“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to my self, so that where I am you also may be.  Where I am going you know the way…I am the way.” (Jn 14,1-4;6)  Through his resurrection and ascension into heaven, the “Father’s house”, Jesus has opened the door to eternal life and prepared a way for all to enter in and have abundant life.  There is a place prepared for everyone in the heavenly kingdom of God.  All are welcome to dwell eternally with the Father in love and life in heaven.  God wants all of his children to come home and to dwell with him forever in love.  St. Paul writes 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.” (1Tim 2,3f)  God wants everyone to be saved.  However, even though there is a place for everyone in heaven and God desires that all would be gathered together in that eternal kingdom of love and peace, sadly, not everyone will enter into heaven.  This truth weighs heavily on the Sacred Heart of our Lord who has loved us to the end, laid down his life and suffered death on the cross so that we might be free from sin and freely choose to follow him to the Father’s house.  

    Jesus is asked, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?”  Jesus answers, “Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” (Lk 13,23f)  Within the worldly human person, there is a tendency to want to do everything on one’s own terms.  We want to rely on our own strength and our own will.  Worldly persons want to do things their own way and to establish their own way into heaven.  But, we cannot do it alone.  We are not strong enough.  “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven…Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you.” (Mt 7,21;23)  There are many who have excluded the Lord from their lives, who have not prepared a place for him in their hearts and who have not taken the time to know him and his way.  For those who live apart from God it is impossible to enter into heaven.  “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5,48)  We can only be perfected in love and by God’s grace in our lives.  We are perfected when it is revealed that “we shall be like him (God), for we shall see him as he is.” (1Jn 3,2)

    The Lord speaks through Ezekiel, “Your people say, “The way of the Lord is not fair!”  But it is their way that is not fair.” (Ez 33,17)  When we don’t get our own way we shout, “unfair!”  But the Lord clearly reveals to us the way into heaven but we choose to follow our own way and we try to get to heaven on our own terms.  We are self-willed and stubborn and refuse to seek God’s will in our lives.  God’s will is our salvation but that salvation comes only through the name of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.  Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, proclaims, “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.” (Acts 4,12)

    In the discourse on the Good Shepherd, Jesus declares, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep…I am the good shepherd.  A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep…I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep.” (Jn 10,7.11.14f)  Jesus is the way and the door that leads into heaven.  The way into heaven passes through a personal relationship with Jesus who calls us by name and leads us to eternal pastures.  Jesus reveals the Father to us so that we may know him, know his will for our lives and know the way that he has prepared for us in Jesus to enter into the eternal peace of his kingdom.

     This Easter season, on Good Shepherd Sunday, we celebrate the joyful news that a door to heaven has been opened for us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who laid down his life for his sheep.  Jesus is the door and he is also the one who stands at the door, calls us by name and knocks, waiting for our response.  “Behold, I stand at the door and knock,  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me.” (Rev 3,20)  If we let Jesus into our hearts in this life and establish a place for him in our house, sharing life with him in the Eucharist, then he will open the door for us into heaven and prepare a place for us in the Father’s house.  Doing the Father’s will is the key to open the door that is Jesus.