25 August Sunday

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The Word

Is 66,18-21 /Heb 12,5-7.11-13 / Lk 13,22-30

Is 66,18-21

 I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; they shall come and see my glory. I will place a sign among them; from them I will send survivors to the nations: to Tarshish, Put and Lud, Mosoch, Tubal and Javan, to the distant coastlands which have never heard of my fame, or seen my glory; and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations. They shall bring all your kin from all the nations as an offering to the LORD, on horses and in chariots, in carts, upon mules and dromedaries, to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the LORD, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD. Some of these I will take as priests and Levites, says the LORD.

Heb 12,5-7.11-13

You have also forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons:

“My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him;

 for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges.”

Endure your trials as “discipline”; God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline? 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.

So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed.

Lk 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.”

In other words…

Let me share with you my own experience of “narrow gate” and eternal life (salvation).

In today’s Gospel, someone asked Jesus: “Will only a few people be saved?” Jesus did not categorically answer that question, be it a few or many. The more important question is: Am I one of them? To enter heaven is likened to entering a narrow gate.

Through God’s grace and Creative Travel House, I have visited the Holy Land many times. In Jerusalem, there is a larger gate door that would be closed at night, but there is a little door called the  Eye of the Needle Gate that would remain open. It was designed for security reason so that enemies could not simply ride on their camels into the city and attack.

For a man and his camel to enter Eye of the Needle Gate, he would have to unload his camel of all that it was carrying and then carefully lead his camel through this small gate. It would be  a low and quite difficult task. It is truly difficult for a camel to get through that door but not impossible.

As a twelve-year-old altar boy, I enjoyed serving in the celebration of  the Holy Masses and Baptisms in our parish in San Jose, Occ. Mindoro. When I decided to enter Christ the King Mission Seminary (CKMS) in Quezon City as a Third Year H. S. student, the idea of being saved and living an eternal life was one of the strongest reasons why I wanted to become a religious-missionary-priest.

Forty-two years had passed since I entered CKMS (come December, our SVD Handog Ordination Class 1988 will celebrate our 30thAnniversary), I have traversed through many “narrow gates” (yearly evaluation, comprehensive examinations, assignments, trials, failures, etc.) but my fundamental option to follow Jesus and share His Good News to gain eternal life is still the driving force.

Yes, entering the narrow gate is difficult but it is possible.  It all depends on us if we are willing to make sacrifices, unload the unnecessary burden to enter the gate with ease and peace and focus on eternal life.

– Fr. Glenn Paul Gomez, SVD (CKMS, QC)