The LORD has Rejected You.
Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time, January 19th, 2026
In my anecdotal experience, I don’t hear many homilies or sermons on the Old Testament readings. Naturally, when I took a look at the readings for today’s Mass, I saw with delight that the first reading was from the book of First Samuel. In my last gospel reflection, I discussed the concept of election within Catholicism—BUT election also entails the notion of reprobation. Of course, we know from St. Paul’s First Letter to Timothy that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth.”1 It’s natural to then ask if this is God’s desire—then how is anyone damned? How does anyone go to Hell?
The tragedy of King Saul, and the lesson to be learned, is that Christianity is not a religion of karma, but of grace, and that God, indeed, loves some of us more than others.
What we learn from the teachings of the Catholic Church, with St. Paul’s letter to Timothy, is that there is certainly a universal offer of grace for every soul, because God desires all men to be saved.
In fact, the Catechism explains, quoting Lumen Gentium 16:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation2
Okay, well, Jesus did say on the cross, “It is finished,” I suppose David Bentley Hart is correct that there’s no eternal damnation.
But that’s not all Jesus said, did He? The one chapter that crawls underneath the skin of universalists is Chapter Seven of Matthew’s gospel. Jesus warns his followers not to be fooled by the presumption of salvation. After all, God desires all men to be saved, right? My one argument against Balthasarian universalists, like Bishop Robert Barron, I might add, is that Hans Urs von Balthasar argued that these passages were simply warnings from Jesus, and that we still could dare to hope that all men are saved. The problem with a warning without teeth is that it is a lie.
Our LORD Jesus utters the scariest verse in all of Sacred Scripture:
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.3
Let’s focus on the latter part of Jesus’ message in the verse—who gets into heaven? Jesus says, “he who does the will of my Father.” Now we’re ready to read the first reading for today’s Mass on the tragedy of King Saul. King Saul, after all, was God’s anointed, both foolish, proud, and without humility. Saul was instructed by God through Samuel to destroy everything in his war against the Amalekites, but Saul, enticed by the booty and spoils of war, decides that, as King, he knows better than God and chooses to disobey God's will.
King Saul, God’s anointed, chooses the treasures of the world, where moth and decay will spoil them, over the treasures of the kingdom: to know, to love, and this is important—to serve the LORD. Saul pours the old wine into new skins, whereas the new must be poured into new skins.
Fr. Thomas Joseph White explains, “Salvation is by the grace of Christ alone. Consequently, eternal loss occurs when we act in such a way as to forsake the grace of God.”4
The letter to the Hebrews reminds us:
How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of Grace?
I think what sums up the lesson of King Saul, grace, and salvation is a common bumper sticker that states: Many who plan to seek God at the 11th hour die at 10:30.”
The Kingdom of God is at hand—and the time to repent and believe in the gospel is now.
And there is hope—because even when Samuel was lamenting the rejection of Saul by God. God goes to Samuel and says more or less, “Why are you mourning Saul? I have chosen one after my own heart.”
David.
1 Timothy 2:4, RSV-2CE
CCC 847
Matthew 7:21, RSV-2CE
Fr. Thomas Joseph White, The Light of Christ, (Washington DC: Catholic University of America, 2017), 266.
It should read "Why are you mourning Saul?" No comma.
An excellent piece. Furthermore, there's Lazarus(?) in flames, asking that others be told - You've already been told, is the reply. In my view, that buttresses your point.
This is why I fear the Lord. He was quite clear about the few and the many.
That Jesus. Never know what He's gonna say.