Back around 1995 or 1996,
I was teaching my 8th grade class about vocations
and the different religious orders.
Their assignment was to research a particular religious order
and write a report to share with the class.
Now this was around 1996 B.G. Before Google.
There was no Internet, no search engines, no Wikipedia, no email,
and so I had given them a magazine that listed addresses for all the different religious orders in the United States.
They got into groups, chose a religious community,
did some encyclopedia research,
and then they wrote letters to these different communities
asking them for information.
We got all kinds of wonderful letters back.
Religious communities were excited
to share their stories with the students.
They sent brochures and even wrote letters by hand
to tell them about their daily lives.
We probably received a dozen or so letters from the different communities.
But one was different from the others.
Rather than a regular envelope,
this one was a big manila envelope and it was really thick,
like a package.
And it contained a wonderful surprise
that had a huge impact on my life,
and hopefully the lives of the students.
We’ll come back to this story,
and talk more about that package
in a moment.
But first, there’s a question at the heart of today’s gospel.
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”
That’s the question that someone in the crowd asks Jesus,
But what they’re really asking is,
Will I be saved?
In other words, they’re asking
“Lord, is salvation for only a few select people,
or does someone like me have a chance?”
We worry about that, too, don’t we,
deep down inside?
Because no matter how faithful we try to be,
we just don’t know.
After all, we’re pretty good at fooling ourselves,
at rationalizing our decisions.
And the older we get,
the more we come to realize just how little we really do know.
I have a Family Circus cartoon
that I used to hang outside my 8th grade classroom door.
It shows little Billy talking to his Mom saying,
“I can’t wait ’til I’m in 8th grade and know everything there is to know.”
At that stage of life we do think we know everything.
And then life becomes more complex,
things don’t go as we thought they would,
and we begin to wonder and doubt.
One of the things we Christians wonder most about is
Am I doing what God wants me to do?
How can I tell?
Am I on the right path?
How many times have we started down one path,
thinking that this is what God wants me to do with my life,
only to realize God has something else in mind?
Our Catholic history is filled with the stories of saints
who started down one road,
only to realize God was calling them to something else.
We’re probably all familiar with that old Russian proverb,
“God writes straight with crooked lines.”
But even when we think we’ve figured out
what we’re supposed to do here on earth,
we still have our doubts.
It’s a condition of the Christian life
to wrestle with uncertainty and the unknown,
to try and make peace with the mystery.
Speaking of mystery,
we need to get back to that mysterious package
my students received.
I suppose if I really wanted to drive home the idea
that the Christian life involves uncertainty and the unknown,
I wouldn’t tell you what was in that package,
and you would just have to try and make peace with the mystery.
But I won’t do that.
The postmark on the manila envelope
told us it came all the way from Kentucky,
from a Trappist monastery called the Abbey of Gethsemane.
The envelope was thick,