Gospel: Luke 13:22-30

 

The Gospel today narrates an episode that took place along the road that Jesus was going through from Galilee to Jerusalem. What is clear and definitive from the beginning is the destiny or end of the journey: Jerusalem, the capital city where Jesus suffers His Passion and dies. But Luke rarely tells us about the places through which Jesus passed. This he says only at the beginning of the journey, in the middle and at the end, and thus we know something about the places through which Jesus was passing. 

 

In this way, Luke suggests the following teaching: the objective of our life should be clear, and we should assume it decidedly as Jesus did. We have to walk; we cannot stop. The places through which we have to pass are not always clear and definitive.  What is certain is the objective: Jerusalem, where the “exodus” awaits us, the Resurrection.

 

Along the road all kinds of things happen and, in today’s Gospel, a question from the people. It is always the same question concerning salvation!

 

Jesus says that the door is narrow. About which door is He speaking? It is a question of the conversion which Jesus asks of us. And He insists: “Try your hardest to enter by the narrow door”. It is not sufficient to have eaten with Jesus, to have participated in the multiplication of the loaves and to have listened to His teachings. This is a tragic misunderstanding and a total lack of conversion. It is a totally new way of seeing our salvation. The door is truly narrow.