Surely the days of teaching about hell fire and damnation are gone. Surely our ever loving and forgiving God wouldn’t exclude anyone from Heaven. Well according to today’s gospel reading we can’t bet on it! We might imagine Heaven’s gates as big and welcoming, but today we hear that it may instead be a narrow door through which it might be difficult for us to gain entry… and worse, there’s a time limit on how long it might remain open.

Today’s theme is a continuation of last week’s. Today we are warned against complacency. Having the right books is no guarantee of passing the exam. Being baptised a Christian is no guarantee of a place in Heaven. Life is a testing ground in which we should be continually striving, continually bettering ourselves, continually increasing our understanding and forever moving forwards spiritually. We might think that because we attend Mass on Sunday and dip our hands in our pockets for the odd collection that we are doing all that is required. Are we going to be unpleasantly surprised to find ourselves at the back of Heaven’s queue when we fondly imagined we might be somewhere near the front?

For all of us who think we’ve got it right …. think again! Have we really planned for eternity, or have we only planned as far as our next mortgage repayment? Have we really determined the priorities in our lives, or have we allowed life to shape us into something we never intended? Do we imagine we are good people simply because we have never done anything bad?

God is ever loving and forgiving, but we could exclude ourselves from Heaven simply by not striving to get there. Radical measures are needed today. What measures do we each need to adopt to earn our place at the narrow door?