Abraham’s dialogue with God in yesterday’s Sunday reading still speaks to us four millennia onwards. Indeed, the principle is timeless, that God’s justice – the natural recompense for sin – is not only tempered by His mercy, but by the goodness of some in the midst of great evil of many others. Shine like sparks amongst the stubble, exhorted the first Pope. Would that we would.
At the end of Abraham’s delicate bargaining, the Lord promised to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if there could be found but ‘ten good men’ therein, the ten signifying a minimal number that could still be counted, a few amongst many thousands. We know in today’s reading how that turned out, as the same Abraham watched its downfall from the heights o the land given to him, his dithering nephew Lot barely escaping, ab auxilio Dei.
I have heard others ask what is now staying God’s hand – we are speaking figuratively and anthropomorphically here – from smiting Canada in a similar way, a nation – pardon me, a dominion – which, from certain objective viewpoints, has gone far beyond Sodom in its depravity, covered with the thin smiley veneer of Trudeau’s ‘sunny ways’. But it is a harsh sun our Liberal Prime Minister preaches, baking a barren spiritual desert. Sodom’s sin has been enshrined into law as a basis for matrimony for the past fourteen years, and now we have drag queens indoctrinating young children scarcely at the brink of reason. Any hint of opposition is enough to get one (so far, metaphorically) crushed, even by one’s own spiritual shepherds, and (not so metaphorically) ostracized and labelled.
In reply to the question with what is holding God’s punishment back, the reply is the same as it was for Abraham. For there are indeed a few more than ‘ten good men’ in Canada: Loyal and faithful priests and religious, along with families struggling to raise a strong, wholesome and grounded family in an increasingly hostile environment, some of whose children I have had the honour and privilege of teaching over the past number of years here at Seat of Wisdom College. My hope is revived as I see them grow, spiritually and intellectually, into the persons God intends them to be. There may even be a few of Jean de Brebeuf’s unconquerable and steadfast spirit amongst them – willing to suffer all for the sake of all.
So on that note, take heart, dear readers, for all is not lost, even if the fire and brimstone are always visible on the horizon.