By Colleen O’Sullivan
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.” (Luke 13:22-24)
Piety
Jesus, may all that is you flow into me.
May your body and blood be my food and drink. May your passion and death be my strength and
life. Jesus, with you by my side, enough
has been given. May the shelter I seek
be the shadow of your cross. Let me not
run from the love which you offer, But hold me safe from the forces of
evil. On each of my dyings shed your
light and your love. Keep calling to me
until that day comes, when, with your saints, I may praise you forever. Amen.
(Contemporary paraphrase of Anima
Christi by David L. Fleming, SJ, from
Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits)
Study
If I had had a chance to meet Jesus in person, I don’t think I would
have asked him the question that is posed in today’s Gospel reading. Asking if only a few people will be saved
just seems too theoretical. I think I
would have been more like the rich young ruler in Luke 18, who asks Jesus what
else he needs to do to inherit eternal life.
Because when you get right down to it, no matter how many people are
involved in the answer, what we really want to know is where we stand
and what we need to do to be with Jesus forever.
In the second part of today’s Gospel, Jesus tells a story about who will
be sitting at the table in the Kingdom of God.
He says it will be his true friends, the people he knows, the people who
know him. We can learn about Jesus
through the Scriptures, but it’s through our prayer lives that we come to be
close friends with him. In our prayer lives,
we try to keep our focus on who Jesus is and what he’s done for all of us. We try to live the way he lived and died –
for others.
And that’s a lot harder than it sounds.
We human beings tend to be somewhat self-centered and our focus
sometimes slips from Jesus to ourselves.
Or we find that when we look at Jesus long enough and hard enough, we
come face to face with aspects of ourselves we’d rather not see. If we gaze at Jesus on the Cross, eventually
we think about the sins we’ve committed for which he died. If we allow ourselves to experience the
compassion and forgiveness Jesus offers, eventually we have to wonder how well
we extend that to others. Are we like
the Father in the parable of the prodigal son, forgiving and embracing with
open arms those who’ve wronged us? Are
we like Jesus in reaching out to the lepers of our day? Would we, like Pope Francis, lovingly put our
arms around a painfully disfigured person?
I can see why Jesus talks about a narrow gate. To love him more than we love ourselves and
to follow in his footsteps, extending mercy and forgiveness to others, means
shedding a great deal of self-absorption in order to squeeze through.
Action
Spend a few minutes with Jesus today, praying
either the contemporary paraphrase of the Anima
Christi prayer above or use the words of the traditional version.
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