The population of the world is currently close to 8 billion. That is a lot of people. Beyond that number more impressive are the countless amount of souls which have existed throughout the world’s history. Some estimate that this number is close to 109 billion. That number is huge!
A question posed in our Gospel is, “Will only a few people be saved?” The answer to this is, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.”
The Book of Revelation states, “I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the Israelites.” There are some who take this number literally and say that only 144,000 will be among God’s anointed. With roughly 109 billion living in the world’s history and more being added each day that would be a lot of people who would miss the mark.
Vereable Bede states, this “is a finite number that ought to be understood as infinite.” 144,000 is a perfect number with 12 representing the 12 tribes of Israel. This number is multiplied by itself and the 1,000 is added onto it to add emphasis. This 144,000 then become symbolic of the heavenly Jerusalem. Throughout the course of time there have been a few souls who have been revealed by God to the Church to become saints. That number is close to 10,000. Opposed to 109 billion that is not very many. Despite this a limitation has not been put onto Heaven because each of us are called to be saints. Just because a relative has not been named a saint in the Church does not mean that they are not in Heaven. As Saint Paul writes in his letter to Timothy, “This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.”
Seeing that we are called to live as saints, to become saints, to join with God in this Heavenly Jerusalem we must be concerned with this “narrow gate.” If we like the answer or not it is the answer that the Lord has given to us on how many will be saved. We must “strive to enter through the narrow gate.” There is no way that we can avoid this “narrow gate.”
Pope Benedict XVI stated of this “narrow gate,” “The passage to eternal life is open to all, but is ‘narrow’ because it is demanding: it requires commitment, self-denial and the mortification of one’s selfishness.” As the Lord mentions in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
May we dare to enter through this “narrow gate.” Let us come to realize that we are each invited to enter into Heaven, but what will we chose to do with that invitation? What must we sacrifice if we are to enter through this “narrow gate?” How can we better commit our time unto the Lord for us to enter through this “narrow gate? Let us not attempt to enter through another means (this is impossible), but through the narrow gate that the Lord has given to us.
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