The Narrow Door

Wednesday, 30 October 2019 30th Week
in Ordinary Time
First Reading:
Rom 8: 26-30
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)
The Lord evaded the question on the exact number of people to be saved. He focused instead on the issue of perseverance. So salvation is no longer an issue but how many are willing to go through it. Describing the portal of heaven as a narrow door, the Lord said, “Do your best to enter by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.” In effect he was saying that more relevant to the question about how many will be saved is the question about how many will persevere until the end. Didn’t Jesus say that in his Father’s house there are so many dwelling places and that he was going ahead to heaven to prepare a place for us? Space is not an issue; God has no problem with quantity. He goes for quality!
What quality of discipleship qualifies one to enter heaven? Today’s Gospel gives us this clue: “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. Only those intimately related to God will enter the kingdom of heaven.
Instead of wasting our time surmising how many will be saved let us strive to establish quality relationship with the Lord and persevere in his love. This bond will suck us into the vortex of salvation so that no matter how narrow we find that vortex to be our bond of love with God will find for us a way. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., J.D., D.M.