That All Be Saved

One

Sully

Did you ever see the movie Sully? It’s about that airline pilot who had to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River. When you watch the movie, it’s really powerful how important it is to Sully to get everyone out of that plane before it sinks. He’s rushing all over even though his own safety is at risk, looking down every aisle, in every lavatory. People are telling him there’s nobody left on the plane, that he needs to leave, but he has to be sure. It’s not enough for him that he’s already saved so many people, or most of the people, or even almost all the people. He doesn’t want anyone to be lost. 

That, right there, is what the Scriptures tell us about the Lord. He doesn’t want anyone to be lost. 

Two

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Jesus famously calls Himself the Good Shepherd, and at one point He clarifies this by providing a startling illustration.

He says, “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if He finds it, amen, I say to you, He rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”

Listen to that!

God doesn’t play a percentages game. He doesn’t say, “Ninety-nine percent, that’s very respectable. That’s a definitive majority – it’s a clear win. I can cut my losses with that number, no problem.” He doesn’t sit satisfied with his ninety-nine. He rushes out to find that one, and when He finds it, He is thrilled.

St. Paul tells us that God desires that all be saved. He wants everyone of us, you, me, everyone we know, everyone we’ve heard of, everyone we’ve never heard of – He wants us all, each and every one of us in Heaven. He is searching for each of us, working to lead each of us back home.

Three

Rejoicing More Over the One Who Has Been Found Than the Ninety-Nine

Why does Jesus say that the shepherd will rejoice more over that one lost sheep than over the ninety-nine who haven’t strayed? Does that mean God loves converted sinners more than He loves those who have always been faithful to Him? That doesn’t sound right.

Maybe the point is this: God loves each one of us as an individual. And He rejoices over us as individuals, not just as some kind of aggregate.

A general may care about his “army” without really caring about any individual soldier. After all, he probably doesn’t know all the individual soldiers. What the general cares about is the total. How is the army doing as a whole. 

But when a mother cares about her children, she cares about Tommy, and Julie, and John and Sara. She cares about them individually, and when she cares about them she cares about them by name. If someone asks a mom, “How are your kids?” She doesn’t say, “Well, I don’t have any specifics, but right now I’d say the percentages are looking pretty good.” She says, “Well, Tommy’s doing well but pray for Sara, she’s having a hard time lately.”

She doesn’t think of them as a faceless crowd, she thinks of them individually as her children. Again, she cares about each of them by name.

Maybe this is what Jesus meant when He said that the shepherd rejoices more for the one lost sheep than at the other ninety-nine. He doesn’t say that the shepherd rejoiced more in the one lost sheep than in any of the other ninety-nine.  

Perhaps He’s making this beautiful point: it’s not so much the herd, the flock that gives the shepherd pleasure. What the shepherd loves is not having a total of ninety-nine sheep, or a hundred sheep. What the shepherd loves and delights in is each individual sheep. 

However many sheep there are, one, ninety-nine, one hundred, eight billion, the Shepherd delights in each individual one of them. And He will do whatever it takes to bring each of them back to the fold, where they will all be happy together.

Four

Consolation

So when we have people that we love, and they have strayed, this must be our consolation, our source of peace. After all, we care more about certain individuals, our kids, our siblings, our good friends, we have stronger feelings of love for them than perhaps we have for the rest of the world. 

Well, Jesus has those same feelings of love for them as we have. They are as unique, as precious, as valuable to Him as they are to us. They’re not a statistic to us, and they’re not a statistic to Him. And He has and He will move heaven and earth, come hell and high water, to find them, and save them. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting Gaudium et Spes, says, “Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, in a Paschal mystery.” (CCC #1260; GS 22.5).

What that means is that God is making every effort, including in ways of we have no awareness, to save the people we love. That should give us an enormous amount of consolation. The Good Shepherd is on the job. He can find the sheep that matters so much to us, and so much to Him.

Five

Resolution

But although God’s concern for all the lost sheep should give us consolation, it shouldn’t lead to complacency. On the contrary, God’s resolution to seek and save the lost should only inspire our resolution to seek and save the lost.

So how can you help your loved ones to heaven. Maybe you could nag the hell out of them? Maybe not…But how about committing yourself to never miss praying the Rosary every day because Our Lady said the Rosary will convert souls. 

Then build an Ark. What? Yes, build an Ark, a place of refuge for sinners. Build a place and time to invite family and friends regularly, habitually, weekly, monthly where you can give them hospitality and delight in them and invite them to pray the Rosary with you and then ask them what they were reflecting on and have some good conversations.

If you want them to be saved like Jesus wants them to be saved, then you gotta stop being a passive spectator. It’s time to get into the game and do your part. Because in the end we don’t want Jesus to say, “I did my part…what about you?”

Sully was a hero at the natural level. He did everything he could to save every single person. How much greater is the need for supernatural heroism, for every Christian to do everything we can to go out, with Christ, to try and save every single last lost sheep from the spiritual disaster that is separation from God?