The question sounds religious enough: How many will be saved? Yet it is a poor guide for a disciple. Whether the number is many or few, nothing essential changes—love does not shrink or expand because of a statistic. Counting souls does not convert a single heart. It distracts us from the work right in front of us.
Jesus refuses the headcount and gives us a marching order: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” Not a spreadsheet, a path. He redirects curiosity into courage. The image is tight, demanding, almost like a trail that steepens at the end. And the warning is clear: many will try, and strength will fail. So what now?
We ask the better question: Lord, if the way is demanding and we are called to imitate the Father, how might all be saved? That question should wake up the Church. It turns spectators into companions. It shifts us from watching the door to holding it. The narrow gate is not a private entrance for the spiritually athletic; it is a doorway we approach together, linked arm in arm, because some are limping, some are lost, and some are simply tired.
Those who have found their footing should go back for the ones who can not. That is the shape of Christ’s body. We do not wave from inside the gate; we step out, lift, carry, and walk again. When someone is crushed by grief, we stand beside them until their breathing steadies. When shame nails a neighbor to the past, we speak mercy and offer a fresh beginning. When hunger gnaws, we bring bread and stay for conversation. When someone stands at the edges of parish or town, we move to the margins and make the center there.
The sacraments are not trophies on a shelf; they are strength for this climb. In baptism we were tied to each other. In reconciliation we travel lighter. In the Eucharist, the crucified and risen Lord feeds us with his own life so we can spend ours. Confirmation steels our courage when the path narrows. Anointing mends the wounded. Marriage and holy orders make service a promise, not a mood. Grace is given so it can be given away.
There is a sober note here. If we treat grace as a private stash—if we savor the feast and ignore the hungry, if we brag that we once walked with Jesus yet refuse his way of self-gift—we may reach the door and find it shut, our faces unfamiliar to the master. The church’s credibility is tested at the doorways of our homes and workplaces; if the grace we receive here does not cross those thresholds, we should not be surprised when heaven’s threshold feels unfamiliar. And while we fret about status—first or last—the living God is gathering guests from every direction, seating them at the banquet we only talk about.
Let us stop counting and start carrying. The way is real, narrow, exacting. But when a parish moves as one body, sharing the strength of Christ, that narrow passage begins to feel spacious. There is room for the widow, the skeptic, the teenager, the addict, the newcomer—and even for you. So take someone’s hand. Walk toward the gate. And do not go alone.