Author: Msgr. Charles Pope

Though he lived in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, the prophet Amos was sent north by God to preach to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Perhaps no other prophet was as searing in his condemnation and as demanding in his call as was Amos. His prophecies of doom largely came true in the form of a huge earthquake that struck the region in 760 B.C. (two years after his death) and forty years later in the utter conquest and destruction of Israel in 721 B.C. The message is clear: unrepented sin brings dire consequences. When a nation refuses to repent it seals its own doom.

This theme was clearly announced by Amos in the reading from daily Mass (Tuesday of the 13^th Week), excerpted here:

Hear this word, O children of Israel, that the LORD pronounces over you,
over the whole family that I brought up from the land of Egypt:

You alone have I favored,
more than all the families of the earth;
Therefore I will punish you
for all your crimes. …

If the trumpet sounds in a city,
will the people not be frightened?
If evil befalls a city,
has not the LORD caused it?
Indeed, the Lord GOD does nothing
without revealing his plan
to his servants, the prophets.

The lion roars—
who will not be afraid!
The Lord GOD speaks—
who will not prophesy! …

I brought upon you such upheaval
as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah:
you were like a brand plucked from the fire;
Yet you returned not to me,
says the LORD. …

So now I will deal with you in my own way, O Israel!
and since I will deal thus with you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel. …

Therefore, thus says the Lord God:

… An adversary shall surround the land
and bring down your defenses from you,
and your strongholds shall be plundered. (Amos 3:1-8; 4:11-12; 3:11-12)

Within a generation, Assyria did in fact invade and destroy the ten Northern tribes that made up Israel, leaving only Judah in the South, along with some Levites and Benjaminites. The “Ten Lost Tribes” were effectively gone and not heard from again.

What of a nation and culture such as ours? As political entities, the United States and the countries of Europe are not covenanted with the Lord. But surely Western culture (once called Christendom) has a special relationship with God through faith in Christ and in the moral vision that once united us, albeit imperfectly. What of us? Do readings like this speak to us?

There has come upon the West a hardening and unrepentant spirit. Even having been warned to pray (e.g., through the proclamation of the Gospel and through special apparitions such as at Lourdes and Fatima), we collectively refuse to repent, instead doubling down on sin. Rates of unbelief have skyrocketed and there has been a massive falling away from the practice of the faith. The “right” to the grave injustice of abortion continues to sail through the courts. Families are in ruins; sexual promiscuity, confusion, and the celebration of every sort of disorder grow daily.

As early as the 1940s, C.S. Lewis lamented the loss of the faith in Europe and observed that it was worse than a return to paganism: At least pagans and barbarians had belief in deities and some respect for Natural Law. Whereas pagan Europe was like a virgin awaiting her groom, modern Europe of the 1940s was an angry divorcee, a bad scene. And things have only further declined in what we call the West.

Amos reminds us that our sins and injustices cannot go on forever. God hears the cries of the poor, the aborted, the victims of the sexual revolution, the children who suffer from their parents’ misbehavior, those who suffer on account of our greed, and many others.

I am not able to see the future in detail, but it is biblically and historically true that indulged evil and sin cannot last. They carry the seeds of destruction because they are rooted in selfishness. And selfishness does not build families, nations, or cultures. While evil has its day, it also has its end, which is destruction.

There seem to be two models (in antiquity and in Scripture) through which this collapse that Amos and others describe occurs.

I. The Disease Model – As unrepented sin accumulates in a person and in a culture, its effects grow in stages like a cancer; eventually the condition becomes irreversible. The punishment for sin is more sin. The darkness grows ever deeper. The light seems obnoxious and is rejected. Hope for a cure fades as the very medicine necessary (faith) is rejected and scoffed at. Disorders of every kind multiply. Systems like the family start to fail, falling under the burden of growing sin and selfishness. Low birth rates and abortion reflect this selfishness and destroy one of most basic instincts: survival. Under the load of sin, fewer and fewer people in such a culture can rouse themselves to make the necessary changes.

People and cultures like this just fade away, replaced by others who still have basic virtues and values that make for a culture. Even if the replacing people have those virtues in a fierce and unrefined way, they do at least have them.

In many ways, this is what happened to the Greco-Roman world. Rome was not so much conquered as it faded away. (Yes, there were skirmishes with the barbarians, but no big, final showdown.) The Romans became soft; they lost family virtues and a solid work ethic. They declined into sexual immorality and infanticide. They depended on imported slave labor to do their work and took to an increasingly decadent leisure. Little by little Rome faded as Europe was overtaken by barbarians, who though fierce, still had the natural virtues needed to form a culture.

