The Urgency of Salvation

I think that we in the Church have often lost a sense of the urgency of the Gospel.  I'm not talking about heretics and schismatics, who might be expected to have lost this sense; I'm talking about even those of us who are orthodox, practicing Catholics, who believe everything that the Church and scriptures teach.  Even among us, there is often a sort of lukewarm attitude, and it's born not from believing the wrong things, but about not necessarily taking the right things--which we do believe--seriously enough.

The consistent teaching of the Church, starting with Christ Himself, and continuing through the Church Fathers and throughout Church history, has been that there is only one narrow way to salvation:  Through faith in Jesus Christ (and, by extension, the Holy Trinity--the God Who is Three in One--Whose Nature Christ revealed to us), baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (as Christ taught one must be born again by water and the Spirit, not merely the Spirit), keeping Christ's commands, and repenting when we fail to do so.  The Church and Christian history attests that faith in Christ includes faith in His Divinity as the Second Person of the Trinity, and faith in the miracles during Christ's life, including His birth of a virgin (it may seem secondary, but is in fact a confirmation that Christ is the begotten Son of God, not of a mortal father).  Such is the nature of the beliefs and life that constitute the narrow way to salvation.

We have to be clear about something:  The consequence of rejecting this narrow way, if the rejection lasts up through death, is the Second Death, an eternity in Hell.  Let's think about that, let it really sink in.   When we consider that people could die at any given time, it becomes serious business that they follow the narrow way.  Hell is the absolute worst fate imaginable.  Total separation from God's Grace, real pain--physical, spiritual, mental, emotional pain--worse than any we can imagine, and for all eternity!  Do we really believe it?

If we really believed it and comprehended it, we would never be lax in our duty to evangelize.  The very thought that someone even might be at higher risk of Hell would set our hearts aflame for their conversion and repentance!  The sad truth, though, is that we often don't take it very seriously at all.  We have it in our minds, I think, that damnation is rare.  Whereas at one time Christians believed that it was necessary that a person not only believe in Jesus, but believe in the right things about Him and His Gospel ("If even an angel should preach to you a different Gospel, let him be anathema!" as St. Paul said), now we are very shy about saying these things are necessary.  It's true that Christianity has held that God is not bound by His norms (although due to Scripture we know that even "exceptions" would somehow have to still be through Christ, as "no one comes to the Father but by Me"), so that we must never judge any individual soul as having gone to Hell, but we've taken a hope and turned it into a nigh certainty.

In fact, the only guarantee that someone will go to Heaven is that he holds to the narrow way of Christianity.  Anything else would be a miracle of mercy.  God can do that, but that possibility is not something we should assume.  Anytime that others fail to believe in Christ, or to believe in all that He (and later the Holy Spirit) taught, we should be very passionate for them to amend their ways.  We shouldn't be lukewarm.  Such people are unambiguously outside of the normal means God has provided for salvation.  God can save them anyway, if He so chooses (through mysterious means still owed to Christ's victory), but it's the same way that God could suspend someone in midair if he jumps off a cliff.  We wouldn't fail to be gravely concerned and bothered if someone was going to jump off a cliff just because "God could send His angels to bear them up."  No, we'd be overcome with the desire that the person choose the one known way to avoid falling to his death:  To not jump or fall off the cliff in the first place.  In exactly the same way, we should be passionate that people choose the one known way to avoid falling into Hell.

We should also know, from all this, that it's imperative that souls convert as soon as possible!  It is true that we must meet people "where they are," but it should always be a matter of urgency that they convert, and fully, at the earliest possible time.  The scriptures say that "today is the day of salvation."  Not tomorrow.  Not next month.  Certainly not years from now.  We are not promised a tomorrow.  So the idea that sinners and unbelievers--including ourselves when we fall into such errors--have time to "gradually" convert is a dangerous and lethal notion.  It could soften our urgency for their conversion.  That's not to say we shouldn't accept that sometimes a person will only gradually repent or convert, nor that we mustn't be patient and charitable in our methods of appealing to them, but it means we must see to it that this gradual repentance is in spite of our urgent efforts, not because we had contented ourselves with their gradual conversion.  After all, if we begin to believe that the unbeliever or unrepentant sinner has "plenty of time," then our passion for converting them will naturally suffer.  We mortals tend to procrastinate if we think we have the luxury, so it's important we know that we don't.

