The Narrow Gate

Have you ever wondered what question you might ask God in heaven? Many of us have probably thought that over in our minds: “Why did you have to take Grandma when you did?” “Who killed JFK?” “Why did you allow evil in the world?” “What was the purpose exactly of creating mosquitoes?”

Our Gospel today presents a version of that. People were beginning to be convinced that Jesus was close to God, even somehow God himself. He knew things and could do things like no one they had ever heard of. And so they begin to ask him things that no ordinary man could answer. Thus the question that the anonymous person asks Jesus – “Will only a few people be saved?”

It seems like a good question. It’s a question about heaven, and it cuts right to the heart of the matter – how many are going to make it? A number of years ago I read a book by Bishop Robert Barron, the popular Catholic author and speaker who established the Word on Fire ministry. He made an interesting observation about this passage. This question and ones related to it – will I make it to heaven? – are ones that tended to dominate the faith of previous generations of Catholics. Think of your parents’ or grandparents’ generation. They knew the different kinds of sins and were scrupulous about avoiding the serious ones. They heard a lot about God’s judgment and the eternal consequences of our actions. The whole focus of religion for many was about the fear of avoiding hell, and this led to a strictness and, for some, even a paranoia in the way they lived their faith.

As Bishop Barron notes, things have changed in the last 50 years or so. Many Catholics don’t think so much about whether they will make it to heaven – it’s assumed that we all will. Why is this? For one, we focus much more now on God as a merciful God, “God as Love” and the promises he has made to us in Jesus. Not that these things are wrong – they are what we should focus on. But whereas previous generations of Catholics were at times paranoid about whether they would make it to heaven, we have sometimes become too presumptuous that we will. If we assume that eternal life is essentially a given, that virtually everyone makes it to heaven at the end, then why should we bother with spiritual growth? Why not turn our attentions and energies to things like getting a good education, getting ahead in a career, making more money, etc.?

Neither attitude is ideal, neither the strict fearfulness of past generations nor the lax presumptuousness common today. But I think Bishop Barron is right that perhaps the latter attitude is far more dangerous. We believe in God’s mercy, but we also make a dangerous mistake if we fall into the trap of thinking how we live now doesn’t make too much of a difference, that nearly all of us are going to make it to eternal life. As we hear in the Gospel today, that idea just doesn’t fit with what Jesus says. Note that Jesus doesn’t give an answer to “how many?” – he doesn’t give a number or a percentage. Rather he turns his attention to the person asking the question. In a way, this is the most compassionate answer he could give. He doesn’t say, “Only a few” or “Not many.” That would leave many to lose hope and just stop trying. He also doesn’t say what would please the secular mindset that so often creeps into our consciousness – “Oh, don’t worry, you’re safe” or “Nearly everyone is going to get there, including yourself, so do what you like.” Rather, Jesus says, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” 

Cornelis de Bie, The Narrow Gate to Heaven and the Wide Gate to Hell (c. 1660)

Why is it that the gate is narrow, that the road is hard? The reason is not that God is overly harsh but because they are modeled on Jesus himself, who is the antithesis of the easy, broad way. As the author of the Letter to the Hebrews says, if we wish to have eternal life with Jesus, then we must expect that we will be suffer as he suffered, that we will be encounter difficulty and even rejection on the part of the world because of him. The way to salvation is the way of the Cross, because only the Cross leads to eternal life. “Many,” as Jesus says, will attempt this narrow way but will not be strong enough. To be strong enough, we have to turn our attention each and every day to what our relationship with him is like now. We don’t want to become paranoid or fearful of not making it to heaven, like some in past generations were. But we also don’t want to presume anything either – as Jesus says, many who thought that they knew him, who ate and drank with him, who heard his teaching, will be told, “I don’t know you.” Jesus recognizes his own – not those who seemed to be his disciples, who appeared to live good lives, but those who truly did so, who really strove continuously to become Christ-like in this life.

