In today’s Gospel, someone asks Jesus, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” It’s a question that has echoed for centuries — a question about numbers, about how many, about “us” and “them.” But Jesus does not answer with statistics. He shifts the focus entirely. He is not interested in a salvation that we imagine as a “ticket” handed to us at the end of life if we have followed the rules well enough. Salvation, for Jesus, is not a distant reward. It is here. It is now. It is an open invitation to enter God’s Kingdom today.
Too often, we imagine salvation as something far away — as if God is keeping a ledger of our good and bad deeds, ready to issue the final verdict when our life ends. But Jesus tells us: the Kingdom of God is already breaking into our world. Salvation is not a prize for the perfect, but a gift for those who open their hearts to him, here and now. The real question is not “How many will be saved?” but “Do I allow myself to be saved today?”
Jesus speaks of a “narrow gate.” This is not a gate for the proud, the self-sufficient, or the powerful. It is a gate for the small — for those who make themselves humble, who serve rather than dominate, who give rather than accumulate. The narrow gate is the way of the Beatitudes: poverty of spirit, mercy, meekness, hunger for justice. This way is demanding because it asks us to go against the current of selfishness and comfort.
And here is the warning: there are many who stand at the gate but never enter. They are close to Jesus, they have heard his words, perhaps even received the sacraments, but their hearts remain closed to love in action. They say, “Lord, we were with you,” yet they have not allowed his Gospel to change their lives. This is the danger for us — to be Christians in name but not in heart, to practice our faith outwardly without letting it bear fruit in works of mercy and justice.
Jesus shocks his listeners by saying that many who were considered “outsiders” will be inside the banquet of God’s Kingdom, while some who were certain they belonged will find themselves outside. Why? Because love is the true measure. Those who have loved — whether they knew Christ by name or not — have entered by the narrow gate. For “whoever loves is begotten of God and knows God” (1 Jn 4:7).
Dear brothers and sisters, the Gospel is not a comfort zone; it is a call to conversion. The question is not whether few or many will be saved, but whether you and I will say “yes” to Jesus today — whether we will let him save us by living his way of humility, service, and love. Let us not wait until the end. The door is open now. The time is now. Let us enter through the narrow gate.
Father Josekutty Mathew CMF
