Wednesday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, October 30, 2024

Luke 13, 22-30

Luke 13, 22-30

Jesus passed through towns and villages, teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answered them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. 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.’ And you will say, ‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’ Then he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!’ And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out. And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the Kingdom of God. For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

“Someone asked him, ‘Lord, will only a few people be saved?’ ”  This question has caused many tremble throughout the ages because it comes out of fear that we and our families may not be saved.  If only a few people will be saved, then what chance do I have?  This is what the questioner is really asking: “What are my chances of being saved?”  The Lord answers, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.”  That is, Yes, you can be saved, it only if you enter through the narrow gate.  We ask: Why is the gate “narrow”?  The Lord answers that he calls the gate narrow because “Many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.”  It is not narrow in the sense of itself it keeps people out, but because, for lack of strength, few people enter it.  The problem is not with the gate but with the people, in other words.  But what is this “strength” that so many people are missing?  The Greek word translated here as “strength” also means “force”, “power”, and “ability”.  We should think of all these meanings together, as in a muscular individual, with stamina, who has trained for various activities.  The spiritual equivalent is a person who has great faith accompanied with many good works, who has persevered through the trials of the earthly life.  For such a person, entrance through the gate is a simple matter.

“After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking.”  This parable reminds us of the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (Matthew 25, 1-12).  The Lord is describing the aftermath of the great Judgment at the end of the world when the wicked are being carried off to hell.  They cry out to the Lord who has condemned them: “We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.”  They do not say, You preached in our streets and we converted our lives.  All the wicked claim is that they were in his proximity.  This pertains to the Pharisees of the day, some of whom hosted the Lord Jesus in their homes.  This pertains today to those who reject Christ and his Church, for Christ seeks to save them through his Church and its members.  To this plea the Lord will reply: “I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!”  He will confirm the original condemnation: “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25, 41).

“And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out.”  In the days before the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, the Prophet Jeremiah warned the people that they should not trust that God would save the city because his Temple was in it: “Trust not in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord” (Jeremiah 7, 4).  In the end, Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed because the people did not repent from their sins.  It must have been a time of absolute horror as the Israelites understood what was happening to them, and why.  Here, far worse, the grief, the rage, the terror of the damned who look upon Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and saw that they were not with them.  They had taken comfort in the fact that they belonged to the children of Abraham, the Chosen People.  But in fact they had rejected Abraham through their sins and faithlessness.  This also warns us against complacency that just because we are baptized and go to church now and then that we will be saved.  “And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the Kingdom of God.”  These are the despised Gentiles who accepted baptism and faith.  The lukewarm Christian who rejects certain doctrines because they are inconvenient or distasteful looks down upon those who carefully practice the Faith, believing all that God has revealed to us.

“For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”  The “first” who will be “last” are those who considered themselves too good for religion and the laws of God, through pride.  There are others who are truly “first” but did not dare to imagine that they were.  Foremost of these is the Blessed Virgin Mary, who considered herself nothing more than the handmaid of the Lord.  She thought of herself as “last” or “the least”, but she is first in the Kingdom of God.

It is clear what we need to do in order to enter through the narrow way: to grow in faith and to increase in good works, and to persevere in Christ.  So let us set about this work so that one day we shall recline at table in the heavenly kingdom.