This also seems to be happening to Europe today as they are simply being replaced by Muslims and others from the south. And though sadly they are not Christians, they do actually believe in something. Though often fierce, they are at least passionate and willing to make sacrifices for their vision, however flawed. Let us pray that the Church can convert them to Jesus, as happened with the barbarians of old.

This is the disease model, in which God seems to sit back and allow sin to run its course, bringing an end to an unrepentant culture and nation.

II. The Destruction Model – In this model, God brings a swifter and more decisive end to sin and unrepentance; it is largely what Amos describes in the passage above. There is a general weakness that is introduced into a nation or culture. Through unrepentance that weakness grows, making that nation an easy target for its enemies. A nation that is sinful becomes conflicted within because, as already noted, sin is rooted in selfishness. Thus, in a nation of unchecked and unrepented sin, there is diminishing unity. As enemies begin to attack, there is no agreed upon strategy or even resolve to repel the threats.

In Ancient Israel God sent prophets to secure a repentance that would strengthen it. Most of the reforms undertaken, however, were fleeting and tepid. God then sent final warnings of imminent destruction, as we saw in the Amos text above.

Over time, but also with a suddenness, Israel and Judah suffered stunning defeats, first in 721 B.C., and later in 587 B.C.

Jesus also warned the Jewish people of His day of the looming destruction of their country if they did not repent and come to faith in Him. Forty years later Jerusalem was destroyed, the Temple burned (never again to be rebuilt), and 1.2 million Jews lost their lives in the war.

This is the destruction model, which begins a bit like the disease model but ends in a sudden crisis (brought on by sin) rather than a gradual fading away and replacement.

In our times, the disease model seems more evident. In terms of our moral condition, it is “Zero Dark Thirty” in the West. Just when we think things can’t get any stranger, they do; disorders are multiplied. But instead of being addressed as problems, they are celebrated. The decadence of leisure and the selfishness of sin are progressing, and things that make for a solid culture and nation are lacking. A kind of replacement seems to be underway in Europe despite a certain awakening by some in terms of concern for low birthrates, etc.

In the United States, it is less clear what will happen. Politically, our Constitution, rooted in biblical values, once guided us. But it has become the personal plaything of judges and seems doomed to be interpreted out of existence. On the moral front, Americans no longer look collectively to the Judeo-Christian heritage that birthed our nation and sustained in its citizens the virtues necessary to support a republic. A nation cannot withstand such trends. Exactly how it will play out is less clear to me, but that it will play out is without doubt.

Consider carefully the words of Amos as relevant for us all, not just the Church, but also the nation!

The commercial below imagines that God’s cell phone battery has run out of juice and He can no longer “watch” the earth. The result? Complete chaos!

Of course if God really were to stop watching or regarding His creation, the actual result would be much worse than chaos; it would be complete annihilation. Fortunately, the truth is that He will not stop watching us.

What is common, though, is for us to stop watching Him. The result? Complete moral chaos! Utter confusion! Welcome to the post-modern, secular West. God is the source of our truth, but many have stopped watching Him, and so have become confused about even the most basic moral and physical realities. It’s time to replace our batteries and reconnect with God.

Some of God’s gifts come in strange and terrifying packages. I was reminded of this when I read the following lines from the book of Job in the Office of Readings:

The earth, though out of it comes forth bread, is in fiery upheaval underneath (Job 28:2).

We live just above a fiery cauldron, separated from it by a thin membrane of earthly crust rife with cracks through which fire routinely flares in volcanoes, a crust that is always shifting and even shaking violently in earthquakes.

And yet, were it not for this cauldron beneath us, it seems unlikely that we would have life here at all. Volcanoes and other tectonic activity keep our soil rich and recycled. In this fiery cauldron are brewed some of our most useful minerals and our most beautiful gems. Entire island chains and land masses are formed by eruptions; geothermal energy is a resource we have just begun to tap. Many scientists think that volcanoes had a profound influence on the formation of Earth’s atmosphere and that the molten core of the Earth has an important influence on the Van Allen belts, magnetic fields that keep the harmful portion of the sun’s radiation away from the Earth’s surface.

Yes, Job had it right: some of God’s gifts come in strange packages. Earth’s capacity to bring forth bread is directly connected to the fact that it is on fire underneath its surface. And while responsible for many gifts, seismic activity has claimed an enormous number of lives and massive amounts of property.

