"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations"

In his 1922 book, Robert Park talks about what is now known as gatekeeping in the media. On page 328, he explains “that out of all of the events that happen and are recorded every day by correspondents, reporters, and the news agencies, the editor chooses certain items for publication which he regards as more important or more interesting than others. The remainder he condemns to oblivion and the wastebasket. There is an enormous amount of news 'killed' every day.” Essentially he describes how the editor is the gatekeeper: news has to get past him to make the paper or the primetime show and that is that. The editor “gates” what information gets in and gets out. The term was once again discussed in 1950 in by a professor named David Manning White. He chose an editor of a newspaper and had him write down notes as to why every story was either accepted or rejected. He found that the decisions were made subjectively on the will of the editor, often on his own attitudes and intuitions. There was very little formulaic work that went into it, rather it was a call based on his own judgment. Essentially, the editor did what he wanted, and this practice hasn’t stopped. Every news network today chooses stories to leave out and chooses specific stories to advance whatever narrative they want to be known, no matter the political party. Editors ignore important things for their own wants. They ignore things because rather than thinking about the betterment of everyone, they know with the limited room they have they need to get their agenda across.

So often gatekeeping is brought into religion. People use their faith, their faith given to them by Jesus Christ, to block out others, to make it an exclusionary practice, rather than invite people into the faith, the church that Jesus Christ gave us. When he instituted the Church to the apostles he didn’t say go to some, or only go to those who act super Holy, or those who you want to be part of the Church. It wasn’t meant to be a subjective decision based on the apostles. He says “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit.” Literally go out to everyone and tell them of Me. Baptize them, bring them into the Church. Bring the pastoral nature of the Church to everyone, because it isn’t meant for a selective group of people, it is meant for the disciples of all nations. And at the time this was somewhat of an interesting idea. Religion had been gatekept by religious leaders and the saving nature of God was often only preached to a select few. But Jesus didn’t preach like that – Jesus established the Catholic Church to bring everyone to Him.

In the gospel today we get a typical Advent parable, now that we are in the first Sunday of Advent. The parable starts with explaining that a man is leaving for a journey and that the gatekeepers must keep watch. The message is simple: Keep watch for you do not know the hour when the Lord is coming. Very similar to the Advent messaging we get: stay awake for you do not know the hour the Lord is coming. It seems like that Jesus is clearly the man on the journey, He left the disciples in the way He was them to go to the Father, and therefore in his absence until He returns again, he tells us to be on the lookout. But to be on the lookout doesn’t mean to fend for yourselves. He is giving us the charge of making ourselves ready for his coming but also bringing his message to the world, bringing his love to the world. That is the mission, that is the task he charged us with. Not to speak a message that is only for some, but rather a message to all of Jesus Christ’s love. An important distinction is to be made here, however. There is a difference between bringing a message to allow and losing your beliefs. For example, preach the love of Christ and mercy of God to everyone, but never support or accept sinful ways, rather show them the Light of the world and the truth he espouses.

One of my favorite comedians, Sebastian Maniscalco, has a skit where he talks about him and his wife going out to dinner and how he is always ready before her and has to wait for her to get ready. He explains how his wife has no urgency when they are going out to dinner on Tuesday nights. It is a really funny skit, and although clearly it is just a comedic jab at how long it takes for some of us to get going, it rings truth about the current state of society: we are lazy. We have no urgency. We are indifferent about the most important question in the universe: Does God Exist? If we truly believed in evidence and logic, everyone in society would have the utmost urgency to be with God, yet mass and adoration attendance are low. So maybe this is what Advent is all about, a Eucharistic revival of some sorts. Essentially, we are called during this season to take up that urgency. We are called to end this indifference and realize the vast importance of our God and our faith. We are called to act with urgency in preparing ourselves for Christ and preparing others. We are called to show the world our LACK of indifference and overwhelming amount of love, because that is what Christ commanded us to do.

We need to stop gatekeeping and rather bring the message of Christ and the one, true, Catholic Church to the world, with urgency, and end the era of indifferent, nominalist Catholics.

Advent is a season where we are called to be prepared. To stay awake and be ready. We have a mission, and it couldn’t be any clearer: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.”