When I read this I recalled the criminal in Luke 23:42.
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43:
He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”.
The key to this is surely found by focusing on the nature of the greatest reward for labour in the vineyard. Isn’t that simply consciousness of the Lord’s equal and infinite love for all of us?
It is rivalry born of covetousness that insists on preferential treatment for the ‘worthiest’. If in this moment everyone on earth could agree that all of us are equal in dignity, that would be the Kingdom of God – but even at Vatican II in the debate that led to Lumen Gentium there was a faction that had to insist that although all are called to holiness those who follow the evangelical counsels (poverty, celibacy, obedience) ‘more fully manifest to all believers the presence of heavenly goods’ (LG Ch. 6).
That this inevitably consigned e.g. Christian parenting to a secondary rank in ‘manifesting’ such a presence is truly poignant, in light of what was to follow – but this is clericalism ‘manifesting’ itself even at Vatican II!
When I read this I recalled the criminal in Luke 23:42.
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43:
He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”.
The key to this is surely found by focusing on the nature of the greatest reward for labour in the vineyard. Isn’t that simply consciousness of the Lord’s equal and infinite love for all of us?
It is rivalry born of covetousness that insists on preferential treatment for the ‘worthiest’. If in this moment everyone on earth could agree that all of us are equal in dignity, that would be the Kingdom of God – but even at Vatican II in the debate that led to Lumen Gentium there was a faction that had to insist that although all are called to holiness those who follow the evangelical counsels (poverty, celibacy, obedience) ‘more fully manifest to all believers the presence of heavenly goods’ (LG Ch. 6).
That this inevitably consigned e.g. Christian parenting to a secondary rank in ‘manifesting’ such a presence is truly poignant, in light of what was to follow – but this is clericalism ‘manifesting’ itself even at Vatican II!