Water, such a rich blessing and sustainer of life, can also become in a moment a destroyer of life in huge numbers. Floods and tsunamis can sweep away huge areas in the blink of an eye.

And yet who could ever deny that without water, life would be impossible? Ah, water, nothing more essential to life, yet nothing more deadly. Yes, some of God’s gifts come in strange and terrifying packages.

I have often wondered why so many cities throughout the world are built on or near floodplains or along the “ring of fire” with its frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. But of course the answer is clear enough: It is in these very areas that some of the richest soil and most abundant natural resources can be found.

God’s and nature’s most life-giving gifts are but a few degrees separated from death and disaster. We live on the edge of an abyss because that is where life is found.

It’s such a thin line, really. Mors et vita duello, conflixere mirando! (Death and life compete in a stupendous conflict!) To live is to cheat death.

All of the basic elements and forces: earth, air, water, and fire, are so death-dealing and yet so life-giving. They are all part of the great cycle of living and dying that God intends.

Only God is existence itself; the rest of us are contingent beings and part of a cycle. Only in union with Christ, who said, I am the life, will we ever cheat death. As Fulton Sheen once said, Christ gave the earth the only serious wound it ever received, the wound of an empty tomb. With Christ, and only with Christ, will we one day give the earth that same wound.

For now, we live upon a thin crust above the cauldron; beneath us burns a tremendous fire. But somehow, mysteriously, it is the source of our bread.

The earth, though out of it comes forth bread, is in fiery upheaval underneath (Job 28:2).

Yes, some of God’s greatest gifts come in strange and terrifying packages.

How does it happen that so many people insist on living obstinately in sin until they are ultimately lost? As with all progressive diseases, sin is a sickness that moves through stages, further debilitating and hardening the sinner in his ways.

St. Alphonsus Liguori laid out five stages through which sin (if not resisted and repented of in its initial attacks) takes an increasing toll on the human person, making repentance less likely and more difficult.

While the names of the stages are mine, I am summarizing the insights of St. Alphonsus, who details these stages in his lengthy essay, “Considerations on the Eternal Maxims” (also called “Preparation for Death”) in Chapter 22, “On Evil Habits.” I have added some of my own additional insights as well.

Stage 1 – Impairment – The first effect of habitual sin is that it blinds the understanding. Scripture says, Their own malice blinded them (Wisdom 2:21). Yes, every sin produces blindness, and the more that sins are multiplied, the greater the blindness they produce.

A further effect of this blindness is a foolish and dangerous walking about. Scripture provides several references for this:

The wicked walk round about (Ps. 12:8).

They stagger as with strong drink, they reel in vision, they stumble in giving judgment (Is 28:7).

Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the pit that he has made (Ps 7:14-15).

And thus habitual sin leads to impaired vision and an impaired walk. Not seeing, the wicked stumble about and fall into a pit that they themselves made.

Stage 2 – Indifference – After an evil habit is contracted, the sins that previously excited sorrow are now viewed with increasing indifference. Scripture says the following:

Fools destroy themselves because of their indifference (Prov 1:32).

But he who is careless of conduct will die (Prov 19:16).

And to the increasingly indifferent and careless, the Lord gives this solemn and salutary warning: In little more than a year you who feel secure will tremble; the grape harvest will fail, and the harvest of fruit will not come (Is 32:10).

And thus, as unrepented sin grows, not only does the sinner stagger about and fall into pits, he cares less and less about the foolishness of his ways. The sins that once caused shame, or the thought of which caused sorrow and aversion, are either unnoticed or seem normal—even attractive.

Stage 3 – Improbability – As sin deepens its hold, the willingness and even the capacity to repent decreases. Why is this? St. Augustine answers well when he says, dum servitur libidini, facta est consuetudo, et dum consuetudini non resistitur, facta est necessitas (when lust was served it became habit, and when habit was not resisted it became necessity) (Confessions, 8.5.10). Sin deepens its hold on the sinner in this way.

Stage 4 – Incorrigibility – As Scripture says, The wicked man, when he is come into the depths of sins, has contempt (Proverbs 18:3). St. John Chrysostom commented on this verse, saying that habitual sinners, being sunk in the abyss of darkness, despise corrections, sermons, censures, Hell, and God; they despise everything.

A bad habit hardens the heart and the habitual sinner remains increasingly unmoved and mired in contempt for any correction or remedy. Scripture says of them, At your rebuke O God of Jacob, they have all slumbered (Psalm 76:7). An evil habit gradually takes away all remorse and supplants it with angry indignation at any attempted correction.

