You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to identify the direction Jesus is going in today’s gospel. In a very blunt language, He tells us that no one has a lock on heaven. Heaven isn’t a summer home you visit when the temperature in Oklahoma turns 112. Rather, it is an everlasting home and reward for faith and a lifetime of good hard work. Hence, Jesus speaks about the narrow gate of courage and striving, not of apathy.
We all need a re-introduction to the real Christ. We must stop living in a fantasy world in relation to Christ whom some consider a naïve easy-peasy guy, as depicted by modern motivational speakers, who claim to be preachers. Jesus is actually a no-nonsense man who tells it like it is. The gospel today reveals that his favorite sport wouldn’t be softball but hardball. Jesus invites us, like players at the Olympics, to be disciplined, to practice constantly, have a strong belief in our calling and great determination to win the prize.
Some Catholics often justify their faith life by speaking about their past accomplishments in the Church—how they went to Catholic school, attended religious education class, and served at a Pope’s Mass. Some years ago, at St. Pius X, someone walked into the office with a request to put her child in the school, arguing that the Church should pay for that, or give her the same subsidy given to Catholics who are in Church every week supporting the Church and the school. She prefaced her request with a summary of past Church involvements. When I asked where she attended Church, she told me she hadn’t been to Church for years, but that I should understand that she grew up in Brazil, which is 99 percent Catholic; attended Catholic school for nine years, was even confirmed, just that since 13 years, after her abusive marriage to some “Mr. Terrible,” she’d not been practicing. Does that storyline sound familiar? She hoped that her past deeds would get her by. [I sympathized with her, especially about the abusive marriage but reminded her that the marriage was her choice and not an imposition by the Church or anyone. She would have been enrage if she was told, during those years when the passions were running riot to discern properly before marrying the then “Mr. Adorable”].
Here we have an example of people who coast through life thinking their past is all that matters. Yet, one’s present relationship with God is the only true barometer for judging spiritual life. It matters whether you’re still walking that difficult road that leads to the narrow gate. If you’re not on that road, tell yourself the truth: you probably might be lost. You need to retrace your steps. Jesus wants you and me to consider the possibility that we might not be saved. One of the gentlest theologians of the Church, Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar put it this way: “It is indispensable that every individual Christian be confronted, in the greatest seriousness, with the possibility of his or her becoming lost.”
I do not in any way mean this to frighten us but to encourage us to keep rowing against the torrent and toward the narrow gate of heaven. Evil is all around us. It invites us to an immoral party, to an immoral life, to a life of hatred and dissipation. It tells us that plenty of people we know are at the party. It is easy to join them; but much harder to go a different direction. The different direction is the narrow gate of which Jesus speaks in today’s gospel. It is easier to go through the wide gate, to go along with the crowd, and there are many who’ll argue persuasively that it makes more sense to be like “everyone.”
The spiritual life, on the other hand, presents a different formula. Holiness calls us to be one of the few who reject the values of the crowd. Christian life is forever a task of being ahead of the crowd. As the great Oklahoman, Will Rogers, put it, “even if you think you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if all you do is just sit there.” Keep your gaze fixed on Christ.
Fr. Chukwudi Jo Okonkwo