There is a lot to unpack in today’s Gospel.
Jesus Christ uses strong language called hyperbole to emphasize important truths about living a virtuous life and attaining heaven. To summarize Jesus said, “If you sin with your eye, pluck it out, or sin with your hand or your foot, cut it off. It is better to enter into heaven blind or maimed, then to end up unrepentant in Ge-henna or hell with your body intact.”
Gehenna is another word for hell, because Jesus Christ describes it as an unquenchable fire, where “their worm dies not.” Their “worm” is their conscience that reminds those in hell forever that they could have repented from their mortal sins and followed Jesus Christ in his Church. Yet, they chose not to repent of their serious sins and proclaim the truth of God’s Ten Commandments of life, love and wisdom.
Instead, they freely chose to follow their own opinion even though they know their opinion excludes the absolute saving truth of God’s natural law, what our Declaration of Independence calls “self – evident” truths which God has written on every human heart. Among these are the human right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in that order and within the context of that truth which precedes it: the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” which gives it proper meaning.
Does that mean that only practicing Catholics go to heaven? No, because from today’s Gospel passage we read that someone who was not in the “company” of Jesus’ Apostles were using Jesus’s name for a “mighty deed” – in this case, casting out demons. Jesus says that those who use his name for a “mighty deed” cannot at the same time speak ill of him.
If that person uses Jesus’ name to cure, cast out demons or call others to follow Jesus Christ who perfectly followed God’s Ten Commandments, and they themselves follow the Holy Commandments of God and repent of their sins when they fall short, but do not through their own fault know Christ’s Church, they will make it into heaven because of the grace Jesus Christ won for them by being born of the Virgin Mary.
However, non-Catholics most likely will spend many years in purgatory, because they may not have many people praying for them and offering Masses for them after they die. This highlights the importance to catechize and teach people the fullness of what Jesus Christ, the divine head of the Catholic Church, teaches.
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we read in paragraph #1867: The catechetical tradition also re-calls that there are “sins that cry out to heaven”: the blood of Abel, the sin of the Sodomites, the cry of the people op-pressed in Egypt, the cry of the foreigner, the widow and the orphan, injustice to the wage earner.
#1868: Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them: - by participating directly and voluntarily in them; - by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them; - by not disclosing or not hindering them
when we have an obligation to do so; - by protecting evil-doers.
Jesus said, “If they are not against us, they are for us.” This means that if non-Catholics allow us to practice the fullness of our Catholic faith freely so that we can follow the natural law of God’s creation, and God’s supernatural law of his saving grace and truth, then they are “for us” and perhaps on the way of becoming Catholic Christians themselves.
However, if anyone says that we must approve abortion, contraception, illegal drugs, so-called homosexual marriage, or the greed of exploiting the poor, then they oppose us. Or if they say that we cannot have a Eucharistic procession in public space, or talk about our faith with others, then they are against us and the Catholic bishops who regulate these acts of worship and evangelization. It seems that some politicians oppose us, but it is important to discern which politician has tried to limit evil, while maintaining freedom of speech and religion, and the most fundamental human, God given right, the right to life.
Jesus Christ uses hyperbole as a response to those who promote others to harm the little ones who believe in him or are open to him – the Source and Goal of their life. If people try to tell Catholics that they should not believe some part of the faith, or persuade them to believe some-thing that is contrary to what Jesus Christ has taught us, he warns, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great mill-stone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” Mk. 9:42.
Of course, Jesus Christ wants everyone to come to the fullness of the saving truth of God through honest and reasonable dialogue, and thus come to believe that God has created everyone for the good things of the earth, and the great things of heaven, beginning with Baptism and the call to follow God with the help of his other sacraments. Jesus wants us to realize that those who are not Catholic, but allow us to freely practice our faith, are themselves possibly open to becoming Catholic, of being fully initiated into the company of the one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ.
Hopefully we are ready to invite them to journey with us, to ask questions, and to seek the fullness of the Catholic truth. Together, baptized into Christ and his Catholic Church with the proper guidance from our pope and bishops, we form the company of Jesus Christ which holds the deepest principles of respect for God and all people, as we grow in our understanding of this gift of divine faith that leads us most certainly to Eternal Life.
Peace through Jesus and Mary,
Fr. Thomas McCabe
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