“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”
The question suggests a concern about how difficult it is to be saved. Is it so difficult that only a few people will achieve it, or is it easy enough even for me? How hard do I have to work for this?
Jesus has the opportunity to say what we want to hear: “No worries. Just be nice and share, smile and say a prayer. I’m doing all the hard work for you. You just have to accept me as your Lord and Savior and you’ll be fine.”
But that’s not how He answers.
He tells us that we must enter through a “narrow gate,” that many are not strong enough, that even saying that we know Him will not ensure that He will let us in at that critical moment. Some will be called “evildoers” and told to depart! Jesus does not sugar-coat that terrible moment when “there will be wailing and grinding of teeth” by those who have been “cast out.”
Jesus does not ever proclaim a comfortable, easy, self-satisfying journey along a smooth road. He tells us (and shows us by his own life and death) that it will be difficult, that we will have to stand against “the world,” that we must take up our cross, strive with all our strength to travel the narrow path, and follow Him along the trail he has blazed for us. Those whose love is only superficial and external will not be allowed to enter, not because God has slammed the door, but because they chose not to go through it by refusing His friendship and love.
Jesus also reminds us that those who seem great – or even holy – to our human judgment may not truly be so. And some who are humble and forgotten are the very ones who will be reclining at table in the Kingdom of God. In God’s perfect judgment, all injustice will be corrected: “some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” So we must learn to appreciate the expression of God’s justice in Mary’s Magnificat: “He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation… He has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.”
Lord, help me be content to be among the last in this world – the few, the small – so that I can be among the first in Your Kingdom of Love!
Daily Reading
Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading 1 Malachi 3:19-20a Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will…
Saint of the Day
St. Joseph Moscati
St. Joseph Moscati
Feast date: Nov 16
On November 16, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Joseph Moscati, the first modern medical doctor to be canonized. Born on July 25, 1880 in Benevento, Italy, he lived out the Gospel through his position as a teacher and physician. There are a number of stories of Dr. Moscati paying close attention to the state of his patient’s soul as well as the body, sometimes even bringing the patient back to the sacraments. The Catholic understanding of body and soul clearly informed his understanding of illness and medicine. He saw Confession and Communion as the “first medicine.”He is quoted as once having said, “Remember that you have to deal not only with the bodies but also with the moaning souls coming to you.”Dr. Moscati’s holiness and devotion wasn’t just limited to his practice. To help the poor, he often donated his medical services or paid for his patients’ prescriptions. St. Joseph Moscati also felt it was important to support priests and those in religious life with his prayers because, as he said: “They are easily forgotten by the living, since Christians often think that they do not need prayers.”He carried a Rosary in his pocket as a reminder throughout his day and as a way to draw him to Our Lady — and through her, to Jesus — when he needed to make important decisions.St. Joseph Moscati died on April 12, 1927 of natural causes in his office between patient appointments. He was beatified on November 16, 1975 by Pope Paul VI and canonized on October 25, 1987 by Pope John Paul II. His body rests in Naples, Italy, in the Church of Gesu Nuovo.