Reflection
Wolves Who Sing the Hymns
The most dangerous predator in the Church has never worn its teeth on the outside.
We have wept abundantly over Paul’s farewell at Miletus. We imagine the embrace, the grief, the holy sorrow of a community losing its beloved apostle. But perhaps those tears have blinded us to the fangs already chewing through our own communities.
Paul is not merely saying goodbye. He is warning them. “Savage wolves will come among you,” he says, and some will rise from within, twisting the truth to draw disciples after themselves. Not enemies at the gate. Not obvious villains. Insiders. Leaders. Voices fluent in God-language.
Every holy war fought in comment boxes, every doctrinal scalp collected on social media, every “defense of orthodoxy” that leaves someone spiritually bleeding, these too are wolves in, vestments. And they have learned to cry at the right liturgies.
Jesus, in the Gospel, prays, “Consecrate them in the truth.” But truth was never meant to become a weapon for our insecurity, our ego, our hunger to be right. Jesus sanctified himself so that we might be sanctified in truth, not armed with it.
The terrifying question is not whether the world hates the Gospel. Jesus already told us it would. The more dangerous question is whether we have learned to betray the Gospel while defending it.
Perhaps the truest tears at Miletus were not only for Paul’s departure, but for the coming carnage that would wear a shepherd’s smile.
When I rise to “defend the truth,” am I protecting the flock or feeding an unholy hunger?
