Everything that the Father gives me will come to me,
and I will not reject anyone who comes to me
Jesus did not come with an agenda to welcome only a select few favorites or a group of elite initiates. We admire this in Jesus but in us we find that our own self-will does cause us to reject, or at least deprioritize, those who come to us. At a human level this is natural because our time and energy are limited, but it is not so with Jesus.
Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them (see Hebrews 7:25).
The more we learn to follow the example of Jesus, who came to do not his own will but that of the will of the one who sent him, the less we will find ourselves imposing limits on whom we will welcome and whom we will reject. Not only that, but when we strive to do the Father's will, we will find that we receive supernatural strength to do what would be humanly impossible. We see this in the supernatural love that the saints displayed toward the poor, the sick, and the outcasts.
And this is the will of the one who sent me,
that I should not lose anything of what he gave me,
but that I should raise it on the last day.
Jesus won't force us to come to him, and won't force us to remain with him. He respects our freedom too much for that. But if we do come to him and remain with him, or at least if we keep returning to him when we fall, then there is no force in the world that can prevent him from brining us home. If we commit ourselves entirely to him we are safe in his hands.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (see Romans 8:38-39).
The promise of Jesus to raise us to life on the last day is our assurance that even if we die still in need of purification that he himself will bring it about. If our union with him through a death like his is not yet complete the fire of his love will nevertheless transform us, finishing the crucifixion or our old self, so that we may be united with him in the resurrection. To us, from our limited human perspective, it may seem that this final transformation is as if "before men, indeed, they be punished" but we know that they are being perfected like "gold in the furnace".
We know that in Christ we are members of one body, connected not only to the Church on earth, but also the Church Triumphant in heaven and the Church Suffering in Purgatory. This is why we can enrich one another through our union in Christ by sharing spiritual goods. And the good of the prayers of those whose perfection was aided by our own prayers can become for us a great asset as we too strive for the holiness without which no one will see God (see Hebrews 12:14).
We need not content ourselves with aiming for purgatory. For if that is our goal and if we miss there is no fallback plan. Rather, we should strive for our own transformation to be here and now. Jesus himself, through the power of his resurrection, ensures that this is possible. The saints prove the amazing extent to which this purification can be realized in this life. Their only secret was that they did not cease to cling to Jesus who himself promised not to let go, and to accomplish this work in them.
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