I have to confess that I have been a little bit surprised, since entering the seminary and especially since ordination, how many questions I’m asked that focus on salvation and who can be saved. I expected the questions I get about priests not being able to marry, or about the pressing moral issues of our day – but I’ve been kind of edified by how many people hone in on the essential element of our faith and ask about salvation.
Youngsters in grade schools want to know if their beloved pets will be in heaven; or more seriously, if their friends who aren’t Catholic can go to heaven. Parents and grandparents want the assurance that their children and grandchildren who have left the Church, or don’t practice the faith, can still be admitted to heaven. People at funerals are desperate for the consolation that their loved one, even if they lived a less than perfect life, might still be in heaven.
I think the stranger in today’s Gospel therefore speaks for all of us when he asks: “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” Perhaps he has heard it said that only a few will be saved. Perhaps he too is worried about a loved one, or is concerned that he might not make it into heaven himself.
It’s really an all-important question the stranger asks Jesus. And yet he had to be disappointed with what Jesus said in reply: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.”
If he wanted a percentage or a number, or any kind of direct answer, the stranger doesn’t get it. Instead of focusing our attention on who or how many people will be saved, Jesus wants us to focus on the tremendous effort that is required for salvation.
To illustrate just how difficult it is to be saved, Jesus uses the allegory of a narrow gate. It’s crucial to note that Jesus’ allegory does not suggest that the gate of salvation is open to only a few. No, in our first reading Isaiah recounts the Lord as saying: “I come to gather nations of every language.”
And indeed Jesus Himself references this prophecy when He says that, “people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.” The invitation to salvation is indeed very broad; it is offered to all people.
However, Jesus’ allegory makes it clear that not everyone will accept this invitation. Some do not make the necessary effort to get into the banquet hall. They don’t respond to the invitation in a timely fashion and come too late to be admitted, after the master has already closed and locked the door.
Others presume that they will be admitted based on a casual association with the master – they ate and drank together; they were from the same village or clan; “you taught in our streets” they say – but such casual acquaintances are not enough.
What is required is making a genuine commitment to Him. Therefore even those of us who have responded, have accepted the faith, must always be weary of complacency. We can never become self-righteous, or self-assured of our salvation. We must strive, every day, to enter through the narrow gate – not choosing the easy way, the path of least resistance – but allowing the Gospel to challenge us to constant, daily conversion.
In that spirit, our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews exhorts us: “do not disdain the discipline of the Lord . . . at the time all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain; yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.”
So then, accepting salvation is, in this sense, like many great but difficult pursuits in life. You want to be a good soccer player, a concert pianist, a gourmet cook? You want to be an excellent student or to be in great physical shape?
Merely desiring these things isn’t enough . . . and there’s no point in wondering how many people achieve such goals – it doesn’t much matter how many people end up being star athletes, or concert pianists, or Julia Childs.
If we said everyone who wanted to be a star athlete or a Rhoades Scholar became one, first we’d be lying, and second we’d imagine that we don’t have to work very hard to accomplish it, and then we’d never get there. And if we said that very few people attained such a goal we might become discouraged and never try, which is always a sure way of failure.
Rather, the principle thing that matters in attaining such goals is that you start out and persevere with the discipline that is required. You have to practice or study every day; you have to prioritize your training and spend time on it; you have to forgo other things; and perhaps most of all, after a set-back or a failure, you have to remain resolute and determined – you have to recommit and keep working hard toward your goal.
The same is true of the spiritual life and our pursuit of salvation – that’s why Jesus focuses His answer on our good efforts and perseverance and not on numbers or percentages. The spiritual life is difficult and our acceptance of Christ’s offer of salvation requires tremendous effort.
We do ourselves a disservice if we become obsessed with worrying about who will and won’t “make the cut.” We also do ourselves a disservice if we convince ourselves that because God is love then everyone must be saved, no matter what.
In either case, we run the risk of not ever bothering to work toward real spiritual development. Yes, God’s desire for us to be saved is infinite; His love for us is infinite – but Jesus makes it clear: we must “strive to enter through the narrow gate.”
In St. John’s Gospel Jesus says that He is Himself the gate through whom we must pass. The gate is in the shape of Jesus. So in order to enter into salvation we need to be shaped and conformed to Him.
How do we do this? Note that today’s Gospel occurs “as He was making His way to Jerusalem.” Jesus was headed towards the cross. In order to take the shape of Jesus, to conform ourselves to Him, we must make our lives take the shape of the cross as well.
The narrow gate will require us to suffer – to train and hone our skill – to strip away everything that isn’t essential – to drop all sorts of baggage in order to pass through. It requires that we daily pick up our cross, and lay down our lives in loving service of our brothers and sisters.
So, like any athlete, or musician, or scholar looking to achieve in their field, we must, each and every day, commit ourselves to “working out our salvation.” Our regimen includes things like making time for daily prayer with Scripture or the Rosary; regularly making an examination of conscience and going to Reconciliation; it necessarily includes disciplines like fasting and providing care for the poor and neglected.
And of course, most of all, it requires the Eucharist. Like an athlete at a training table we come to the altar to be nourished by consuming the very One to whom we wish to be conformed. We receive the strength we need to enter through the narrow gate.
We pray that this Eucharist, which is a foretaste of the “table in the kingdom of God,” will indeed give us the wisdom, the courage and the strength that is required to seek and follow the narrow way, day by day.
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