Posted on 06/22/2021 1:34:47 PM PDT by MurphsLaw
TWELFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
MATTHEW 7:6, 12–14
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus warns, "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many."
A question that people have been asking from time immemorial is this: "Will only a few people be saved?" Heaven, hell, salvation, damnation—who will be in and who will be out?
How should we approach this issue? The doctrine concerning hell is a corollary of two more fundamental truths—namely, that God is love and that we are free. Love (willing the good of the other) is all that God is. He doesn’t go in and out of love; he doesn’t change his mind; he’s not loving to some, and not to others. He is indeed like the sun that shines on the good and bad alike, in the words of Jesus.
However, we are also free. We are not God’s marionettes, and hence we can say yes or we can say no to his love. If we turn toward it, we open like a sunflower; if we turn from it, we get burned.
“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.
This is the Law and the Prophets.
“Enter through the narrow gate;
for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to
destruction,
and those who enter through it are many.
How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to
life.
And those who find it are few.”+++
God may be a loving God, but he is also a stern God who means what he says.
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