21st Sunday - Narrow Gate

 

 In St. Luke’s Gospel for today, Jesus walked through towns and villages-- teaching as He went. In one village someone asked Him, “Lord will only a few people be saved?” He answered and said, “Strive to enter the narrow gate, for many I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” Jesus explains more about the wide and narrow paths in the Gospel of Matthew. He said, “For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who enter that way. How narrow the gate and close the way that leads to life. And few there are who find it.”

When those who said, “Lord, open the door for us.”, why did Jesus say, “I do not know where you are from.” And they respond saying, “We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.” But Jesus said to them, “Depart from me, you evil doers. And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

Here Our Lord is talking about those who will not be permitted to go to heaven. Even though they listened to what Jesus said and ate with Him, they will be excluded from the kingdom of heaven and will be sent to hell. In another words, they are calling themselves followers of Jesus, but in fact are not true disciples because they refused to follow the narrow path, that leads to the narrow gate. So what is the narrow gate Jesus is referring to?

In the Baltimore Catechism the first lesson is entitled “The Purpose of Man’s Existence”. In the catechism it shows a picture which describes the narrow way and the wide way. In the center of the picture is a post with signs pointing to either the narrow path or the wide path.

A father, mother and child are walking down the narrow path, in which the sign pointing says, “Love of God”. Other signs attached to the post point in the other direction toward the wide path that leads to hell. It reads,” Love of Riches, Love of Pleasure, Love of Fame and Love of Power”. The wide path shows a man with bag of money and a woman looking with vanity in a mirror. At the end of the path is the wide gate and people are walking into the fires of hell.

On the narrow path that leads to heaven is the word “Happiness”, while the path that leads down the wide road says, “Unhappiness.” In the picture we can see Jesus standing with arms outstretched as though trying to encourage those headed down the pathway of hell to come back to the pathway of heaven.

The Baltimore Catechism states, “In reality, most people act as if they were made for these things rather than to love God.” It states, “Listening to these false teachers and imitating their actions will only lead to unhappiness and the loss of heaven.”

The questions in the Baltimore Catechism ask, “Why were we made? and What must we do to gain the happiness of heaven?” The answer is “To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love, and serve God in this world.”

All of us know that the false happiness we get with riches, fame, power, and pleasure are only fleeting and leaves our heart saddened. But when we strive to know God, by reading about Him in scripture, trying to imitate Him, and getting to know Him in prayer----when we strive to love God, by turning away from sin and false pleasures, and attempting to do His will our daily life--- and when we strive to serve God, by loving others, through good deeds, assisting the poor, doing things for the Church, we walk down that narrow path way to heaven.

We do God's will daily by being the best student we can at school. Doing our best in sports. Parents being good parents. Children doing what their parents ask of them. Being the best spouse, the best grandparent. To do our daily job as well as we can. And we do all of these things for love of God and our neighbor.

Our love for God is revealed in how we much we love our neighbor. The prayer of St. Francis-- shows us how to love our neighbor and how to walk down hat narrow pathway to heaven. It says, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness joy; O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying we are born to eternal life.”

Today, let us ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, She who is the Queen of Heaven, to give us the strength and the graces we need to follow that narrow path that leads to narrow gate of heaven.