Am I the underdog?

Homily

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time B1

24 August 2025

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village

AMDG

When it comes to salvation, am I the underdog?  Is anybody here tonight really comfortable with the question, are you saved?  If you died today do you know where you would spend eternity?  

On the one hand, the question should not make us uncomfortable at all.   Jesus has already answered it!  When asked if many or a few will get into heaven, a question everyone always wants to know, Jesus doesn't answer it!  So when I am asked the question, am I saved, I am free to answer as Jesus does.  It's the wrong question!  He simply answers with a verb - strive!  Strive to enter through the narrow gate!  It's the easiest answer, and you can't be wrong, because it's Jesus answer!

On the other hand, though, the question should always make me uncomfortable!  For Jesus says clearly that when it comes to salvation, I am the underdog.  Who could possibly boast that they have already become what heaven is - perfect, consistent, sacrificial, unselfish, merciful, and heroic love that strong as death?  Certainly not me!  Jesus says to never presume on salvation - always act as the underdog!

This does not mean of course that the opposite response of presumption - despair - is the right response to the question.  What can I be certain of?  That God desires my salvation, that I become even now what heaven is, fully alive through perfect love.  For God, 1 person lost is too many and 99 saved is too few!  I am certain that He desires my salvation and all the means are there, for nothing is impossible for God.  The pattern for my salvation is that of the Blessed Virgin, who believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled!

I can be certain of God's desire that I be saved, but not that I have fully cooperated in this desire!  Even as I have accepted the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ as the only means of salvation, and the only sacrifice infinitely pleasing to the Father, still my life has to be fully processed within this mystery, this passion of Jesus.  Strive! Strive!  Strive, Jesus says, taking nothing for granted ever!  Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

To put it another way, the process of my salvation is the same as Jesus.  His passion, and my being incorporated into his body through baptism, initiate me into the process, but like Him I am in anguish until it is accomplished!  God desires all people to be saved, but is in anguish until and unless it is accomplished.  Such is my attitude!

While enjoying great protection and the many great things God has done for me, still the Gospel is clear that my entire being must also be processed and reformed through the passion, the paschal mystery, and the heart of Jesus.  Nothing less than heaven gets into heaven, and God is too loving to save me without myself, without my being capable of experiencing what heaven really is!

So Catholics, even and especially as we endure suffering that is unfair and beyond our understanding, and what we least want, always embrace the discipline of the Lord as a key part of the process of working out salvation with fear and trembling.  Training, teaching, suffering, adversity, consequences and punishment, are all part of the necessary way in which love is purified, and made ready to participate in the kingdom of Heaven.

Nothing less than heaven gets into heaven.  That's why we're underdogs, and the only story of salvation is the story of us beating all the odds and allowing our entire being to be processed in the paschal mystery of Jesus.

Am I saved?  Answer it the way Jesus does, as an underdog.  Strive to enter through the narrow gate.

+mj