by Fr. Tommy Lane
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?” someone asked Jesus (Luke 13:23). He probably asked because just before this Jesus had given warnings, challenges to convert. How does Jesus respond to the question about how many will be saved? With three more challenges!
The first warning or challenge to conversion is to strive to enter through the narrow gate. What is this narrow gate and how do we enter through it? In John 10, Jesus tells us twice that he is the gate (John 10:7, 9). Also, in John 14:6 we hear Jesus say, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” We get to heaven by following Jesus, putting him first in our lives, praying to him every day. Three weeks ago, our first reading described life as “vanity of vanities.” (Eccl/Qoh 1:2) That was a description of life without Jesus. Everything except Jesus is vanity of vanities because everything passes. Only Jesus is the narrow gate to the next life. The way to salvation, the way to heaven is Jesus. He is the gate, he is the way, no one comes to the Father except through him.
We get to heaven by doing as Jesus asks, showing love and mercy to others. Everything we do or say opens or closes that gate to heaven. When we are kind to others, when we show love and mercy to others, we conquer evil. Jesus exorcised demons, and exorcists are busy these days exorcising demons, and every time we show love and mercy to others, we too conquer evil, and the highest form of love is forgiving. Jesus is the gate to heaven and our love and forgiveness of others, as Jesus asked, opens that gate.
We can only use human language to describe heaven so sometimes Jesus described heaven as a banquet or wedding, and Jesus’ second warning or challenge to convert is to get in through the door to the banquet in heaven before the door is locked:
After the master of
the house has arisen and locked the door,
then will you stand
outside knocking and saying,
‘Lord, open the door for us.’
He
will say to you in reply,
‘I do not know where you are from.’
(Luke 13:25)
Jesus wants us to allow him be part of our lives. He desires that we live our lives with him now and not wait until the last minute to come knocking on his door. The important time is now. We see this, for example, in his apparitions to St. Margaret Mary. In December 1673 Jesus said to St. Margaret Mary
My Divine Heart is so on fire with love for all mankind, and for you in particular, that, being no longer able to contain within itself the flames of this burning love, they must be spread abroad.
That is why, in our statues and images of the Sacred Heart, Jesus’ heart is surrounded by flames. They are the flames of his love for us. In his second apparition to St. Margaret Mary the next year, 1674, Jesus spoke about the ingratitude he receives in return for his love of us:
I feel this [ingratitude] more than all that I suffered during my Passion. If only they would make me some return for my love, I should think but little of all I have done for them and would wish, were it possible, to suffer still more. But the sole return they make for all my eagerness to do them good is to reject me and treat me with coldness. You at least console me by supplying for their ingratitude, as far as you are able.
Jesus desires that we live our lives with him now and not wait until the last minute to come knocking on his door. The important time is now.
Jesus’ third warning is that some last will be first and some first will be last. This is because everybody is equally loved by God. We all have different roles and responsibilities, but we are each equally loved by God.
We are to strive to enter through the narrow gate. Jesus is that gate. He is the way. No one can come to the Father except through him. Jesus desires that we live our lives with him now and not wait until the last minute to come knocking on his door. The important time is now. We open the gate to the banquet of heaven when we show love and mercy.
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2022
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for the Twenty-First Sunday of Year C
Related Homilies: Choose Jesus the Narrow Door 2013
Today’s Gospel in the context of Luke (gathering of nations) 2007
stories: on the Last Becoming First