education. I was aware that he got it right as far as Atonement was concerned and in his understanding of the Real Presence but got it disasterously wrong as far as sexuality is concerned. I suppose, in the famous words of Meatloaf “Two out three ain’t bad” though he did admit to “Bat out of hell” tendencies.
Since the predestination nightmare is a thing if the past, gently put to rest in Barth’s great 600 page discussion in Church Dogmatics II/2, I think it is more fruitful to tackle the pull-up-your-socks Pelagianism,that has made so much preaching spiritually ruinous. Here Augustine is of great help.