Wednesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
To humbly be with Jesus means to go where He goes, to live as He lives, to do what He does, and as we learned yesterday this means to join in the labor of building His Kingdom. In our post-revolution society, it is hard to imagine having a King and living in a Kingdom, much less establishing a new one. Will we succeed? Is it difficult? Or, as someone asks Jesus today, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?”
We are, after all, going about this titanic effort through humility rather than overwhelming force; it does not seem on the surface to be a terribly effective means by which to establish rule. Jesus tells us today that it will not be easy and that many will try to enter the Kingdom on their own and fail. Notice St. Ignatius’s response to the Call was to submit to the suffering and poverty that would inevitably come! Jesus admits, too, that there will come a time when the work is finished, the door will be locked, and yet people will knock and expect entrance. “Where were you,” He will say, “when it was daytime and the door was opened? Why were you not with me? I do not know where you have been or where you are from; depart.”
We must be humble followers of Christ, accompanying Him all throughout our new life with Him. Think of the Apostles; who was it that left the Last Supper early and came back later? “I do not know where you are from,” He might have said to Judas. If we are called to be with Him we must remain with Him, and if we remain with Him we have nothing to fear. Let us be like those humble Gentiles who came from east and west, those who were the least who now, having followed Him, are the greatest. Remain with Him, that when the doors are one day locked we may find ourselves, as St. John did, reclining at table with the Lord we served faithfully, all the way to the Cross and beyond.