A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Our lord said to his disciples, when the son of man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels of heaven, he will sit upon his royal throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And then he will separate them into two groups as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. The sheep, he will place on his right hand, the goats on his left. The king then will say to those on his right, come.
You have my father's blessing. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me naked, and you clothed me.
I was ill, and you comforted me in prison, and you came to visit me. Then the just will ask him, lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or see you thirsty and give you drink? When did we welcome you away from home or clothe you in your nakedness? When did we visit you when you were ill or in prison? The king will answer them, I assure you, as often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it for me.
Then he will say to those on his left, to those goats, out of my sight, you condemned into that everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. And why? Because I was hungry and you gave me no food. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was away from home, and you gave me no welcome, naked, and you gave me no clothing.
I was ill and in prison, but you did not come to comfort me. And then they, the goats, will in turn ask, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or away from home or naked or ill or in prison and not attend to your needs? And then the king will answer them, I assure you, as often as you neglected to do it to one of these least ones of my brethren, you neglected to do it to me. These will go off to eternal punishment and the just to eternal life. And this is the gospel of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. There's a great tendency today to overlook statements such as this of as this statement of our lord today in Saint Matthew. Now notice, it's our lord speaking. He's the one who's talking about sheep and goats.
He's the one who's saying, look, if you don't do these corporal works of mercy, you are in the class of the goats. And if you're in the class of the goats, you're lost. You'll say, that's a horrible doctrine. Where is love? You see, people talk so much about love they forget that they are they're about a few other virtues.
And when they talk about love, just ask them what they mean by it. The Oxford Undergraduate Dictionary has 13 columns of meanings for the English word love in the history of the English language. We forget that Christ is God and God is a just God, whether we like it or not. He has a law, and that law has been expressed in different ways. It isn't all a matter of direct revelation by a long shot, but we don't like this.
Law puts us in a straitjacket, and we don't enjoy being in a straitjacket, do we? We don't like to talk about sin and damnation and the possibility of losing heaven and being condemned for eternity to a thing or a situation we call hell. I don't know precisely what it is, but you cannot possibly read the New Testament, our lord's own words, without getting the message. Life that we have, be it long or short, is a journey. Indeed, it's a journey.
And some people will try to tell you that the main part of a journey is the journey. That's ridiculous. The main part of any action is the final cause so that the destination of the journey is the main thing. And the point is we have a destination. There's no question of that.
We're either going to be saved through Jesus Christ for eternity with God or we're going to be lost, And both are possible. Both are possible. Not simultaneously. Oh, no. Not simultaneously.
But whose choice is this? Who who made the who constituted the poor little goats and the elevated virtuous sheep? Why they have this attitude towards goats, I don't know. But the point is that who makes that decision? The king, according to our lord today, says that he put the sheep on the one side and the goats on the other.
Fine. But who constituted them sheep and goats? That's our decision. We make that choice. How often?
Daily. Daily. Daily. In the smallest things, in the largest things. And with the help of our lord Jesus Christ and his grace, which we can depend on, absolutely, we can make the right choices.
In the name of the father, the son, holy spirit. Amen.