The Gospel for the memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, bishop and doctor of the church, is taken from Matthew 13:47. 53. Jesus said to the disciples, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea which collects fish of every kind. When it is full, they haul it ashore and sit down and put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age, the angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

Do you understand all these things? They answered, yes, he replied, then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old. When Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there. The promised kingdom of heaven will happen. It is not if it will happen or when it will happen. We just need to know that it will happen.

And there’ll be a time in the history of human race when God will enter into it and he will destroy all evil. That’s the promise. Without believing in that, we can fall into a trap of thinking somehow, maybe if we’re not doing what we should, the whole thing is going to implode and God will have lost. There is no way that God will lose. Take a few moments to ponder the thoughts that come to you from this reading and reflection and then I will close with a prayer. Sa Satan Foreign closing prayer God, you teach us over and over to believe, to have faith, to trust.

And what you’re telling us is that you are in charge and you will make sure that the kingdom will come and that evil will be destroyed. Help us to be in fused with that conviction so that the shame and the fear of our sins will never overwhelm your power to save. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.