Jesus Gives the Roadmap to Heaven in Today’s Gospel. Implications for Our Spiritual Life!

Fr. Hugh Gillespie, SMM

Jesus Gives the Roadmap to Heaven in Today’s Gospel. . . .

I thought Jesus was supposed to be nice.

That was the response one teenager had in reading today’s scripture in which Jesus tells us, unless you do something . . . unless you change . . . you will find yourself in the fires of hell. Jesus says unless. When He says that, we know there is a consequence. Hear more within the Homily.

The Kingdom of Heaven is open to everyone. While it is open for all, not everyone gets to go in. That should give all of us pause! Why? Because many think, if they are relatively good, they will go to heaven. Simply put, many take salvation for granted . . . as if they are almost entitled to it. That is not what Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel.

Unless your holiness goes beyond the Pharisees, you are not getting into heaven. This conditionality is a challenge to us. Who were the Pharisees? Publicly, they were the role models of the time! They knew scripture. They seemed to be getting everything all right. They were serious about their religion.

. . . Implications for Our Spiritual Life!

The Lord says, unless you do better than those guys, you are not getting in! What actually does He mean by that?

Have you ever experienced the feeling when looking around in Church, during Mass, that everyone is getting it right? Other people know all the words to the prayers, and perhaps I may not? There may be a tendency to say I am not good enough and I simply do not measure up!

The Lord says . . . that is the WRONG standard. Knowing the prayers is not a bad thing. But it is the WRONG measure. They are external mastery of details. There is a temptation sometimes instead of being obedient to the Lord, we are compliant. There may even be a tendency to have a false goodness! What’s the difference and how do we recognize that? Hear more within the Homily.

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