4th Sun Easter-A’17
“The Gate”
Fr. Jeff Nicolas
We have been busy around here for the last few months. We have had preaching encounters, adoration, stations of the cross, night prayer, adult formation sessions, sung Eucharistic prayers, and loads and loads of confessions. We brought in 14 people into our Catholic faith at Easter, celebrated Confirmation for a church full of eighth graders and high schoolers, and welcomed another packed-church of second graders to their First Communion. We have been about many great things building up our parish and our Catholic Church. Which makes the question that today’s Gospel brings to my mind a bit weird…
Why be a Catholic Christian? There seems to be many other less taxing religions out there to from which to choose. On the scale of things we Catholics seem to have one of the most demanding list of expectations to follow. So why be Catholic?
Catholics seem to carry more obligations than other religions. We have more obligations to our community than others: priest are celibate; Sunday Mass is an obligation; we are responsible to the greater Church through our bishops, cardinals, and popes. We have more obligations to our relationships than others: when we marry, for instance, should the marriage end in divorce, before we can remarry it has to be shown that something essential was lacking in the failed marriage preventing it from being a sacrament in the first place. A simple “divorce and go to the next” approach is not an option for us. Additionally, we have more obligations to our faith life with God than others in that we live out our spiritual life through seven sacraments (not just two), and we are committed to the liturgical cycle of our worship. It is just tougher to be Catholic!
Now some may want to respond by saying that Catholicism is the only way to salvation and this makes all we do worth it. But truth be told (and taught by our Magisterium) this is not the case. In it’s Decree on Ecumenism, the Magisterium teaches that…
“Some, even very many, of the most significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements… The brethren (sic) divided from us also carry out many liturgical actions of the Christian religion. In ways that vary according to the condition of each [ecclesial community], these liturgical actions most certainly can truly engender a life of grace, and, one must say, can aptly give access to the communion of salvation.” (Vatican II, 455-456)”
Catholicism is not the only path to salvation. St. John Paul II as well as both Pope Benedict and Pope Francis are huge advocates of ecumenical dialogue not because they necessarily want to convert everyone to Catholicism, but because they find God in the other’s experience and want to share their experience of faith with ours.
No doubt some among us might become upset with the notion that Catholicism is not the only path to salvation. They will want to say “the gate is small and few will pass through it.” But what is really going on here? Ever notice how the farther we get away from something the smaller it seems to grow? If we want to believe the gate of salvation is small we might be the ones who have moved away from it! Jesus Christ is the gate, not us!
St. Ignatius, a Patristic giant who was connected to St. Paul and taught St. Polycarp, once wrote, “Jesus is the gate of the Father, through which enter Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the Prophets and the Apostles and the Church.” The Gate is Jesus through which all the holy, in and out of our Church, pass. The Gate is bigger than us. We serve the Gate. We are the Body of the Gate, the Gate is our head. Our sacramental life gains us access to the Gate. But we are not the Gate, Jesus Christ is.
So again we are left with the question, “Why be Catholic?” If Catholicism is not the only way to access the Gate, why not choose another religion through which we could get by with less? Why not seek the minimum?
Because we don’t seek the minimum when we are in love! Providing the minimum is not the goal of a lover. Those in love want to give their all!
When you are in love, giving all is not a burden, but a privilege. When you are in love, the gift of self is not seen as a cost, but as an investment. When you are in love you enter covenants (all for all) and not contracts (tit for tat).
Our relationship with Jesus Christ, you see, is not first and foremost an arrangement we make through which we hope to gain access to heaven. If it were then we would be prudent to find the least expensive way to achieve the goal. We would be wise to be minimalists. But just getting to heaven is not what our relationship with Jesus Christ is all about. Our relationship with Jesus Christ is first and foremost a love affair! An extravagant, non-calculating, give-it-all-you-got love affair with our God who returns our love a thousand thousand fold!
Today we praise our God that we have been chosen to express our love through our Catholic Church life. Today we ask ourselves not “how much love do I need to get by?”, but rather “will I be able to love enough?”
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