“We will come from the east and the west, take our place…” (Lk 13, 22-30) | RCF

Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke

During that time,
while he was on his way to Jerusalem,
Jesus went through towns and villages teaching.
Someone asked him:
“Lord, are only a few saved? »
Jesus said to them:
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for, I tell you,
many will seek to enter
and will not succeed.
When the master of the house will have risen
to close the door,
if you, from outside, start knocking at the door,
saying :
“Lord, open to us”,
he will answer you:
“I don’t know where you are from.”
So you’ll say:
“We ate and drank in your presence,
and you taught in our squares.”
He will answer you:
“I don’t know where you are from.
get away from me,
all you who do injustice.”
There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,
when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets
in the kingdom of God,
and you yourselves will be cast out.
So we’ll come from east and west,
north and south,
take your place at the feast in the kingdom of God.
Yes, there are last who will be first,
and of the first who will be last. »

Source: AELF

Meditation Father Nicolas de Boccard

The fundamental question of salvation is once again confronted in this gospel with the truth of each of our lives. The grace of God cannot be a varnish that colors us, it must be a leaven in the dough that has transformed everything. We have to go through the narrow door – it is the seriousness and the change of behavior that answers for each of us. So our life must be in the image of what we profess. There is a deep realism of Christian identity.

Entry into the Kingdom does not depend on a passport, visa or special authorization. It is not enough to have all the stamps on your Christian passport: to have been baptized, to have made your first communion, your profession of faith and your confirmation and even to have attended mass – to have checked all the boxes. It’s not what God looks at first. Basically, this question of school does not interest Jesus. It is not our belonging that matters to him but the truth of our lives. Christianity – we cannot say this enough – is the religion of the incarnation.

And if we argue: “we went to mass – we ate and drank in your presence…” Jesus will be able to answer us as in this Gospel: “I don’t know where you are from”, which means: I don’t not recognize you. What God looks at, what will allow us to enter the Kingdom, is only our charity in action: the good that we have been able to do on earth in the name of Christ.

On numerous occasions, the disciples asked Jesus what it was necessary to do to enter the Kingdom, which Jesus compares in this Gospel to going through the narrow door: many passages then resonate in us: “I was naked and you dressed me, I was hungry and you gave me food, I was sick and you came to visit me…”. Salvation is not automatic, it passes through conversion and the implementation of this Good News. It is not that few are called, quite the contrary, but alas that few respond to this call.

What will count in heaven, said Thérèse of the Child Jesus, is love, and only love. It is on this love that we will be judged worthy or not to enter the Kingdom.