God desires the salvation of all; as the first reading from Isaiah tells us, many will come from the north and the south and the east and the west to enjoy the banquet of God’s kingdom. But eternal life is not like a football game or an exclusive club – you don’t get in just because you have the right ticket. Instead, it’s much more like being an Olympian, allowing ourselves to be shaped and molded through trial and effort and hard work to become another Christ in the world.

Friends, we all have that one question that we want to ask some day of God. But let’s not forget that to get to heaven, we will need to ask – and answer – some questions too. Instead of “How many will be saved?”, the right questions are questions we must ask of ourselves: “Do I know Jesus? Does he know me? How does my life reflect my faith, and how can I be more like him?” It’s those questions, and those answers, that lead us to true relationship, that give us the necessary strength to become Christ-like in the here and now, that pave the way to the heavenly banquet. The gate to heaven may be narrow, but that’s because it’s precisely the size and shape of Jesus himself; to enter it, we have to become like him. Let us then not be worried or presumptuous, but instead focus on the Lord – striving to know him, to be known by him, and to be like him in every way.

Ruffling Feathers

A bishop went to visit a church in his diocese. Only a half dozen people turned up to hear him preach. Disappointed, he asked the pastor, “Did you tell people I was coming to visit?” “No,” said the pastor, “but word seems to have got around anyway.”

It can be pretty hard at times to be a preacher. You have to be interesting and engaging, and that’s difficult to do all the time. You need to have something to say, and I know we’ve all heard our fair share of sermons that seem to be made up as they go along. But the preacher also faces a more subtle danger as well: the temptation to give into being well-liked, to saying only what people want to hear and never what they don’t. But any preacher worth his salt knows that at times, in order to be faithful to God’s Word, it’s necessary to ruffle people’s feathers a bit.

In the Gospel today, Jesus is not afraid to ruffle some feathers. Even today, his words might offend our sensibilities: the idea of bringing division rather than peace, about setting a fire blazing, about pitting family members against one another. It all sounds rather… well, un-Christian! What could Jesus possibly mean? I think Jesus intentionally wants his words to have a shock value, because he wants his listeners – both then and now – to understand that he is not interested in saying only what we want to hear. A preacher might be tempted at times to stray from speaking the truth in order to placate his listeners, but Jesus won’t do that. He is God’s Word himself, the Word Made Flesh, and so he must be faithful to speaking exactly what is true and necessary for us to hear, even if it is hard to do so.

Yequiang Wang, Igniting (2016)

But Jesus is also doing something more than just clarifying expectations. He’s also saying something fundamental about the way things are – about the “status quo” of ourselves and our world: things must change, and they must change in a radical way. We all know various family situations in which complacency has created chaos: think of a parent who has given into a child’s demands so often that they have become spoiled, or a married couple who has avoided discussing their disagreements that they have become isolated and non-communicating. In those kinds of situations, a small fix usually doesn’t work. What’s needed instead is a total overhaul of that relationship – a complete reordering of the flawed dynamic.

Jesus’s shocking words signal that much the same thing needs to happen in the human family. As the children of God we have strayed so far off course from what the Father intended that small fixes here and there simply aren’t going to be enough. What’s needed instead is a total reordering of how human beings relate to each other – how our relationships are governed and structured, about how we come to understand what is in the interest of the individual and the whole.

This kind of revolutionary talk is not that uncommon today: we hear it a lot in our politics, in discussions about justice and power, even in family contexts. But here’s the thing: our own efforts at reordering and remaking are flawed, because we are flawed. We know too well what happens when someone decides they know how to tear down the status quo and build something new: at best, we end up with disappointment and disillusionment, and at worst, we have shocking violence, bigotry, factionalism, and various other human forms of division. What Jesus declares in the Gospel today is that it must be God who dictates how we need to change. We need to be reordered, not in the way that we think best but how he does. And as God’s children, the way he desires us to change is to become more like his Divine Son. Jesus doesn’t just diagnose what ails us; he himself is the cure, as well – as God’s Word, he communicates himself to us as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

But how does Jesus continue to speak to us today? Well, here’s the answer that may not make me very popular: through the Church. Now, I totally understand how that sounds – that in this era of the clergy abuse crisis, of weak pastors, of boring bishops, and of Church scandals of every kind in the news every week, it seems like a ridiculous thing to say that what we need is to trust in the Church. But I wouldn’t be doing my job preaching God’s word if I shied away from saying what is true simply because it isn’t popular right now.

