Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:13-14, NABRE)
Entering through the narrow gate at the end is what most of us want, because it leads to the promise of eternal life and joy in the Lord. We hear the message that only a few will make it, but we’re pretty sure we will be among them, because we’ve been baptized and confirmed and we’re not homicidal maniacs and sadists or anything like that.
We look at lists like the one Gallup put together of Americans’ most admired people of the 20th century, a list that included the likes of Mother Teresa, John Paul II, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela. We know we’re not as good or holy as any of them, but it’s not like we’re Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot, so we feel pretty good about that.
But here’s the thing. Every one of those people, like us, had at least a rudimentary knowledge of what would be required to enter through the narrow gate: Love the Lord with all their being, and reflect that love in the way we interact with others and treat ourselves. Some did their best to meet their requirements; others, not so much. And every hour, every day, we find ourselves facing the same choices they did, albeit in less public ways:
- Do we kill the spirit in those around us with harshness and judgment, or do we feed it with love?
- Do we isolate ourselves from those who don’t look like, think like, or talk like us, or do we engage and help?
- Do we question why the Lord isn’t fixing our relationship, financial, or medical problems, or do we choose love and trust rather than bitterness and despair?
The choice is ours: the easy, wide road, or the one with all those restrictions that leads to life. Which will you choose?
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