Wednesday of 30th Week, Year II: reflection
Theme: Make effort to enter through the narrow door (Lk 13:24)
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Reading: Lk 13:22-30
The question that someone asked
Jesus in today’s gospel about whether those who will inherit heaven will be
many or few has never stopped being a subject of concern to many people in our
time. Due to the difficulty of following all of God's commandments and other
religious laws, many people have continued to ponder what God's
criteria for judgement on the last day will be. Will He tamper justice with
mercy, or will He let His justice triumph over mercy?
It is clear from Jesus' response
that casual acquaintance with Him will not be one of the criteria for entry
into heaven on the last day. To those who will tell Him, "Lord, we ate and
drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets," He will respond,
"I don't know you." To be saved, one must make an effort to enter
through the narrow gate rather than the broad one.
The narrow gate indicates to live
and die in a close relationship with God, living as Jesus wants, following all
the hard choices to deny oneself of the pleasure of sin, and doing one’s duty
towards God and humans, even if such duties cause immense discomfort. This gate
is hardly taken by many people. The broad gate, on the other hand, is the easy
road of compromising one’s faith and giving up on the demands of the Christian life
due to the difficulties involved in living according to such demands and the
pleasures the world of sin promises to offer. Many people love taking this gate.
One of the well-known teachings that
many people who have happily chosen the broad path are spreading in our world nowadays
is that one has to love Jesus the way He or She is without making effort to
allow the teachings of Jesus about sanctity of life to influence him or her;
that one has to love Jesus the way he or she is, even when his or her lifestyle
is in stark contrast to the gospel of Jesus about sexuality. To such people, there
should be no mention of sin, sanctity of life, God’s judgement, or the need to
repent and get right with God. Let us run away from those who invite us to take
the broad gate.
May your Wednesday be blessed,
Amen
Fr Isaac Chima.
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