There is a peculiar parable, no doubt known to some of our readers, which sheds some light on the present moment for Catholics who truly want to embrace the right path.
There was once a young man sitting on a fence. On the right side were God and His children; on the left, Satan and his cohorts. The youth, brought up in a Catholic home, hesitated between joining the Lord’s side or that of the devil and his attractions – that is, the world and the flesh.
After a time, still undecided, he noticed an essential difference between the two groups. While the friends of the Most High shouted insistently “Come down on this side!” the devil’s henchmen remained silent. Then the young man asked Satan, “Why do God’s followers call me, while your gang says nothing?” To his surprise, the cursed angel replied, “Because the fence is mine!” In fact, there is no middle ground: the fence already has an owner…
This story illustrates the eternal irreconcilability between light and darkness (cf. 2 Cor 6:14), between the children of God and the servants of Satan, in short, between the race of the Virgin and the race of the Serpent (cf. Gn 3:15).
This incompatibility was highlighted by Jesus by means of metaphors taken from the animal kingdom. The children of light are like sheep that follow the voice of the Good Shepherd (cf. Jn 10:27). The Good Shepherd sends them among the wolves (cf. Mt 10:16), that is, to the other side of the “fence”; but with the recommendation to never conform to it: “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil” (Mt 5:37).
Already in the early days of Christianity, the disciples of Jesus were recognized for their good deeds, as opposed to the depraved customs of the Gentiles who surrounded them. Thus the Letter to Diognetus testifies in their regard: “They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of Heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. […] To sum up all in one word, what the soul is in the body, Christians are in the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body; and Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world.”
Let us return to the opening example. As in the Ignatian metaphor of the Spiritual Exercises, on one side are the followers of the standard of Christ; on the other, those of Lucifer. The young man sitting on the fence thinks he is immune to the onslaughts of both. However, it is at the porous borders that the bloodiest wars take place. Therefore, those who go through life never taking a side will be destined to follow a blank standard for all eternity: that of those who, denying the high ideals of the Faith, embrace the consensus of the world. The love of the Father will not be in them (cf. 1 Jn 2:15). ◊
