Embrace the agony! (21st Sunday, Year C)

 To listen to this homily, click here.

One of the things priests get to do, one of my favorite parts of the job, is answer questions. People are curious about God, about the Church, and sometimes even about our life as clergy. I love going into classrooms, sitting with small groups that have been storing up questions, or hosting a “Bother the Father” session. You never know what people will ask, and you always walk away with a fresh perspective.

Often, when someone asks about the moral teaching of the Church, they’re hesitant to reveal their personal struggle. So the question will come out in terms of a “friend” who has a problem, or in a very detailed “theoretical” situation that doesn’t sound theoretical at all. It’s easier to keep things abstract. But things get real when they touch our own life, our own struggles.

That’s the background to today’s Gospel. Someone asks Jesus: “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” Instead of giving a number, Jesus makes it personal: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” The better question wasn’t “Will only a few be saved?” but rather “Lord, will I be saved?” That’s a much harder question because it requires honesty about my life, my choices, my heart and the stakes are eternal!

Jesus doesn’t soften the answer. He says it takes striving. The word He uses is strong; it comes from the same root as “agony.” In other words, getting through the narrow gate is not about giving God a polite effort or checking items off a religious to-do list. It requires struggle, perseverance, sacrifice. It demands our very best effort. At times, it will feel like agony; like one of those all-out workouts where you end up on the gym floor, unable to do another set.

But here’s the good news: even though our effort is necessary, it’s not enough on its own. We cannot earn heaven or deserve eternal life. It is God’s gift, received through grace in the sacraments, through prayer, through mercy and forgiveness. But this life-saving grace isn’t cheap. We must be willing to strive, to struggle, to let ourselves be stretched beyond what is comfortable and what we think is possible.

That’s where the challenge comes in for us today. We live in a world of comfort and convenience: food in abundance, climate control with the touch of a button, nearly anything we want arriving at our door in two days or less. Spiritually though, comfort is often the enemy of growth. God doesn’t ask us to seek out suffering for its own sake, but He does ask us to reject comfort as our guiding principle. We are shaped by adversity, but we are unmade by complacency.

So what does striving look like in our world of convenience? It looks like prayer when entertainment would be easier. It looks like fasting in a culture that tells us indulgence is harmless. It looks like sacrifice and charity in a society that urges us to look out for ourselves first. And each of us must do it personally. We can’t rely on the faith of our parents or the holiness of our spouse. We don’t get in shape by watching others exercise, and we won’t get into heaven by admiring other people’s holiness.

Finally, Jesus warns us that the Kingdom of God will surprise us. Some who are last will be first. Some who are first will be last. The invitation is wide, but the gate is narrow. Which means the real question is not “Will only a few be saved?” but “Am I willing to strive, to struggle, to sacrifice so that I may enter?” Salvation is not something we accomplish through one decision or action but something we must pursue every day that we are alive. Every choice we make is either moving us closer or further from that goal.

So perhaps the Gospel leaves us with some uncomfortable but necessary questions:

• Have I grown too comfortable in my faith?
• How often do I choose the easy way simply because it is convenient, rather than the narrow way because it is faithful?
• When was the last time my discipleship actually cost me something—my time, my comfort, my money, my pride? Is my default position to choose what is easiest and cheapest when it comes to God and his kingdom? Does God get the leftovers…if he gets anything at all?

In the end, the narrow gate is not found in convenience or through some hack passed on in social media. It is found in daily sacrifice, in choosing prayer over distraction, in putting others before ourselves, in persevering when it would be easier to give up and allowing ourselves to be pushed beyond where we are comfortable.

And so, each day, we wake up and tell the Lord: Today I will strive again. Today I will take one more step on the narrow way.

Called to Be Faithful, Not Successful (20th Sunday, Year C)

 To listen to this homily, click here.

One of the remarkable things in the world of sports is the long list of greatest athletes who excelled in their discipline, dominated their position, but never won a championship. Some examples are Dan Marino in football, Joe Thornton in hockey, Charles Barkley in basketball, or Ken Griffey Jr. in baseball. These are household names, people who dedicated their lives to their craft, who were the very best at what they did, and yet they never held that trophy at the end of the season.

It reminds us of something we don’t always like to admit: you can be excellent, faithful, dedicated, and still not finish in first place.

Which would accurately describe the prophet Jeremiah in our first reading. He was one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament. He was consecrated by God, called before he was even born, to speak the word of the Lord. He poured himself into that vocation. But if you measure his life by outward success, Jeremiah comes up short. He never won over the crowds. He wasn’t celebrated or honored by his people. In fact, he was rejected, mocked, persecuted, even thrown into a cistern to die. By worldly standards, his mission looked like failure.

And yet, Jeremiah was faithful. He did what God asked him to do. He spoke the truth. He lived the mission entrusted to him. Although the world never crowned him with success or embraced his teaching, Jeremiah’s words planted the seeds of conversion in God’s people, his faithfulness advanced salvation history, and his life was vindicated by Lord.

That is an important reminder for us, because so often we are tempted to measure our discipleship, our lives of faith, by the world’s scoreboard. We ask ourselves: Am I “successful” at this? Do people like me? Is it paying off? Am I being rewarded?

And perhaps one of the strongest temptations is to think that if everyone is happy with us, then we must be doing something right. We tell ourselves that being a Christian means “getting along” with everyone, never rocking the boat, never saying or doing anything that might cause tension. But Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel that following Him will sometimes bring division. His truth doesn’t always fit neatly into the world’s comfort zones. The fire He came to cast on the earth purifies and transforms, but it also unsettles.

So, if our main goal is to be popular, to be everyone’s buddy, we may miss the very mission God has entrusted to us. True faithfulness will sometimes mean standing apart, speaking up, or living differently.

This is not to say that we should go around picking fights or stoking controversy. Jesus is not glorifying a contrarian mindset or suggesting that conflict proves we are on the right track. For example, Jeremiah himself became discouraged at times by the resistance he faced and asked God if he was the right person for the job. He did not enjoy the rejection of his message and neither should we. But prospect of pushback and persecution did not prevent Jeremiah or Jesus from boldly proclaiming the truth. 

Which offers us a chance to reconsider our criteria for success when it comes to discipleship. It cannot be measured in popularity, recognition, or worldly achievement. True success is doing the will of God: defending truth when it’s challenged, speaking out when we see something wrong, and living the unique plan God created for each of us. That’s what makes a life holy. That’s what makes a life fruitful.

The Letter to the Hebrews gives us powerful encouragement. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses; saintly men and women who have run this race before us. They know the cost of faithfulness. They know what it means to endure rejection, hardship, and even apparent failure. And now, from their place in heaven, they cheer us on like a hometown crowd in a packed stadium. They urge us to power past every obstacle, to persevere, and to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who is both the goal and the prize of the race we run.

The world may not always recognize or celebrate that kind of life. But God sees. God knows. And in His time, our faithfulness will be vindicated.

Think again of Jeremiah at the bottom of that cistern: sunk in the mud, abandoned, left for dead. From the outside, it looked like the end of the line, the failure of his mission. And yet God raised him up. God lifted him out. What looked like defeat somehow became a witness to God’s saving power. That is our hope too. When we feel stuck, when the mud of discouragement or failure clings to us, we can remember that we are not alone… the saints are cheering us on, Christ is with us, and we can trust that God will raise us up. Not because we were “successful” in the world’s eyes, but because we were faithful in His.