No one comes to the Father except through me

When it comes to the salvation of the nonbeliever, some people – on different sides of the issue - have very simplistic opinions. On the one side, if you do not believe in Christ and receive baptism then you will certainly go to hell. On the other side, the power of God’s mercy overwhelms all obstacles and will certainly bring everyone into heaven.

Those who hold the latter view get nervous when they hear things such as what our Lord says at the end of today’s Gospel (John 14:1-6).

Jesus said to him,
“I am the way
and the truth
and the life.
No one comes to the Father
except through me.”

There is no salvation apart from Christ, yet we may not understand all of the ways in which God saves people through Christ and his Church, perhaps even ways invisible and unknown to us (and so, for example, we may have hope for unbaptized infants)

But this hope does not absolve us of our life-and-death responsibility to proclaim Christ and to bring all people into full and visible union with him through baptism. For one thing, we have been commanded to do this by Christ himself and we shirk this responsibility at the risk of our own salvation. For another thing, as the Catechism says (1257 – emphasis added)

'The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are "reborn of water and the Spirit." '

And so we must keep striving to make disciples of all nations, for our own sake and for theirs, so that we may all see the way of salvation in Christ and by his grace come at last to the many dwelling places Christ has prepared for us in the Father’s house.