A Ransom for All

“I am the gate of the sheepfold” says Jesus. Catholics and other Christians are challenged by this week’s gospel (John 10:1-10), sometimes smugly imagining that Jesus is exclusively in our corner, excluding people of other faiths or no faith.

Certainly, Jesus is the gate and elsewhere in John, he describes himself as “The Way, the Truth and the Life”. No compromise there. Yet we believe he died for all of us whatever our gender, race, colour, creed or political persuasion. How then to reconcile these two concepts?

Pope Francis teaches that, “Christian life is so simple! Jesus is the door. He leads us along the way and we recognise his voice in the Beatitudes, in the works of mercy and when he teaches us to say “Father.”” But Francis also points to St. Paul’s observation in 1 Timothy that Jesus gave himself as a 'ransom for all.'  That has always been Christian belief. God cannot be confined to our narrow categories. We divide ourselves into groups, forgetting that we are all children of God, identical, regardless of any divisions we establish for ourselves.

We are judged by a just God, who will welcome us based on what we have done with what we knew. Our Christian call is clear but those who do not know God will be judged on the good they have done and the values lived by. 

The most loving thing we can do for all men and women is recognize that they too hunger for the God who created them and then help them to find Him as He is fully and completely revealed in his Son Jesus Christ and the Church. That includes recognizing the good that they do and joining with them in the work. And then there is this “infinite mercy” business - but that’s another story!

Deacon Mark Kelly