And then it happens that, instead of regretting his sins, the sinner rejoices in them, even laughing and boasting of them. Scripture says, They are glad when they have done evil and rejoice in the perverseness of evil (Proverbs 2:14). A fool works mischief as if it were for sport (Proverbs 10:23).

Thus they are incorrigible. They laugh at attempted correction and celebrate their sins with pride.

Stage 5 – Indisposition – When the understanding is deprived of light and the heart is hardened, the sinner ordinarily dies obstinate in his sin. Scripture says, A hard heart shall fare ill at the end (Ecclesiastes 3:27).

Some may say that they will amend their ways before they die, but it’s very difficult for a habitual sinner, even in old age, to change his life. St. Bernard said, “The man on whom the weight of a bad habit presses, rises with difficulty.”

Indeed, how can a sinner, weakened and wounded by habitual sin, have the strength to rise? Even if he sees the way out, he often considers the remedies too severe, too difficult. Though conversion is not impossible, he is indisposed because it all seems like too much work. In addition, his love has likely grown cold for the good things that God offers.

And thus, even on their deathbeds, many sinners remain unmoved and unwilling to change; the darkness is deep, the heart is hardened, and sloth has solidified.

In these ways sin is like a progressive illness, a deepening disease; it moves through stages much as does cancer. Repentance at any stage is possible, but it becomes increasingly unlikely, especially by stage four, when the sinner becomes proud of his sin and joyful in his iniquity.

Beware the progressive illness of sin!

The Gospel for today’s Mass features three hard sayings of the Lord. They are difficult for us moderns to hear because they offend against modern sensibilities; we easily taken aback by their abrupt quality. Here are the first two “offensive” sayings:

Do not give what is holy to dogs, (Mt 7:6)

or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces (Mt 7:6).

The modern notion offended against here is this: You’re not supposed to call people ugly names. This idea, though not wrong in itself, has become rather excessively applied in our times. We live in thin-skinned times of fragile egos; people are easily offended. The merest slight is often met with the threat of a lawsuit. Even observations intended to be humorous are labeled hurtful and out-of-line. But horror of horrors, here we have Jesus calling certain (unnamed) people dogs and swine; we demand an explanation for such horrible words coming forth from the sinless Lord Jesus!

Sophistication is needed. One of the reasons we are so easily offended today is, frankly, that we lack sophistication. We seem to have lost understanding of simile and metaphor.

Metaphors and similes are figures of speech that achieve their effect through association, comparison, and resemblance. They can highlight hidden similarities between two different things.

A simile directly compares two different things and normally includes words such as “like,” “as,” or their equivalent. Similes are “hit you over the head” comparisons such as this: “He is as swift as a cheetah!”

Some references say that similes are just a specific subset of metaphors, while others say that metaphors cannot use “like,” or “as.” But in either case, here is an example of a metaphor that is not a simile: “He’s a real workhorse!” Metaphors (that are not similes) are usually more effective (and subtle) than similes because the basis for comparison is often ambiguous. For example, if I were to observe someone doing something cruel I might say, “Wow, he’s a dog!” Now obviously I don’t mean that I believe that he is actually a dog. Rather, I mean that he is manifesting some of the qualities of a dog. However, just how many or which qualities he shares with an actual dog is left open to interpretation.

The point is that some sophistication and some appreciation for the nuances of language are necessary as we negotiate life’s road. We seem to have lost some of this today and so are easily offended.

This does not mean that no one ever intends offense; it only means that more care is necessary than simply interpreting everything in a literal way. In my example, the man acting cruelly would likely take offense and say, “Hey, he called me a dog!” What the speaker means is that you have taken on some of the qualities of a wild dog. Now to what extent he means that you are like a dog is intentionally ambiguous; it’s an invitation for you to think about how you may have surrendered some of your humanity and become more like a baser creature.

Examining what the Lord says – This sort of sophistication is necessary when examining the Lord’s “offensive” sayings. Let’s look at both of them in terms of their historical roots and in terms of the lesson being taught.

Obviously the Jewish people were not pointing out positive traits when they referred to people as a dog or swine. In the ancient world, dogs were not pets; they were wild animals that ran in packs. Pigs were unclean animals and something no Jew would ever touch, let alone eat. These are strong metaphors indicating significant aversion to some aspect of the person.

