Most young people are said to believe in a hell where nobody goes. Many others, perhaps adults, think there is a hell largely populated by enemies. And among the old are believers who nervously wonder if hell might be populated by the likes of themselves. They, like St. Paul at some moments, consider the question of their salvation “in fear and trembling.”
They may have good reason. When someone asked Jesus whether a small number would be saved, he was not very comforting: “Try to come in through the narrow door. Many, I tell you, will try to enter and be unable.” The lord of the household seems not to acknowledge those standing outside, knocking and pleading for entry, even though they had once been in his company. What is more, there will be that horrible “wailing and grinding of teeth” by those rejected.
–John Kavanaugh, S. J..The Word Engaged: Meditations on the Sunday Scriptures Cycle C (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1997)
What a startling devotional. I know I will not do it justice. I hope to see some good posts here – tell me what is going on.
For some time I have thought that there was a strong connection between some errors of Romanism and some errors of Calvinism. Does anyone see that here? I’ve no time – I’m off to work.
I do want to note that the verses he refers to are important and too often passed over in modern preaching but it is his handling of them that is of interest to me. What is the author’s mindset to produce such handling?
Don
Kavanaugh is a Jesuit philosophy instructor at St. Louis University. His lectionary meditations are featured on the Center for Liturgy and Spirituality operated by St. Louis University. Alas, the book is about twelve years old and not keyed to the RCL. He’s also published a couple of books reflecting on consumerism. On the whole, he’s someone I find very helpful. He’s neither “Liberal” nor “Conservative”. He has great depth, but writes in a way that is, mostly, very personal and direct. He is certainly orthodox and well grounded in the life and practice of the church. He does not shy away from either difficult matter or self-examination. This would be a pretty typical Kavanaugh offering.
I’m not sure I see the point about the errors of Calvinism and Romanism — is it the lack of any reference to justification by faith? But surely justification can only be affirmed with the recognition that God is God and the call to the Christian life.
Apparently, John Kavanaugh, S.J., does not subscribe to Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. I think it is a temptation to be too complacent about this gift of faith, even among those who do believe in Hell. In contemplating my own falling short, I find sufficient cause for despair; even without being cast into the outer darkness, it could prompt weeping and gnashing of teeth, yet Christ’s gift of redemption saves me from that, too.
OK this is off thread and in the context of this blog might result in being banished to the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, but . . . one of the worst examples of assimilating “justification by faith” to therapeutic acceptance is none other than [i]The Rise of Moralism[/i] by Fitzsimmons Allison. The deep patristic thinking (and learning) of Jeremy Taylor is dismissed as a moralism false to the Gospel. The Gospel, it turns out, is forensic justification which amounts to “Therapeutic Deism” (wonderful phrase). That’s my rant and I’m sticking to it.
Well, if it shakes people out of complacency it’s a good thing. I don’t like the general drift of never knowing for sure about your salvation which I found as a stumbling block back when I was in RCIA. I’m a big believer in “Blessed Assurance.”
It’s startlingly refreshing that in an age where Christianity is often being soft-pedaled and sanitized, that the author has no problem getting right into some of the “hard” sayings of Jesus.
I’m squarely in the “fear and trembling” camp but this question of how to enter that narrow door has become increasingly perplexing to me. I don’t know if it’s the times we live in, my age (45), or the fact that I’m not in good health and have a lot of moments in which I ponder these things. Probably a combination of the three.
Yes, there are hard sayings. Yes, there are examples of Jesus’ amazing compassion and mercy. My thoughts veer from the lectures by some of my childhood teachers who pointed to the Crucified Corpus and told us that the sins of us 8-year-olds did that to Jesus (this left us feeling broken-hearted) to the later emphasis on Jesus’ incredible love and forgiveness.
The older I get and the more I see and experience, it seems like I’m leaning more toward erring, if I must, on the side of love. Not the type of “love” that rationalizes everything because that’s not love at all. Rather, the kind of love that spends more time thinking and getting to know people and situations rather than jumping on the bandwagons of some and keeping rigidly clear of others. Rarely have I met anyone who is truly moral or truly immoral; rarely have I experienced actions that were completely moral or completely immoral. That’s what makes it so difficult, doesn’t it?
I guess what I cling to the most is that God, the Perfect Judge, completely understands the whole person in much more clarity than we can understand ourselves and His mercy will be rich.
Teatime2 –The priest under whom I first served used to say that judgment is standing before the eyes of perfect love. It seems to me that captures both sides of it. Your last sentence is a gem.
Thank you, J. Champlin. And your priest’s words brought tears to my eyes. We can’t fully fathom perfect love, and that’s actually the essence of it all, isn’t it?
That’s fine, I suppose, as long as you don’t assume that “perfect love” means perfect forgiveness and therefore perfect salvation. There is a a tendency implied in the “perfect love” business to forget that God is first and foremost just and that his mercy (because of his love) will be granted to those who,knowing his rules, have not willingly disobeyed them to some extent, some boundary. which we, being ignorant, cannot know.
If his justice contains no teeth, then his justice is meaningless, and if this is so, then our justice is meaningless as well. If his mercy has no limits, then his laws are unimportant.
Dear Larry — St. Ignatius of Loyola prefaces the Spiritual Exercises with a presupposition — we “ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it.” I introduced the phrase “Perfect love” in part because it is a far cry from “inclusive love”. Perfect love implies that dishonesty and self-serving rationalizations are excluded; that the eyes of love are also the eyes of truth (and that was the sense of the priest who said it). If you want to get the feel for it, reread some of the encounters between the children and Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia.
I love and appreciate this blog — in part because it draws stimulating and well informed posts, yours always among them. However, we “being ignorant” also have to live with the ambiguity that comes with the limits of our understanding.