“Depart from me, all you evildoers!”

In 1896 there was a religious tract published called The Roads to Heaven and Hell by R.J. Stock, Cincinnati, Ohio. This tract was a reminder to the people at the time as well as to us that there are two ways. This lesson is Part 4 of 4 in which the tract will be explained in the light of today’s Gospel.
 
Detailed pictures from the tract will be in this lesson. To see the tract in its entirety please go to the packet page and click on The Roads to Heaven and Hell link.

 
From the beginning God has given free will. He did not force the angels to choose Him. In the same manner, God did not and will not force man to choose Him. To be forced to choose, is not a choice. Our choice however does have effect in our life and in the life of others. God gives us free will and presents to us the choices.
 
“I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land which the Lord swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” [i]
 
Jesus is the promise that God made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For this reason Mary proclaims in her Magnificat, “…He has come to the help of His servant Israel, for He has remembered His promise of mercy, the promise He made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.” [ii] The Church prays this prayer every evening in Liturgy of the Hours. In praise of this promise, Zechariah proclaims, “Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel; He has come to His people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty savior, born of the house of His servant David. Through His holy prophets he promised of old that He would save us from our enemies…” [iii] This prayer is prayed by the Church each morning in Liturgy of the Hours. In the praying of these two canticles, the Church forever remembers and praises Jesus Christ, the promise of the Father.
 
This promise is offered to all but not all will accept it just as Christ died for all, and gained salvation for all, but not all will accept what has been gained for them. The merits of Christ on the Cross can be compared to a person creating a bank account for every person in the world. Each person has his or her own account with enough money to live. This account has been set up and the money has been deposited, all the person has to do is withdraw from our account. Christ has deposited the merit, the means of salvation. He has deposited this merit, this grace, and the means of salvation in the Church (the bank). All that is needed is that we make a withdrawal. Not only should we make the withdraw but we are called to do good with the merits that He has given us. At Mass we hear the words, “For this is the chalice of My Blood, of the new and eternal testament: the mystery of faith: which shall be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins.” [iv] There will be some that will reject Christ and not have the remission of their sins. Christ died for all, but not all will accept. Many however will accept Christ and will have the remission of theirs sins. Let us be counted in that “many”.  It is through the Church that the “many” are gathered together. The Church is the Body of Christ and thus its members not only live for Christ, but actually live “through Him, and with Him, and in Him” [v] as is prayed in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The unity of the Body of Christ is a sign of the victory over death and sin. “Just as division among men is a sign of sin, so their unification is a sign of God’s saving power and of his love for all.” [vi]
 
It is the duty of the Christian then to be a witness to Christ and to use his free will for good, for God. We must always pursue good and avoid evil. Saint Peter tells us, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and sojourners to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against the soul. Maintain good conduct among the Gentiles, so that if they speak of you as evildoers, they may observe your good works and glorify God on the day of visitation.” [vii]
 
Why is the good path narrow and the evil path wide? First we have free will. We must use our free will to choose good or evil, no one will choose for us. It is hard to choose. Second we struggle against the devil, the world, and the flesh and must fight these through a life of grace. We are offered grace in so many ways (both ordinary and extraordinary means), but this does not mean that we will embrace the grace we are offered. “We must depend not on ourselves but on God only; ‘I can do all thing in him who strengthened me’ (Philippians 4:13)” [viii] Third it is easy to follow the crowd, the way that everyone is going. Finally, in choosing God there may often be hardship and persecution for our choice. It is for this reason that Pope Benedict XVI said that the Church will become small.
 
“The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.
She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges . . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members….It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret. And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.” [ix]
 
Has the Church always taught that there are “two ways”? Yes. This is seen in Jewish tradition as stated above, and is spoken by our Lord. This is clearly seen in the Gospel of Saint John, “A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” [x]
 
[See also Link to Liturgy Packet Cycle A - OT04 - The Beatitudes]
 
[See also Link to Liturgy Packet Cycle A - OT06 - Fully Human: No Less, No More]
 
Man desires good. Man desires happiness. When man’s desires are ordered correctly good and happiness are the result. When man’s desires are disordered (sin) is the result, this is a poison to the soul. Six of the deadly sins are examples of how desire is disordered. Sloth is an example of no desire what so ever. What is the antidote to this poison? Jesus gives us the Sermon on the Mount, the beatitudes, which enable us to order our desires toward God, towards the good.


Jesus not only gives us His word, but the Word become flesh. He gives us Himself in the Eucharist, which is the “medicine of immortality”. Saint Ignatius of Antioch said, “…you come together man by man in common through grace, individually, in one faith, and in Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David according to the flesh, being both the Son of man and the Son of God, so that you obey the bishop and the presbytery with an undivided mind, breaking one and the same bread, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying, but [which causes] that we should live forever in Jesus Christ.” [xi]
 
Why is there only two ways? Why not three or four or five? There are many today that want to believe that there are many ways to heaven. However, there is only one way and that is through Jesus Christ. “I am the way, and the truth and the life.” [xii] If there is only one way to Heaven, then if you are not on that path the only other path that would be going anywhere is to Hell. In one of the earliest documents of the Church, the Didache, we see that the apostles taught that there are “two ways” and that it is the expectation of the Christian to live “way of life”. This teachings was so essential that for the first years of the Church, Christians were not called Christians but “followers of the Way”. Not only did that follow a way, but they followed Jesus – The Way.
 
“There are two ways, one of life and one of death; but a great difference between the two ways. The way of life, then, is this: First, you shall love God who made you; second, your neighbor as yourself; and all things whatsoever you would should not occur to you, do not also do to another. And of these sayings the teaching is this: Bless those who curse you, and pray for your enemies, and fast for those who persecute you. For what reward is there, if you love those who love you? Do not also the Gentiles do the same? But love those who hate you, and you shall not have an enemy. Abstain from fleshly and worldly lusts. If someone gives you a blow upon your right cheek, turn to him the other also, and you shall be perfect. If someone impresses you for one mile, go with him two. If someone takes away your cloak, give him also your coat. If someone takes from you what is yours, ask it not back, for indeed you are not able. Give to every one that asks you, and ask it not back; for the Father wills that to all should be given of our own blessings (free gifts). Happy is he that gives according to the commandment; for he is guiltless. Woe to him that receives; for if one having need receives, he is guiltless; but he that receives not having need, shall pay the penalty, why he received and for what, and, coming into straits (confinement), he shall be examined concerning the things which he has done, and he shall not escape thence until he pay back the last farthing (Matthew 5:26). But also now concerning this, it has been said, Let your alms sweat in your hands, until you know to whom you should give.” [xiii]
 
Where do we see the life of penance (GPS), a life of (g)ood works, (p)rayer, and (s)acrifice in the picture? Where do we see the opposite of penance in the picture?
 

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[i] Deuteronomy 30:19-20
[ii] Luke 1:54-55
[iii] Luke 1:68-71
[iv] The Order of the Mass (Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite; Words of Consecration and Elevation)
[v] The Order of the Mass (Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite; The Liturgy of the Eucharist
[vi] Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., Divine Intimacy
[vii] 1 Peter 3:11-12
[viii] Oratory: Place of Prayer; Rule of Saint Benedict
[ix] Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Faith and the Future
[x] John 10:10
[xi] The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians
[xii] John 14:6
[xiii] The Didache