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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.