In the world but not of the world

By Fr. Vincent Hawkswell

In the Readings this Sunday we see both a concern and a lack of concern on the part of Christ for the world.

In the First Reading, God promises to "extend prosperity" to Jerusalem "like a river," giving her "the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream."

In the Second Reading, St. Paul exclaims over God's goodness to us: saying, "A new creation is everything!"

In the Gospel Reading, Jesus sends out His disciples to offer peace to the people, to cure the sick and to assure them of the kingdom of God.

At the same time, St. Paul says that he will never again boast of anything except "the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.... From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body."

In the Gospel Reading, Christ tells His disciples to leave any town that will not receive them, even wiping the dust off their feet, and He promises that it will go harder with that town on the last day than with Sodom.

Reasons for hope

Moreover, when the disciples return full of joy at their power over evil spirits and over nature, Jesus tells them rather to rejoice that their names are written in Heaven.

Does Jesus care about this world, or not?

Archbishop Emeritus Adam Exner, OMI, used to tell a story about his first meeting with Pope John Paul II. The Pope asked him what he thought about the signs of the times, whether the world was becoming worse or better.

While the archbishop was searching for an answer, the Pope answered it himself. He said, in effect, "Yes, things are bad, and they are getting worse, but at the same time the reasons for hope have never been so many or so convincing."

The archbishop used to say he wondered whether the Pope believed his own words, but as he watched him during the years that followed, he became convinced that he did.

Such assurance does not come from focussing on the evil in the world, becoming sadder and more despairing as laws against abortion are relaxed in country after country, euthanasia is legalized, homosexual unions are recognized, etc., nor does it come from a withdrawal from the world, with the attitude that the world is going to hell and as long as I save myself that's all I can do.

Rather, it comes from a passionate love of the world for the sake of Christ - Who loved the world so much that He allowed Himself to be tortured to death to save us from hell - backed up by Christ's own words: "Fear not, for I have overcome the world."

A friend of mine used to have a picture of Our Lady of Fatima on display in his house, with Our Lady's words at Fatima written under it: "In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph."

A non-Catholic friend once asked him what that meant, and he said he had become so used to reading it that he had to stop and think before he answered.

The answer is that good will defeat evil, or, more concretely, that Christ and His mother and everyone else who co-operates with Him will defeat Satan in the battle for human beings.

In fact, they have already defeated Satan. As Jesus said in today's Gospel Reading, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning."

We are living during the rearguard action, so to speak, in what the Catechism calls "the last ages" before Christ comes again in glory.

`If God is with us....'

It is with this assurance that we can live our everyday lives, knowing that if God is with us, who can be against us, provided, as a priest I know always says in Confession, we rely on His strength rather than our own.

At the same time, we must realize that the battle for souls is continuing. In that battle, we are Christ's agents, just like the 70 disciples He sent out in today's Gospel Reading.

If we love God, we will care about other human beings as passionately as He does, teaching them about Him and helping them to follow Him as well as helping Him to look after their daily needs.

Remember Pope John Paul II. Often, during the months before the United Nations Cairo Conference on Population and Development, when the Church was working so strenuously to combat the abortion mentality of the western nations, he would throw away a prepared speech and speak passionately and movingly from the heart.

There is no doubt that he cared, and cared deeply, for all human beings, yet he had an assurance that came from his reliance on Christ's strength: "Fear not, for I have overcome the world."

This was the source of his hope. That is why he wrote a book called Crossing the Threshold of Hope. That is why he brought hope to others wherever he went. That is why he did not despair when he saw the Rwandan genocide or the slaughter of the innocents in Canada and the United States.

He knew "that the hand of the Lord is with His servants."