A Homily for the Third Sunday after Pentecost

+ As ever, Saint Peter gives good, clear, practical advice in the Epistle of this Mass, so good in fact that the Church repeats it every night at the beginning of compline (at least in the traditional monastic office; later reforms don’t seem to see the need for this daily reminder):
 
“Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.”
 
Without doubt is good advice. The devil is a reality, and he seeks to devour souls and lead them to hell. We must be on our guard and use all the weapons that our faith provides – most especially the sacraments and the sacramentals – to ward off his attacks.

But Saint Peter was wrong on one point. The devil does not always go around like a roaring lion. He more often appears as a wolf in sheep’s clothing (cf. Mt 7:15) and is much more subtle, tempting us a little this way, and a little that way, until he has us so well advanced in sin and vice that we do not know anything else. If you have never read the classic work of C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, please do. It reveals much about the devil, and about ourselves.
 
And what of those people whom the devil ensnares? What of those who are wounded and damaged by their sins? What of they?
 
“It’s their own stupid fault,” we may be inclined to say. And we may well be right. “The consequences of their actions are their own responsibility, and theirs alone,” we may continue. “They are a lost cause.”
 
Without disagreeing in respect of the question of culpability, the Gospel of this Holy Mass teaches something rather different. In praising the economically stupid shepherd who risks the wellbeing of ninety-nine sheep to rescue the idiotic one who is lost, Our Blessed Lord teaches us that no soul is “a lost cause,” and that extraordinary efforts to bring a person back into the sheepfold are to be the norm for His Church.
 
Accordingly, Saint Benedict instructs his abbots to “imitate the merciful example of the Good Shepherd, who left the ninety and nine sheep in the mountains and went after the one sheep that had strayed; and had so great pity on its weakness, that he deigned to place it on his own sacred shoulders and so bring it back to the flock.” (Rule, ch. 27).
 
If this is not the rule in our monasteries, in our families and in the wider Church, if those who lose themselves in the byways of sin are simply left to perish in the wilderness, if no one goes in search of them and has the strength to carry them back, how can we be called Christians let alone monks? In what sense are we doing more than practising a form of cold quasi-economic efficiency with the very souls of our brothers and sisters? No person, no sinner, is expendable, no matter what their sin. Even when a person’s crimes are judged sufficient to warrant the punishment of the death penalty the Church will send a priest to be present at the execution in the hope of the salvation of their soul. Or it should.
 
The devil, sin and hell are realities. But God, forgiveness and heaven are greater realities – ones which, please God, form the substance of our daily perseverance in the Christian life. Nevertheless, we have no business in being smug or pharisaically content that this is so. Rather, we must do all that we can, each according to the responsibilities of our particular vocation, to seek out and bring back those who are lost. Saint Benedict’s instruction pertains as equally to parents, friends and acquaintances as it does to abbots, bishops and other religious superiors.
 
“There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance,” Our Lord teaches us. Let us pray and work earnestly, therefore, to increase the joy in heaven! +

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