Reflection for the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Every once in a while the question returns to me, ” how can I be sure I am going to go to heaven? ” Children ask adults this question – we all wonder! If we follow all the commandments, go to church every Sunday and Holy day, or do this and not do that, can we be certain of salvation? The Pharisees were the religious people of Jesus’ day. They followed all the rules of the religious law. Law was important to them. They had problems with Jesus and he had problems with them.
Law can become external manifestations of goodness without necessary inner attitude of the mind and heart. When God judges us he will not get out the Book of Life to see if we have followed all the rules. God will get out a tape measure and put it around our hearts and see if we have loved enough ! It is this inner disposition and attitude of the heart that will count the most. No blaming society or the devil. Or using this rationalization or that excuse. Evil comes from within and renders us impure. But, were we not? But God’s image can be covered over and sometimes even obliterated by our choice and will.
The bad news of life is in the daily newspaper. The Good News of life is in the Scriptures we read here every day. Today’s words of Jesus exclaim, ” Let everyone heed what they hear ! “Our salvation is really a condition of the heart. What lives is your heart? Who lives is your heart? Is there room for the One who saves? Is there a part before the way, the truth, and the life? The long list of wicked design the Jesus lists in the Gospel are all too familiar to us in our modern day. It may seen that the 2000 year old message of our Savior had not been heard. But maybe the problem is that it has not been tried. And, maybe it has not been tried because bit seems too simple.
To live with minds and hearts open to living the number one commandment: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, strength, and to loved your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said that on these two commandments the whole law is based. Loving is a condition of the heart. Can you be sure yo are going to heaven? Look into your heart !
May God bless you!
Fr. Dominic
Your brother in Christ