Ordinary Time 21
August 21, 2022
Who Can Be Saved?
St. John
Bosco was a priest in Turin, Italy during the mid-1800s. While he was still a
seminarian, he befriended another seminarian named Louis Comollo, who was a
great example of holiness. The two of them used to read lives of the saints
together and speak about the joys of Heaven.
One day,
after a conversation about Heaven, they decided to make an interesting
agreement. They swore to each other that the first one of them to die would, if
God allowed it, let the other one know whether the deceased one was saved. They
even wrote this promise down as a contract, signed it, and told others about
it.
Tragically,
Louis fell ill and died at only 22 years of age. The evening after his funeral,
St. John Bosco was getting ready for bed when he and his fellow seminarians
heard – and felt – a loud rumble like the sound of thunder from out in the
hall. It shook the building so strongly that several seminarians actually fell
out of bed. They huddled together in terror as the roar got closer and closer.
From out of the roar came a voice, which declared, “Bosco, I am saved!” Three
times this phrase was said, and then the noise faded away. Everyone was so
afraid that even St. John Bosco almost passed out. Later on, Bosco would say
that it was the most terrifying moment of his life, and he discouraged anyone
else from making such a promise!
What a
joy it would be to be saved! Not only a joy for us, but a joy for the Heart of
God, for He is a good Father, and as St. Paul writes, “God wants all to be
saved and come to the knowledge of truth.” He invites every human being to
spend eternity with Him, and the Church officially teaches that everyone
receives enough grace to be saved.
But is
it guaranteed that all will be saved? Not at all. We can always reject that
invitation, spurn His grace. In fact, Jesus speaks more about Hell than anyone
else in the Bible. It is a reality, and it’s not empty.
Sometimes
as Americans, we believe in an idea called “Universalism” – the false belief
that all will be saved. Universalism is the idea that God’s love is so great
that at the end of time, even the worst sinner will go to Heaven. But this has
been condemned as a heresy since the sixth century.
So some
people believe in quasi-universalism, or as I like to call it, “Not-Hitlerism”
– the belief that everyone goes to Heaven unless you’re basically Hitler. But
this, too, is not the teaching of the Church. The Church teaches that one
unrepentant mortal sin is enough for a soul to lose its salvation.
Also,
the testimony of the Church acknowledges that salvation is not universal –
there are souls in Hell. For example, Our Lady appeared to four children in
Garabandal, Spain, in the 1960s and the children asked Our Lady where most
souls go upon death. She revealed that the majority of people go to Purgatory,
a good number go to Hell, and the fewest go directly to Heaven. In the
apparitions of Fatima, the three shepherd children saw a vision of a Hell that
was quite populated. Saints like St. Faustina, St. John Bosco, St. Theresa of
Avila, and many more have had visions of this terrible place of torment.
So we
have to ask the question – why would God send anyone there? He doesn’t. We
choose it freely. Love requires freedom. If God were to force us to love
Him, it wouldn’t be love. Think of when you were a child and your mom told you
to go give Aunt Gertrude a kiss. We would roll our eyes, sigh, and go over and
give her a kiss. Is that love? Does it mean a whole lot? No, because it’s not
done in freedom. Love requires freedom to be authentic.
So Our
Lord gives us the freedom to accept or reject His love, to accept or reject His
grace, to accept or reject His offer of everlasting life. The choice is up to
us. Why would anyone choose to reject such a grace? Because it’s costly. It’s
the “narrow way” of prayer, sacrifice, self-denial, love…when the “broad way”
of the pleasures of the flesh, the arrogance of pride, and the glories of this
world are, frankly, more easy and attractive.
When I
was growing up and would go on a Boy Scout campout, my dad was great about
making sure I got to Mass. Truthfully I liked going to Mass, and it sometimes
helped that I got to skip cleaning up dirty pots and pans to go there. On one
campout, my dad picked me up at a certain place, took me to Mass, and drove me
back to the campsite, which meant I got to miss a brutal four-mile hike up a
torturous mountain. When I arrived back, a fellow scout named Chris asked me,
“Where have you been?” I told him I went to Mass. He shot back, “You
missed the hike because of Mass?” I nodded, and he added, “I would rather hike forty
miles than go to Mass.” I was floored – he would rather do anything than
be in the presence of a loving God and to receive His Body and Blood? Sadly
yes, and there are many who would rather do anything else than be with God. Some
would rather scroll their phones for hours on end than spend a few minutes with
God in prayer; many who would rather stay addicted to lust instead of take the
steps necessary to be pure; many who would rather buy a Maserati than give a
bit of money to the poor. The broad road is easy; the narrow road is hard.
Now, why
do I speak about all this? Because this life matters, as it determines
where we will spend the rest of eternity. Don’t indulge these eighty or ninety
years on earth and miss out on an eternity with God, our true Happiness!
But the
good news of all this is that God desperately wants us to be saved! He wants it
so badly that He died for us to be with Him! And He has given us every tool
necessary to be saved. He has given us the Sacraments, especially monthly
Confession and frequent devout reception of Holy Communion; He has given us the
Bible and the Church to teach us the way to holiness; He has given us the
riches of prayer like the Rosary and Adoration; He has given us the examples of
the saints; He has encouraged us to sacrifice and deny ourselves for others; He
has given us the poor for whom we can do works of mercy.
All we
need to do is use these tools, seek holiness, and stay close to Jesus Christ –
and we have nothing to worry about. He will obtain our salvation for us,
if we cling to Him. But we must not let these tools sit idle, because the
“broad way” of destruction is pretty tempting…but it’s the “narrow way” that leads
to life.
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