33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Hellfire, brimstone, damnation – words we don’t hear very often anymore, but words that our first reading calls to mind (and themes that arise out of our Scriptures).  And lest we think that Jesus ushered in an age full of only mercy, pardon and mushy-gushy “love”, Jesus Himself, multiple times in the Gospels, speaks strongly about judgment, hellfire, the separation of the righteous and the wicked, warning us of the wide and easy road that leads to destruction and encouraging us to follow the narrow and difficult road that leads to life.  This week I challenge you: have conversations about some of these difficult topics with friends and other believers, Catholic or otherwise.  These ideas aren’t culturally acceptable, many discount them these days, but if we call ourselves Christian, if we believe what Jesus (the Son of God, the Author of all truth) says, then we have to start taking these ideas seriously!