Are there few who will be saved?

I always thought maybe not.

I just read something from Fr. Lasance that changed my mind.  I used to think 'few will be saved'.  Many deeply pious Traditionalists will say the same thing.  Many find that troubling, especially when they are told, 'there is no salvation outside the Church' and so on.  Rather than comment further, I'll share the section from Fr. Lasance I read last night. 

Father F.X. Lasance
On “The Number of the Saved”
My Prayer-Book (Cincinnati: Benziger 1908), 55-61.
11. The Saved and Lost

A certain man said to our blessed Saviour, as we read in the Gospel of St. Luke (xiii. 23): “Lord, are they few that are saved?” Jesus simply replied: “Strive to enter by the narrow gate.”

“It is a question,” says Father Walsh, S.J., in his admirable and consoling study, “ The Comparative Number of the Saved and Lost,” “about which there is no authoritative decision of the Church, nor unanimous opinion of her Fathers or theologians.

“Many, notably Suarez, hold — as Father Faber does — that the great majority of adult Catholics will be saved. Some, amongst whom we are glad to count the illustrious Dominican, Father Lacordaire, hold or incline to the opinion that the majority of mankind, including heathens and heretics, will be saved.

“Pere Monsabrè, O.P., Father Castelein, S.J., and Rev. Joseph Rickaby, S.J., advocate this mildest opinion. Father Rickaby says in his conference, ‘The Extension of Salvation’: ‘As to what proportion of men die in sanctifying grace, and what proportion in mortal sin, nothing is revealed, nothing is of faith, and nothing is really known to theologians. If ever you find a theologian confidently consigning the mass of human souls to eternal flames, be sure he is venturing beyond the bounds of Christian faith and of theological science. You are quite free to disbelieve his word. I do not believe it myself’.”

“‘The rigor of the older theologians culminated in Jansenism. To the Jansenist the elect were the few grapes left upon the vine after a careful vintage (Is. xxiv. 13). Since the extirpation of Jansenism, the pendulum of theological speculation has swung the other way, and theologians generally hope more of the mercy of God, or, at least, speak with less assurance of the range of His rigorous justice.’ 

“The reasons,” continues Father Walsh, “which have induced me to think the mildest opinion, namely, that the majority — and I scarcely fear to add, the great majority — of mankind will be saved, are: First, because the study of God’s character urges, if not forces, me to do so. Second, because this opinion appears to make most for His greater honor and glory, and for the merits of Christ. Third, because the belief in it is better calculated to make us love God, and to serve Him the more from love.

“Cardinal Bellarmine, in one of his expositions of the Psalms, writes: ‘David records God’s providence in regard of the beasts and the birds in order to let man see that he will never be forsaken by God in His providence. God, who so bounteously feeds beasts and ravens, will never desert those who are made to His own image and likeness.’ Is not such Our Lord’s reasoning and conclusions as we have them in His Sermon on the Mount: ‘Behold the birds of the air; for they neither sow nor do they reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are you not of much more value than they?’ The most learned theologians lay down and prove the following proposition: That God really and sincerely wishes the salvation of all men, because He is Creator of all men. In the words of St. Ambrose: ‘God wishes all whom He creates to be saved, would to God, O men, that you would not fly and hide yourselves from Him; but even if you do He seeks you, and does not wish you to perish. It is more probable that though many can and will fight God to the end and be lost, they will be fewer far than those whom He will tenderly, and in His own way, bring home to Himself. God is not only the Creator but the Father of all men without any exception. He has commanded us to address Him by this title: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven. All Christians do so; and a preacher, in his opening instructions, would teach and exhort the untutored savage to believe in and speak to Him as such.

“God is the Father of all men and eminently a perfect Father. We could not imagine such a father casting out, expelling from his home forever a child, until he had tried the proper means to keep him with himself — until the child deserts him, or, by willful, obstinate, persistent disobedience to his father’s will, necessitates his own expulsion. Such a father will do all he well can for the welfare of his children — do everything short of violence to enable his children to succeed in all that is for his own and their good. The dominant desire — wish — will — of such a father must be to make his children happy; his dominant dread and horror, that one of them should be unhappy. - Fr. Lasance

Morning after morning, I am reassured in prayer and meditation that the Holy Trinity dwells in my soul, and all is well.