Be Vigilant in Keeping Our Eyes Fixed on Heaven

Wherever we are in the world, we can identify—to one extent or another—with the challenge of Mattathias and his followers.

While the U.S. government, for example, has not yet forced her citizens to directly commit idolatry by offering sacrifice to pagan gods, we living in the U.S. have faced lesser variations—some of us worse than others. I think of the Christian baker in Colorado who has been sued several times because of his “LGBTQ bias,” though thankfully has prevailed despite his legal ordeals. Or the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, which was sued when Archbishop Charles Thompson rightly fired a theology teacher in a “married” homosexual relationship (and the Archdiocese also thankfully prevailed). Or many other people in workplaces around the country who’ve been warned to be mindful of the preferred pronouns of co-workers suffering from gender dysphoria, or not to complain about in-office LGBTQ celebrations.

Challenges

And all of us, wherever we live, have been challenged to rationalize other wrongdoing in our lives, including because of the wayward peer pressure of friends who betray the gospel in what they say, view, and otherwise do.

Go along, to get along. Sometimes that’s morally justifiable, depending on what’s required of us (see Matt. 10:16).

But not if it involves worshiping false gods — which can cost us eternal life with our Lord Jesus Christ in heaven if we die unrepentant — or otherwise embracing moral evil.

In today’s First Reading, as we move toward the culmination of the liturgical year, Mattathias not only refuses to render idolatrous worship, he also slays one of his fellow Jews who defiantly sought to do so—as well as the pagan king’s messenger who was coercing him and other Jews (Deut. 17:2-5; see 13:5). We can only hope the two repented as they were dying. The righteous Phinehas is invoked (1 Macc. 2:26), as he had acted similarly when idolatry had infected the nation of Israel (see Num. 25:6-15).

Live Righteously

For us in the New Covenant, we are not called to slay our enemies, outside of a genuine just war (see CCC 2302-2317). But we are called to live righteously and resist participating in moral evil (Matt. 6:9-13), including as a witness to our human persecutors (Matt. 5:44), remembering that our only incontrovertible enemies are Satan and his demonic minions (Eph. 6:12).

So let us lean on each other in union with our Lord Jesus Christ, dear brothers and sisters, maintaining a vigilant prayer life rooted in receiving and praying before our Eucharistic Lord Jesus, and strengthened and renewed by encountering his mercy in the Sacrament of Confession.

Vigilance

Today’s Gospel Reading calls us to a similar vigilance. Many Jews in Jesus’ day and ensuing decades did not recognize the Messianic time of their visitation (Luke 19:44), and they witnessed the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem as a result. We too must recognize the time of our visitation, realizing that our particular judgment may occur at any time (CCC 1021-1022). So let us always remember what makes for true peace (Luke 19:42; see John 14:27).

[Readings: 1 Maccabees 2:15-29; Luke 19:41-44]