Wednesday, October 26, 2016 30th Week in
Ordinary Time
First Reading: Eph 6: 1-9
Gospel Reading:
Lk 13:22-30
Jesus went through towns and villages teaching and making his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, “Lord, is it true that few people will be saved?”
And Jesus answered, “Do your best to enter by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has got up and locked the door, you will stand outside; then you will knock at the door calling: ‘Lord, open to us.’ But he will say to you: ‘I do not know where you come from.’
“Then you will say: We ate and drank with you and you taught in our streets! But he will reply: ‘I don’t know where you come from. Away from me all you workers of evil.’
“You will weep and grind your teeth when you see Abraham and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves left outside.”Others will sit at table in the kingdom of God, people coming from east and west, from north and south. Some who are among the last will be the first, and others who were first will be last!”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Jesus evaded the question about numbers and directed instead his listeners’ attention to the importance of perseverance. He said, “Do your best to enter by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.” To Jesus the more relevant question is how many will persevere. Quality is important to him, not quantity.
He wants all to be saved because that is the will of his Father. “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day” (John 6:39). Actually there is no problem about quantity because there is enough space in heaven for you and me. “There are many rooms in my Father’s house. If there weren’t, I wouldn’t have told you that I am going away to prepare a place for you, would I?” (John 14:12). But much as he wants all to be saved he cannot sacrifice quality.
Relationship makes quality discipleship. “Then you will say: We ate and drank with you and you taught in our streets! But he will reply: ‘I don’t know where you come from. Away from me all you workers of evil.’” Not all eating and drinking buddies stick it out with each other through thick and thin. God wants relationship, not companionship. This relationship is necessarily unitarian. It has to include our fellowmen and excludes no one.
Instead of wasting our time surmising how many will be saved let us strive to establish quality relationship with God and fellowmen and persevere in God’s love. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM, MMExM, MAPM, REB. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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