Fourth Sunday of Easter
We’ve probably all heard the saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” I experienced that saying firsthand when I studied in Rome for 5 months as an undergraduate. During my time I met a monsignor who worked for the Roman Rota, the Supreme Court, as it were for the Catholic Church (though that analogy is not 100% accurate, as the pope is really the supreme judge). He was also a chaplain for the local chapter of the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights of Malta, a chivalrous religious order that provides medical help in the name of the Church. He took me to different churches that I would have never known about, and certainly would not have been able to enter. To be honest, it was pretty cool.
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| Msgr. (now-Bishop) Giuseppe Sciacca, me, and some of my classmates from my semester in Rome |
It may sound surprising, but when it comes to eternal salvation, it is also not what you know, but who you know. No, not in the sense that if you’re best friends with this priest, or this religious sister, or this bishop, then you can do anything you want. But it is true when it comes to Jesus. Salvation is intimately connected with knowing who Jesus is, and having a relationship with Him. We can know all sorts of facts about Jesus, we can even be able to repeat the Catechism word for word. But that knowledge does not equate to salvation. Even Satan knows about Jesus; in fact, Satan probably knows more about Jesus than we do. But Satan does not know Jesus as it pertains to having friendship with Jesus.
Jesus Himself asserts that it’s all about knowing Him. In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about Himself as the “gate for the sheep.” He is the one by whom the sheep (that is, we) enter into the verdant pastures that Psalm 23 spoke of in today’s Responsorial Psalm. No one else is the gate: not Moses, not Mohammed, not Buddha, no one else. If we wish to enter into heaven, we have to go through Jesus.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking: what about all the people who didn’t or don’t believe in Jesus, who don’t truly know Jesus? We can talk about people who came before Jesus, who had no way of knowing about Him, and those who have come after Jesus, who maybe do or maybe don’t have access to knowing about Jesus. What Scripture makes clear, both in today’s Gospel, as well as in Peter’s speech in another place in the Acts of the Apostles, is that there is no other name on earth by when people are saved other than the Most Holy Name of Jesus. So anyone who is in heaven, and only God decides who is in heaven, is there only because of the one saving act of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection. Jews are not saved by the Law of Moses (St. Paul makes that very clear); Muslims are not saved by following the Qur’an; Buddhists are not saved because they followed the path of enlightenment. If they are in heaven, it is only through Jesus.
The Church also taught in Lumen gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Vatican II, and I will quote the section: “Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do his will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.” So the Church teaches that is possible that those who are ignorant of Christ through no fault of their own, and who are seeking God and following, to the best of the ability, their conscience, that they be saved. We don’t know if they’re saved, because the only way we know to receive the gift of salvation is to know Jesus and be in a relationship with Him, begun in Baptism. But the key is that if any person is in heaven, they are only there because of Jesus.
This should be a catalyst for us not simply to know about Jesus, but to truly know Him. It should move us to say, ‘Do I really know Jesus?’ Simply being baptized, or even receiving other sacraments, does not necessarily mean that we know Jesus. We might know about Jesus, but do we know Him as well as we know our friends or our spouse?
It should also be a catalyst to tell others about Jesus. Your co-worker’s salvation could depend on how well you help them to understand who Jesus is. Your spouse’s salvation could depend on how well you have made the life of Jesus your own and live it in your marriage. Your classmate or friend’s salvation could be aided by the fact that you help them to know Jesus and reflect that relational knowledge through what you say and do. Is that easy? No. The cost of discipleship, of knowing Jesus, is very expensive. But God is pulling for us and giving us what we need to know Jesus and to share that knowledge with others through His divine grace, which is given to us through the Sacraments.
This weekend our First Communicants will receive Jesus, the Gate to Heaven, in the Eucharist. In this new way, they are receiving the help to have union with Jesus, to truly know Him, and not simply to know about Him. They asked for His mercy on Saturday, which He readily grants to those who are sorry and who seek to make the life of Jesus their own in their own way. And on Sunday, having been purified of the obstacles to His life, they then/now receive that life and love in Jesus’ Body and Blood. What a beautiful gift for Jesus to spread the table of the Eucharist, the altar of life, before us as we gather in the house of the Lord, which anticipates the eternal temple of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, where God wants us to dwell for years to come! And each week we are invited back to Mass, to get to know Jesus better, and then to make His life our own by the power of His grace.
When it comes to eternal salvation, to being welcomed into heaven, it’s not what we know, it’s who we know. Do we know the Good Shepherd, the One who is the Gate for the sheep, who came that we “might have life and have it more abundantly”?