How Can More and More People Be Saved?

This weekend’s gospel tells of someone asking Jesus, “will only a few people be saved?” We might wonder what he means by “saved”. The Greek word which the gospels use for “saved” (sozo) refers to healing or deliverance in both a physical and spiritual way. It encompasses salvation from danger, sickness, death, evil spirits or sin. In the rest of the New Testament, it usually refers to spiritual salvation. In today’s passage Jesus does not answer the question of “how many;” rather, He focuses on the “how”. “Strive to enter through the narrow gate” (Luke 13: 24), he says, implying that to do so will take some effort on our part.

There may be different ways to interpret this teaching. For our purposes today we can relate it to our Stewardship of Faith. Faith is a gift from God which we can receive freely. Then it is right and just to give God thanks. After receiving the gift of faith, God expects us to do something to nurture it, to live it and to share it. This is what Stewardship of Faith is all about. 

I encourage all our parishioners to participate this weekend in offering thanks to God for the gift of faith. A concrete way to express your thanks is to do something to help you grow your faith, live your faith, and share your faith. We invite you to check some of the suggestions on the Stewardship of Faith cards, or to write in other suggestions which you may choose. Then after the homily I will invite you to place the top half of the card in a basket in the sanctuary as a way of offering your intention to God. Keep the bottom half as a reminder of your commitment to steward the gift of faith. 

Stewardship of Faith is another way to summarize our parish mission: To proclaim the greatness of the Lord and accompany our neighbors to the Heart of Jesus. We do so by growing in faith, living our faith, and sharing it with others. This is the purpose of all our ministries and apostolates. 
So I am challenging all these groups to prayerfully discern how they align with our parish mission. The groups of our Ministry Team (staff) have each completed a Charter to articulate their purpose, strategy, tasks and values, and how all these support the parish mission. The Parish Pastoral Council and I have been reaching out to the many apostolates of our parish and asking them to also complete Charters. We had a Charter Day on May 17 to help them complete their Charters. 

We will have another Charter Day on September 13 from 10 am to noon. Every group that is currently meeting in our parish buildings—or is otherwise associated with our parish—is expected to complete a Charter for their group (apostolate). The Pastoral Council and I are dedicating this time to help these groups complete their Charters on Saturday, September 13 from 10 am to noon. So if you are a leader of one of these groups and have not yet completed your group’s Charter, please attend the Charter Day on September 13 to complete your Charter. Otherwise please contact me or a member of the Pastoral Council for more information. 

Why are we doing this? Because we want to guide all the ministries and apostolates of our parish to pursue our common mission. We want to help all our groups be good stewards by growing in faith, living their faith and sharing it with others. If we can all be aligned in our mission, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, then God will surely use us so that more and more people will be saved!