The judgment of the nations
Yesterday was All Saints Day and without any doubt, all those saints and martyrs from the time of Christ have gotten their heavenly reward for serving God… many of them at the precise time of their deaths. A good example we can give you is the life of the so-called good thief known as Dimas who was crucified with our Lord Jesus Christ. When the people below them were mocking at our dying Lord, his friend, the other thief only showed his arrogance saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
As we read in Luke 23: 39-43, Dimas rebuked his friend and said “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” Then he turned towards Jesus and said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus said in reply, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Some may call it luck… but it would seem that the good thief Dimas must have heard about the life of our Lord Jesus Christ and had faith in him. In the book “The Life of Mary as seen by the Mystics” by Raphael Brown, where the author gathered stories from three mystics who lived in different times and pieced together the biography of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Raphael Brown recounted a story given by the venerable Mother Mary of Agreda (she wrote the biography of the Blessed Virgin Mary entitled “The Mystical City of God” published in 1670) that when the Holy Family fled to Egypt, they encountered a band of robbers, but took pity on them when they saw the Holy Child Jesus and spared them and gave them shelter.
After washing the baby Jesus on a basin, the father told the wife to wash their baby into that water and the baby who was in an advance stage of leprosy was cured. That baby was Dimas, who grew up just like his father a thief, but somehow fate smiled on him and confessed his sins and he was the first man who re-entered paradise as promised by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today is the observance of All Soul’s Day or the day of All the Faithful Departed. It is of vital importance that we read today’s gospel reading entitled “The Judgment of the Nations” as this is the way our Lord Jesus Christ is telling us how things would happen on Judgment Day. So open your Bibles to Matt. 25: 31-46.
“[Jesus said to his disciples]” 31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, 32 and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 he will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’
35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 When did we see you ill or in prison, and visited you? 40 And the King will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me….46 And these will go off…to eternal life.”
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So how do we enter into heaven? If we live our lives like a sheep! A sheep as compared to goats always follow the shepherd and a good shepherd knows his sheep… and often calls them by name. Meanwhile, goats are usually left on their own because they do things on their own, even if there is a goat herder. So the choice is up to you… are you prepared to be a sheep and follow the good shepherd or are you a goat who freely goes anywhere he wishes to go? That decision is not up to God, as it is your own free will!
This reminds me of my favorite quotation from St. Augustine who quipped, “The God who created you without you, cannot save you, without you! I have no doubt that the way to heaven starts with God the Father giving us our soul at the moment of our conception. So truly I say to you, God is truly our spiritual Father, as our parents are our earthly Father and mother.
But as our Lord Jesus Christ said very clearly in this gospel narrative, “Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’ In John 6: 39, “And this is the will of the one who sent me; that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.” So the choice is up to us to accept God’s will rather than ours.
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