Do not give what is holy to dogs. This was a Jewish saying rooted in tradition. Some of the meat that was sacrificed to God in the Temple could be eaten by humans (especially the Levites), but in no way was it ever to be thrown to dogs or other animals to eat. If it was not consumed by humans, then it was to be burned. Sanctified meat was not to be thrown to dogs because it was holy.

[Do not] throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot. In the Old Testament, pearls were an image for wisdom. But pigs only value what they can eat. If pigs were to come across pearls, they would sniff them, determine that they were not edible, and then simply trample them underfoot.

So what is being said? Sacred things, sacred matters, and participation in sacred matters should not be easily offered to those who are incapable of appreciating them. There are those who despise what we call holy. There is little that can be done in such cases except to deny them the pleasure of tearing apart or trampling underfoot what is holy. Jesus is saying that some people are like dogs, who would irreverently tear apart blessed food dedicated to God, having no concept of its holiness. Some people are like swine, who would trample underfoot anything that they could not eat or use for their pleasure.

There are also some who, though not hostile, are ignorant of sacred realities for some reason. Even if they do not intend offense, they must be instructed before being admitted to sacred rites. In the Western Rite, for example, children are not given the Holy Eucharist until they can distinguish it from ordinary food. In addition, more advanced spiritual notions such as contemplative prayer are often not appreciated unless one has been led in stages.

The Lord is thus indicating that holy things are to be shared in appropriate ways with those who are able to appreciate them. It is usually necessary to be led into the Holy and just walk in unprepared or unappreciative.

In the ancient Church there was something known as the disciplina arcani (discipline of the secret), wherein only the baptized and confirmed were admitted to the sacred mysteries of the Liturgy. Given the holiness with which the early Christians regarded the Mass, they exactly followed what the Lord is saying here. Careful instruction and gradual introduction to sacred truth was required before someone could enter something so holy as the Sacred Liturgy. Even the unintentional trampling underfoot of sacred realities through simple ignorance was to be strictly avoided. These were difficult times for the Church and persecution was common. Hence, the Lord’s warning to protect the holy things was not just so that they would not be trampled underfoot, but also so that those who were like dogs and swine would not turn and tear you to pieces (Mat 7:6).

In the centuries after the Edict of Constantine, the disciplina arcani gradually dissipated. Some remnants of it were revived in the modern Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), wherein the catechumens are dismissed halfway through the Mass so that they may reflect more fully on the Liturgy of the Word. Despite this, we have much to relearn today about a deep reverence for the Sacred Liturgy. It would not seem appropriate to lock our Church doors as was done in ancient times. But preserving good order in the Liturgy, inspiring reverence, encouraging proper dress, and instilling deeper knowledge of the true meaning of the Sacred Liturgy are all important ways to ensure that we do not trample underfoot what is sacred.

The Lord’s third hard saying destroys a notion that is, to most moderns, practically a dogma. The “dogma” is that just about everyone is going to Heaven. It is one of the most damaging notions of modern times because it removes the necessary sense of urgency in earnestly seeking our salvation, in staying on the narrow road that leads to salvation. In direct opposition to this destructive and presumptuous notion of practically universal salvation Jesus says,

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How small the gate and narrow the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few (Matt 7:12-13).

Pay close attention to the word few. We need to sober up and come to the biblical understanding that our salvation must be earnestly desired and sought. God’s love for us is not lacking but our love for him often is. In contrast, Jesus says that many are on a path of indifference or outright rejection of the kingdom, which leads to destruction.

The Kingdom of God is not some abstraction. It’s not a golf course or playground up in the sky. The Kingdom of God is the full realization of God’s will and His plan. It includes values like justice, mercy, kindness, chastity, and love of God and neighbor. It is clear that many (to quote Jesus) live in opposition or indifference to these values, while only a few (to quote Jesus) come to appreciate and are willing to receive these into their life wholeheartedly.

Yes, this is a hard saying of Jesus’. Many are on the path to destruction while only a few are on the road to salvation. The Lord is telling us the truth not to panic us, but to jolt us into earnestly desiring our own salvation and seeking it from God with devotion. It is also to make us sober about the condition of others; we must stop making light of sin and indifference, and work urgently to evangelize and to call sinners to repentance.

We need to realize that our tendency is to turn away from God. There is a great drama to our lives; we are either on one road or the other. No third way is given. It is not a popular teaching to be sure. It offends against modern sensibilities. But it is true; Jesus says it to us in love.

Ad old song says, “Sinner please don’t let this harvest pass, and die and lose your soul at last.”