Jesus is made available to all. If you knew a time and place where heaven was going to touch the earth like that, and you knew that anyone could come and touch and hold that heaven, touch and hold it forever, wouldn’t it be the most obvious act of generosity to point that out?

The ministry of the word is still keeping people busy. One large Catholic parish today is four or five times the size of the whole earliest Church. Evangelists for such parishes need to be people deeply immersed in the thought world of the Bible. They need to read it and talk about it daily, they need to apply it boldly and prudently

The barriers to Heaven in 21st century America aren’t on the outside, but on the inside. Jesus is tapping at the window, telling us not that the “times of refreshment” (3:19) are on the way, but that they have arrived, and the proof is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

We are in a thicket of paths, and only one leads to heaven. There is no “right for you, but not for me.” That path leads, little bit by little bit, to the diabolical confusion that is the aroma of our days.

Peter was declining to do the one thing the Church was created to do in the first place. “Don’t attack hell. We can feed people instead, we can heal people instead, we can cast out evil spirits and make people happy instead. People will love us for that. People will follow us for that.”

The difference between the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46) is not the sheep were virtuous, and the goats were villains, but that the sheep paid attention to where Jesus was, and the goats didn’t. The difference between the wise and foolish maidens was not that the foolish maidens didn’t know about the bridegroom, but that they came prepared only for the short game, not the long game.

You don’t have to be a villain to wind up in hell. You only have to miss the point. The point is that this world is not “about” this world, and your life is not about you. It is all about heaven. It is all about Jesus.

The Church is on offense. The Church has the ball. And who is attacking hell for the Church? People like the 72 are attacking hell – people who attend long readings of Holy Scripture, who read long swaths of it, who commit large swaths of it to memory, who think with it, speak with it, pray with it, people whose minds are full of the glory of God all day, every day, and find therefore that even demons are subject to them.

If there is a way out of hell, it begins with Jesus. It ends with Jesus, too.