I don't know how to kindle that passion, though.  Even though I know the truth of what I say, my heart fails to grasp the gravity.  It's as though the reality is so terrible, so burdensome, that my heart just cannot believe it.  So I'm in the same boat as most people, when it comes to lacking a sense of urgency.  For the most part, even if in my mind I know that "narrow is the gate and constricted the road that leads to life, and few are they who find it," in my heart I have the (false) sense of security that most people I know and encounter are probably going to go to Heaven regardless of their religious affiliation or lifestyle, because they seem like "good people" with "good intentions."  I cannot fathom God sending or even allowing them to go to Hell for eternity.  I confess that!  Such is my limited human mind and heart that I cannot dare to grasp the mind and justice of God!  That's my flaw, not any fault with God, Who is always without fault.

In the end, I believe the following standard is best:  Judge as though everyone will go to Heaven, but evangelize as urgently as though the only souls in Heaven will be those who had explicit faith in Christ and His teachings.  If we do that, we will be living the tightrope balance between "judge not" and "preach the gospel to all nations."  And pray for me, a sinner, for I too have a long way to go.

A Matter of Perspective: Rewards in Heaven

As I mentioned in my post on scrupulosity, one of the bizarre things that I've often fretted and worried about, spiritually, is the thought that in Heaven I'll end up with a lesser reward than I could have achieved and, since this reward is locked in for eternity, I will have suffered an eternal loss.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but I feel--for the benefit of non-Catholic readers--that I should again explain this Catholic teaching, this time in more detail than I have before.  The Catholic Church teaches that in Heaven (and in hell for that matter) not everyone experiences it the same way.  Where some other faith traditions teach that everyone who goes to Heaven will have the same experience regardless, Catholicism holds that based upon how faithfully one cooperated with God's Grace in this life to produce good fruit, one's reward, which is to behold God clearly and face to Face, may be experienced to a fuller or lesser degree in Heaven.   In the Council of Florence the Church teaches that souls in Heaven "clearly behold the triune God as he is, yet one person more perfectly than another according to the difference of their merits."

This is because for us, Grace--although it is a gift which we do not earn or purchase--is not a gift in the way that a whatnot or a picture frame is a gift.  In other words, it's not just given and then our job is merely to "have" it.  It's an active gift, a gift of utility, one that you don't just "get" and then sit on your laurels.  Yes, we rely totally on the Grace being given to us without our earning it, and any good deeds we do flow from that Grace, and not our own power, but if we're spiritually and morally lazy, the transforming effect of that Grace in our lives will not be as great.

This doesn't mean that Christ's victory is less great, but rather it means that--just as with believing in the first place--God will not force us to reach the greatest heights of transformation against our will.  If He were willing to do that, common sense says every baptized Christian would instantly be living the fullest, most faith-filled, heroic life of virtue possible, because God would have forced this transformation.  We'd just be programmed to do whatever a "great Christian" should do from the moment we received Grace.

Meet Christian!!!  He comes pre-programmed with 2,341,313 perfectly devout behaviors;
if you're an omnipotent Deity in need of predictable devotion that never gets it wrong,
Christian is sure to please!

But if we are in some sense responsible for how well we cooperate with God's Grace, it is reasonable to assume that we will experience our heavenly reward differently according to that same response.  Even the scriptures point to this.  In that parable of the Ten Coins that I've mentioned no less than twice in this blog (Luke 19:11-27), Jesus tells the story of a a nobleman who left ten servants with one gold coin each.  When he returns, he finds that the servants have earned different numbers of coins, although they were each given the same.  And what does he do?  He says to the servant who has earned ten more coins, "take charge of ten cities."  He says to the servant who has earned five more coins "take charge of five cities."

