Scripture – Are You Safe?

There is plenty of chatter these days about refuges — physical havens where God will allegedly protect His People. I have written previously how both Scripture and Sacred Tradition firmly support the idea that, in the last times, there will be what Church Father Lactantius and St. Francis de Sales called “solitudes” to safeguard the faithful (see The Refuge for Our Times).

At the same time, there is something antithetical to the Gospels about the Christian who becomes obsessed with preserving his life. As Jesus warned:

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. (Luke 9:24)

Our Lord’s words are a reminder that the Christian is called foremost to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Not only did He call himself the “light of the world” (John 8:12) but He applies the same title to His disciples (Matt 5:14). Hence, we too will be rejected as was He:

And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. (John 3:19)

Thus, Jesus says:

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. (Matt 16:24)

What is paramount is faithfulness to the Word of God and the mission of the Church, which is to make disciples of all the nations. And that may cost us our lives, as it did all of the Apostles (except St. John who died what seems a natural death on the island of Patmos).

In fact, in last Saturday’s First Mass reading, the prophet Jeremiah challenges his listeners against the presumption that God will keep them “safe” if they are not faithful to Him:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:
Reform your ways and your deeds,
so that I may remain with you in this place.
Put not your trust in the deceitful words:
“This is the temple of the LORD!
The temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD!”
Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds;
if each of you deals justly with his neighbor;
if you no longer oppress the resident alien,
the orphan, and the widow;
if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place,
or follow strange gods to your own harm,
will I remain with you in this place,
in the land I gave your fathers long ago and forever.

But here you are, putting your trust in deceitful words to your own loss!
Are you to steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury,
burn incense to Baal,
go after strange gods that you know not,
and yet come to stand before me
in this house which bears my name, and say:
“We are safe; we can commit all these abominations again”?
Has this house which bears my name
become in your eyes a den of thieves?
I too see what is being done, says the LORD. (cf. Jeremiah 7:1-11)

And this begs the question: what is “safe”? The answer is foremost that God will preserve His child’s soul from dangerous deception and eternal damnation. It all depends, as usual, upon our free will and cooperation with grace. Hence, the greatest refuge is not a physical one. Rather, it is being safeguarded in the heart of Christ so that, should we live or should we die, we will be found in Him and remain with Him for eternity.

Common sense and logic tells us that God has to preserve His people at times, even physically, as we see repeatedly in both the Old and New Testaments.^[1]see The Refuge for Our Times

There is a great uneasiness, at this time, in the world and in the Church, and that which is in question is the faith… I sometimes read the Gospel passage of the end times and I attest that, at this time, some signs of this end are emerging… What strikes me, when I think of the Catholic world, is that within Catholicism, there seems sometimes to pre-dominate a non-Catholic way of thinking, and it can happen that tomorrow this non-Catholic thought within Catholicism, will tomorrow become the stronger. But it will never represent the thought of the Church. It is necessary that a small flock subsist, no matter how small it might be. —POPE PAUL VI, The Secret Paul VI, Jean Guitton, p. 152-153, Reference (7), p. ix.

But who God preserves, who He calls home, who receives the glory of martyrdom, and who carries on the torch of truth into the future… is His business. For our part, we are to remain faithful — and in that faithfulness, God will indeed keep us safe from the evil one.

Because you have kept my message of endurance, I will keep you safe in the time of trial that is going to come to the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth. I am coming quickly. Hold fast to what you have, so that no one may take your crown. (Revelation 3:10-11)

—Mark Mallett is a Catholic singer-songwriter and author of The Now Word