In Readers Digest, David Barman, from North Miami Beach, Florida, wrote that at the university where he teaches, the school has a policy of giving a + designation for grades.
A 78 is a C+, an 89 is a B+.
A student received his final grade and was adamant that I left off the plus sign. I looked up the grade. The kid got a 58, I told him that he failed the course. “I know,” he said. “But I earned an F+, not an F”. “You want me to change it to an F+”? I asked. He said yes and left happy when I agreed.
The stakes could not be higher for eternal salvation.
Each person receives his or her eternal retribution in their immortal soul at the very moment of their death, in a particular judgment of either entrance into the blessedness of heaven as per— 1 Corinthians 3:15 — or immediate and everlasting damnation.
God with his almighty power and perfect justice is a God who can permit the loss of some souls who chose such a fate. This is a mystery in which we cannot peer too closely—the “mystery of iniquity” whereby human freedom can resist God’s grace of God all the way to the end.1
How do we know this? Well, it’s depicted in the scriptures, and right here today in today’s Gospel:
'I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!' And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
"Strive to enter through the narrow gate,” Jesus tells us today.
The wide road is the way of least resistance and mass identity, as Sanford says. But the narrowest of the gate suggests some anxiety because narrowness and anxiety have long been associated, e.g. "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.”
The context of the narrow gate shows that Jesus advises his church not to follow the majority. After baptism, being saved means laying down the human burden of our sinfulness in repentance and confession so we fit through the narrow door of salvation.
Religion cannot be separated from morality. Both Judaism and Christianity are different than the other world religions at the time. For example, other ancient cultures have flood stories, but with Noah and the flood, it was because of the wickedness of humanity that God sent the flood, but Noah found favor with God.
Can you lose your salvation? Popular verses to say that you can’t lose your salvation are Romans 8:39, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God….” And John 5:24, “he who…believes has eternal life.”
However, a believer’s sin is internal since choosing sin is an act of the will. Salvation is forfeited by serious sin, which is preferring an evil act to God (1 John 5:17; James 3:1- righteousness and sin can be seen as two ends of a spectrum, meaning that a decrease in one necessarily leads to an increase in the other).
A second fact is that Saint Paul never says that a believer’s sin can’t cut us off from our salvation. Elsewhere in Romans 6:12-1, we hear a warning not to let sin reign in your bodies by following your sinful passions.
As for John 5:24, that only means that if a person continues to believe, they have eternal life, it’s about persisting in God’s grace. Hebrews 4:14 says ‘hold fast’ to your confession of faith. Mathew 10:22 says “he who endures to the end will be saved.”
A biblical answer, in the spirit of the narrow gate teaching by Jesus, for someone in the state of grace is, “Yes, I am saved, by grace alone, by faith and baptism, and I can ‘rely on the mercy and promises of God” to keep me saved.’”
What is in your PAST is not as important as what is AHEAD of you!
Source: Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church.
Here is a St. Peter joke that has good theology and brings this out this teaching of being saved by God’s grace.
A man dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter meets him at the pearly gates.
St. Peter says, “Here’s how it works. You need 100 points to make it into heaven. You tell me all the good things you’ve done, and I give you a certain number of points for each item, depending on how good it was. When you reach 100 points, you get in.”
“Okay,” the man says, “I attended church every Sunday.”
“That’s good,” says St. Peter, “that’s worth two points.”
“Two points?” he says. “Well, I gave 10% of all my earnings to the church.”
“Well, let’s see,” answers Peter, “that’s worth another 2 points. Did you do anything else?”
“Two points? Golly. How about this: I started a soup kitchen in my city and worked in a shelter for homeless veterans.”
“Fantastic, that’s certainly worth a point,” he says.
“Hmmm…” the man says, “I was married faithfully to the same woman for 50 years.”
“That’s wonderful,” says St. Peter, “that’s worth three points!”
“THREE POINTS!!” the man cries. “At this rate the only way I get into heaven is by the grace of God!”
“Come on in!”
A holy door or porta sancta is ritual of conversion.
What are the Holy Doors exactly?
Catholics traditionally celebrated Jubilees by making a pilgrimage to the Basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome. From this grew the veneration of the Holy Doors, the principal entrance to the Church. Entering the Doors symbolizes the completion of the pilgrim’s physical journey to the Church and spiritual journey to intimate relationship with God.
As the "Gate of Heaven," Mary is the means through which Christ entered the world, and she guides believers to Jesus, the true source of salvation, through the narrow gate.
Gate of heaven, Jesus, pray for us!
1. Catholic Answers. Catholic.com