Notice something.  The nobleman, obviously representing God, does not say to the two different servants, "Well done, but your different levels of work make no difference to me, so you will all have the same exact reward."  In the similar parable of the man who gave his servants "talents" (Matthew 25:14-30), it's true that the man rewards all the good servants equally despite their different earnings, but there's a significant difference there:  Each servant was given a different number of "talents" in the first place.  The one who earned ten talents had started out with five, and the one who earned four had started out with two.  So both have done the same amount of work with what he had:   Namely, each doubled it.  That's why no difference is made between them, and this is indeed a comforting reminder that God does not hold us responsible for doing the great deeds of another if we were not given as much to work with as the other.

Not so in the parable of the ten coins.  The servants each started out with the same means, so it's clear that the one who earned more had done more.  And so, the number of cities entrusted to these servants matches how many coins they have earned, with each servant being given one city for each coin he had added to his master's fortune.

So one of these...

...got one of these?

Man, inflation's ruined EVERYTHING since those days!

For my non-Catholic readers, I'm not trying to convince you, just showing that there's a case to be made for this, and that thinking this way isn't just something a random Pope made up to make life hard on scrupulous folks like myself.

With all that out of the way, as you know, I am scrupulous, and these thoughts have made my life hard at times.  Now that's no excuse for dumping the belief or saying it's bad.  The belief in morality makes one's life hard at times when one wants to do something wrong, yet I don't think any rational person ("rational" is a key word) would suggest we should go about eradicating morality of any kind on account of those "poor souls" who are troubled by it.  Still, I've often been anxious about the thought that I'll get to Heaven and find that I "should have done more" on Earth (by God's Grace, of course) so that I would have a fuller reward in eternity.

Some may say:  "How foolish!  If you get to Heaven at all, that should be good enough!  Why care about rewards?"  But remember that the reward in Heaven is not something like gold or possessions, something that's "nice to have, but it's just extra."  The reward is to directly experience presence, love, and glory of God.  The difference in one person's reward and another's, then, is not a matter of numbers, but of how fully they each experience God in Heaven.  I've heard it said, for example, that a person who cooperated with God's Grace more in this life increases the size of his spiritual heart, so that it can hold more, and broadens his spiritual mind so that it can contain more, so that a great saint would be capable of holding more of God's love and comprehending more of His glory in Heaven than someone who barely loved and served God well enough to just get his foot in the door.

Now, both of the hypothetical souls I just mentioned would be equally happy, because they would each be receiving all that they could possibly comprehend and contain, meaning from his own perspective, each soul is receiving all that it's possible to receive.  Somehow, though, that bit of consolation has failed to do its job with me.  The knowledge that, for all eternity, my capacity to contain God's love and to comprehend His glory might be more limited than is humanly possible has caused me a great deal of grief and loss.  I want to know God, in eternity, as intimately and as fully as it any human being could ever wish, so that there's nothing at all I could be said to be missing.  

Oh, is that all?  For a minute there,
 I thought you were gonna make lofty, cosmic demands.

But a couple of years ago, I began to envision a hope.  I still have no idea if it's a realistic hope, and I have no authority whatsoever to proclaim it as if it were a fact.  That said, if you're like me and you want to join me in entertaining this hope, or even if you're just curious, read on.

I got to thinking of some of the very things I posted about recently, namely the post about the unity of all souls with God and with one another in Heaven.  If it's true that in Heaven we will be so profoundly one with one another that, despite keeping our distinct identities and personalities, we might also know what it is to be (and experience reality as) each of our brethren in Heaven, then doesn't this say something about the way we will experience the Heavenly rewards?  If I get to Heaven and I am so very much at one with Brother Don from the monastery down the street (note:  No such monastery exists, and I'm sure I'm losing Heavenly merit by making up such a terrible lie) that I can "see Heaven through his eyes," as it were, does this mean that I will experience God through his capacity and comprehension (that is, his reward)?  And vice versa?

