Friday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 489

For many, as I have often told you 
and now tell you even in tears, 
conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.
Their end is destruction.
Their God is their stomach; 
their glory is in their “shame.”
Their minds are occupied with earthly things.
But our citizenship is in heaven....

The Prophet Isaiah introduced  remnant to our religious imagination. A remnant is a useful piece of material, which has been torn from another larger cloth. Though most of it was useless, the remnant can be used for something. A quilt may comprise dozens of remnants from old clothes, table cloths, and blankets. It might even be prized for the memory each piece brings to the whole.

As Isaiah urged his people to trust in God instead of foreign nations, even as they were exchanging goods and ideas, signing contracts and covenants with alien kings and emperors, he saw the coming doom of his unfaithful people. A jealous God would not permit his people to recognize or honor foreign gods, much less worship them. But there were pagan shrines even in the Holy City! 

Isaiah saw that a remnant might be torn from  the nation, and that the Word which endures forever might belong only to that much smaller group. The majority might complain that God has abandoned them; but the Lord keeps his word to those who keep faith with Him. 

The Church today, faced with a "post-Christian" Europe and America, and finding new vitality in Africa, might find its remnant amid poorer, less "advanced" nations. Their way of life might seem only quaint to the sophisticated north, but their faith is true and their integrity, admirable. 

This is not a new story. Saint Paul saw among his recently baptized Christians disturbing losses of faith. Those who "conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ." were not Jews or gentiles; they were the lapsing souls who considered themselves faithful despite their investments of time, talent, and energy in lesser gods, 

Their end is destruction.

Their God is their stomach; 

their glory is in their “shame.”

Their minds are occupied with earthly things.

They would disappear like Judas in the night when the persecutions began. Some would betray believers to the civil authorities. As the Apostles warned Saint Timothy's church, 

This saying is trustworthy:

If we have died with him

we shall also live with him;

if we persevere

we shall also reign with him.

But if we deny him

he will deny us.

If we are unfaithful

he remains faithful,

for he cannot deny himself. (2 Tim 2:11-13)