Fr. Albert
St. Peter Catholic Church, New Iberia
Have you ever binge-watched a TV show? Or perhaps stayed up late into the night reading a book that has really captured your imagination? What’s the motivation behind that? I bet that most people would say something like “I want to know how it will end.” It’s really a natural human desire – wanting to know the whole story – but it can also be quite the temptation. If we’re good, we can use this desire to help stay focused on helping someone till we see a good resolution in their life. If we’re careless, it can make us impatient or even rude. Some people are even so eager to know “how it will end” that they can’t handle waiting to finish a conversation or they can’t deal with the stress of the long and slow process of helping someone who really needs it. It’s the kind of excess that leads people to jump to the last page of the book, or to just watch a season finale right off the bat.
What someone asks Jesus today is the same kind of thing. That question, “will only a few be saved,” wants to know the end of the human story, the end of the story of our world. But just like jumping to the end of a book or a show can ruin the whole experience of following the story, so jumping to the end of salvation history can really mess up the process of actually being saved. Answering this question is fraught with difficulties. Almost any answer to this question is a trap that can catch us in a variety of different ways. But Jesus Christ, he is no fool, which is why his answer is so strange. Not yes or no, but a lengthy exhortation that is only kind of related to the actual question.
Like he often does, Jesus is not answering the words in this question, but the real desires behind it. The most basic desire, of course, is to be saved – to know myending. The Jews expect a savior and Jesus sometimes speaks of lasting peace; everyone wants this. The real question being asked is this: will Ibe saved? By attempting to ask it in an “objective” way, the person asking him has set up Jesus to lead people into a number of serious problems.
Unlike a book or a TV show, the ending of our lives and the lives of others isn’t already a done deal. Unlike the characters in those stories, whose decisions are really made by the writer, we have real freedom to make our own decisions. Knowing the end of a book might make the story less entertaining, but pretending to know the end of our lives is dangerous because it can actuallychange the ending by changing the way we make our decisions.
If Jesus simply says “Yes, only a few will be saved,” there is a serious risk of both pride and despair. Those who think they are in the few, like the Jews at that time, will pride themselves for it and maybe even stop trying. Those who feel they are not in the few will despair of salvation and stop trying. Both cases lower their chances.
If Christ says “No, most will be saved,” then there are other problems. People will assume they are in the many and stop trying to seek their own salvation. On top of that, people might think they don’t need to evangelize because most people will make it anyway – again, this lower the chances for all. Jesus absolutely refused to give a concrete answer about the number of people in heaven or hell, so neither should we. Because of this, I warn you, do not listen to priests, teachers, or anyone who claims to have an exact answer to the question “How many people are in hell?” Right now there are Catholics who claim that we should believe and hope that most or even all people make it to heaven. This is ludicrous because we can’t know that.
If anything, we should learn from Christ’s own answer. He doesn’t give a direct answer, but what he does say leans more towards difficulty than ease – more towards risk than safety. “Many… will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” The message is this: work hard because it is in fact hard to be saved. He does say “many” and not “most,” which means we don’t need to despair, but he emphasizes one thing above all – your own effort. It will be hard.
You see, Christ knows that we human beings like to find ways to make it easy for ourselves. “We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.” Salvation by association is a lot easier than actual conversion. “Yeah, I’ve been around Jesus, so I’m probably safe, right?” Wrong. “Depart from me all you evildoers.” We show that we know Christ and that Christ knows us by how we livethe faith he gives us. There’s a clever saying out there: being in a Church doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than being in a garage makes you a car. A car is a car if it looks like one and acts like one. Just so, a Christian is known by how they lead their life. Now, a car can be a car without ever being in a garage, but Catholics do need to go to Mass. But, we just can’t leave our faith there. We have to take it with us into our homes, jobs, and even into our free time and choice of entertainment.
Maybe some of you can hear your protestant friends and family thinking all this sounds a lot like we save ourselves by our own efforts. I’m telling you to work hard because being saved is hard, so how is it not an “earn your salvation” kind of thing? Where is the grace and gift of Jesus Christ in all of that? First of all, it’s is Jesus, not me, who says we should “strive to enter the narrow gate.” Secondly, the fact that we know about salvation, or that we even have the strength to work at all is itself God’s grace. Thirdly, the kind of work I’m talking about may not be what you think it is. I’m talking about the work of Mercy.
Yes, we should strive to do good and avoid evil. We should live holy lives of integrity. But most importantly, we should work to repent from our sins. The reason that entering the narrow gate is hard is not because there is a long list of things to do in order to get in. The reason it is difficult is because only those who are actually sorry for their sins can enter the narrow gate. It takes strength to enter the narrow gate because it takes a lot of strength to actually accept Mercy.
Mercy is not an easy “I’m okay, you’re okay” kind of thing. In order to receive mercy, you have to firstadmit you were wrong, be judged for that wrong, and then plead with the judge for mercy. Mercy is when you are relieved of the punishment you actually deserve, it is not saying that you never did anything wrong in the first place.
That is why “admonishing the sinner” and “instructing the ignorant” are called works of mercy. Hebrews tells us that “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.” Discipline or punishment leads to repentance, repentance opens us to mercy, and mercy strengthens us to be righteous so that we can enter the narrow gate. So, strive to enter the narrow gate. Do not worry about how many or how few will be saved – do not try to jump to the last page of our story. That page is not written yet. We only know one thing, that salvation is not easy because humility and repentance are not easy. Accept the Lord’s discipline, seek his mercy in confession, be eager to share with others the gift of God’s mercy, because we do not want you, or anyone, to be cast out.