We're all one body, and according to Saint Paul, that's just how it works.  In 1 Corinthians 12:26, he writes:  "If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share in its joy."  To experience extreme suffering in one part of a body is enough to bring pain cancelling out whatever joys the rest of the body may feel.  To experience, on the other hand, extreme pleasure or joy in one part of the body is enough to send good feeling throughout the entire body.  I have hope that it's the same with the faithful in Heaven, then.  That whatever joy there will be for the greatest of saints will be experienced, to the full, by the least.  When Mother Teresa experiences great depths of God's presence, mystery, and love for her compassion and kindness on Earth, little plain old Joshua will feel her joy, will share in her experience, not in the detached sense that he's merely happy for her, but the same way that a great massage, though located in one part of the body, radiates real pleasure to the rest, so that the shoulders are not merely "happy for" the neck when it is massaged, they're experiencing that pleasure for themselves.

Does this sound unfair?  Why, after all should Saint Holy's-Her-Face, with her impressive barrage of good deeds and a heart that was, in life, positively bursting with love and compassion, have her same reward experienced--through unity with her--by Saint Mediocre's-His-Name, who let fear and anxiety keep him from doing all he could for God's glory in this life?  Won't the saints be like the workers in the parable of the vineyard, grumbling and complaining that average, mediocre folk should get to experience their rewards?!  I think not.

Sainthood has always been about two things:  First, the love of God, but secondly the love of neighbor.  You don't become a saint by putting your own happiness as the highest good.  Otherwise Ayn Rand would have been canonized by now.

Note how full the chairs are of people waiting for THAT announcement.

Saints, instead, delight and rejoice whenever, by their labors, they might bring happiness to others.  I think, as Catholics (or at least among the scrupulous) we sometimes get the idea that in Heaven the greatest saints will suddenly be content to rest easy, fat on some reward that is exclusively their own, while the "little people" in Heaven must make make due with lesser things.  Preposterous!  Do you remember that incident where Pope John Paul II tried to give Mother Teresa a car, but she raffled it off for money to help the unfortunate?  That same spirit will thrive among the saints in Heaven:  If God were to give them a reward and say "Now this is for YOU!  Don't share it with those who haven't earned it!" the reward would become a heavy chain around the necks of these holy men and women, whose chief delight has always been to share with others, especially the greatest treasure they had:  God Himself.

Even the aforementioned parable of the ten coins subtly hints at this:  The reward given to the servants is the responsibility over cities.  A holy servant in charge of a city doesn't have this reward simply for his own benefit and prestige, but to serve the citizens, to make the city as happy and prosperous a place, for all, as it is within his power to do.  Doesn't that sound like what the saints would also do with their heavenly reward?   If so, I would think the great saints will, in return, experience our reward, and experience God through our capacity for Him too.  Let's not think too little of that, either:  St. Therese mentioned how the smallest flowers in the field bring just as much glory to God as the larger, so it makes sense that the larger flowers would be just as honored to share in the glory of the smaller as the smaller would be to share in the glory of the larger.

So that is the hope I have held for some time now, that has helped me to go through life without scrupulously obsessing over this issue at every moment; the hope that, with as flawed and average as I am, I will not "miss the boat" of experiencing God as only some greater saint than I might experience Him, with no hope for a "do-over."  Instead, I might find that, while it's true that I will not, on my own, experience God in the same way that St. Joan of Arc or St. Francis of Assisi might experience Him, I will share their same experience because of my unity with them.  And in that way, I won't be missing a thing.

That They May All be One

Ever since I was a child, I had a deep longing for something that it seemed I could never have.  The object of this longing was an identical twin brother.  But not just any twin, one of those twins who is so close to his brother that they can almost read each other's thoughts.  You know the kind; you've probably seen those documentaries or news reports where the two twins are so very close that they almost seem to have a psychic link.  That's because when two people are that profoundly identical, in a way they are one flesh, where normally only spouses can have that sort of union.  Two twins like that--and it's probably rare even among identical twins--experience the world through what is essentially the same exact body and, in the more extreme cases, even their brains and thoughts are similar.

That's what I wanted.  I wanted to know what it was like to be "one flesh" with a brother.  I wouldn't be surprised if this longing is part of what has been channeled into my same-sex attractions, in a misguided attempt to become one with another man the way that I would have been, by birth, one with a twin brother.  Of course I couldn't really achieve that with a man through sex; I believe sexual activity between two men only ultimately pushes them farther apart, rather than binding them together.  But the point is that I think it's that sort of unity with a man that I've been seeking.  Just as with twins, it isn't the same kind of union as with a spouse, and therefore it's not in competition with the spousal relationship (nothing and no one could compete with the beautiful union I have with my wife, and I would never want to replace that), but it's a oneness that would be parallel to that sort of union.  

Of course, I can't have a twin.  Alas, when I was but a wee fertilized egg, I didn't split, and that's that.  No second chances.

Like this, but we wouldn't be "fried" together.  Say no to drugs, and all that. 

Is there a way to have this sort of union on this Earth, despite not having such a twin?  Is there a way to have it with some man I know and love, be he literal brother or a close friend?  I don't know.  I know I love my brothers and my best friends enough for it.  But can we ever be "as one?"  Because, contrary to what some may think, that's what this is about.  It's not about having a "clone" of myself because I'm so great and want someone who's just like me.  It's about wanting to be "as one" with people.  I have a deep desire for unity beyond imagining.  Sometimes I even feel this toward strangers.  I have an aching desire to unite, to be one with my brethren.

The good news is, whether or not we can have this on Earth, we will have it one day.  See, around 2000 years ago, a certain God-Man named Jesus (perhaps you've heard of Him) prayed that all of His followers may be one.  In John 18: 21, He prayed, "so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they may also be in us."  In just one sentence, this gives us a beautiful glimpse at what Heaven will be like.  Unity.  Perfect, unimaginable unity.  I believe that, in Heaven we will all of us, in some mysterious way, be "one flesh" and have a profound unity of spirit.  After all, the unity between the Father and the Son is so real that some early Christians mistakenly thought there was no distinction between them!  So if we are to be "one" in a way approaching the oneness of the Son and the Father, then this unity is going to be profound and real.  It's not just symbolic.

It seems to me that, in Heaven, we'll all have the sort of connection with each other that on Earth most readily exists between spouses or the sorts of twins I mentioned.  We will share in each other's experiences.  We'll know "what it's like" to be each other.  And this unity is actually going to be much richer than even the most profound unions on this side of eternity.  Because rather than having to be born out of similarities or (in the case of spouses) compatibility, it will transcend differences.  We will each continue to have our own personalities in Heaven, and there will be differences and variety there, but at the same time we will be so much "as one" that I think each soul will know what it is to be every other soul, and vice versa.  

Warning, paradox coming up!  Hurry, look at this infinitely more sensible abstract picture!

I was once asked, by someone who craved unity as much as I do, "Is there a place where two souls can exist in the same space?"  And I answered him "Yes, in Heaven."  Because that's the place where somehow space will not be an insurmountable wall, where despite having distinct bodies (after the Resurrection) and distinct souls we will find that there are no  more barriers, no more boundaries, that separate us from one another.  Our oneness will be similar to the oneness of the Holy Trinity:  Just as God is "One God in Three Persons" so too will we all be "One humanity in a multitude of persons."  Just as with God, the persons will be distinct.  But just as with God, the oneness will be real.  

And I, for one, look forward to it.  I will not cease to seek greater unity with my brethren on Earth where it can be found, but I will seek assurance in the hope that, whether I succeed or fail, one day I'll live the dream that even Jesus dreamed.  Alleluia!