And friends, I believe it is true! The Church certainly has its flaws in its human elements, in particular individuals and structures that make up how the Church is governed. Through those actors, we have seen all too clearly and painfully how the Church can cause harm. But the Church is not just a human reality; it is a divine reality as well, which is why we can never dismiss it completely – indeed why we have to always come back to it despite the sins and offenses of its human elements. We believe that the Church is the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, and so she speaks with the authority of Jesus himself. It is in the Church that we continue to encounter Christ, his Word and Presence, learning how to love what he loves, to value what he values, to prioritize what he prioritizes, to be remade in the way God desires.

Friends, if it is hard to be a preacher, it can be hard at times also to be the one being preached to, to be challenged and critiqued. But the truth is sometimes we do need to have our feathers ruffled a bit, we do need to have our sensibilities shocked. Why? Because our spiritual and moral complacency has created chaos, and we need renewal. Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and have it in abundance (Jn 10:10). When we listen to the Church, not just to one priest or bishop or popular speaker, but to the Church as a whole, we hear the voice of Christ still speaking to us – perhaps saying something unpopular, something we’d prefer not to hear, but saying something true and necessary and ultimately good, if we are open to it.

May this Eucharist we are about to celebrate help us to accept where the Lord is calling us to be transformed and to let his fire bring renewal in the way he desires it.

Prized Possessions: Vigil of the Assumption of Mary

Do you have a prized possession? Perhaps your grandmother’s china, or a trophy from your Little League days, or perhaps a favorite family heirloom? We all have certain things that are priceless to us, that we put in honored places in our homes.

In today’s first reading (vigil Mass), we hear how King David brings the Ark of the Covenant into the royal city of Jerusalem. The Ark was the most prized possession of the Israelites; it was the tabernacle that housed God’s very presence. Although they treasured it above all else, they had lost it – it had fallen into the hands of the Philistines, Israel’s mortal enemies. When David became king, he launched a campaign to bring the Ark out of captivity, and to defeat the Philistines, along with all of the rest of Israel’s foes. Today’s story is the conclusion of that saga – having established his kingdom, David reclaims Israel’s most prized possession and enshrines it in Jerusalem.

David Bearing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem (c. 1665) by Domenico Gargiulo (Micco Spadaro)

That story very closely parallels the feast that we are celebrating today. We believe that, at the close of her life, Mary was brought body and soul by God into heaven. As Catholics, we describe Mary as “the Ark of the New Covenant,” because it was in her very body that she bore Jesus, the Son of God. Because of that great honor, because of that holy grace, Mary was rescued from the hands of mankind’s mortal enemy, death and decay, and enshrined into the heavenly kingdom.

What does this feast mean for you and me? In Mary, we can see how God has brought humanity out of captivity to sin and death, and through her, we already have an enshrined place in heaven. Like Mary, we are called to bear the presence of Christ within ourselves, not physically as she did but spiritually and sacramentally, through the grace of the Eucharist. If we do so faithfully – if we observe God’s word and carry it out, as Mary did – then Mary’s Son, the new David, will do the same thing for us that he did for his Blessed Mother – he will reclaim us as his most prized possession and raise us to heavenly glory, one day uniting our immortal souls with new and glorified bodies.

Brothers and sisters, in God’s eyes, each of us is a prized possession, and he has created us not for death and decay but to take an honored place in his heavenly abode. Let’s pray for the intercession of our Blessed Mother this day, that we may see in her the deep and abiding love that God has for all of us, his beloved children, and let’s ask her Son Jesus to help us to hear and observe God’s holy word, so that we can take our place in his kingdom.

The Master's Arrival

Last night, after the vigil Mass, I attended the "Taste of Faith" banquet in Little Rock. Perhaps some of you have heard of it? Our diocese hosts this dinner each year to help Catholics from around our state get to know better our seminarians studying for the priesthood and raise money for their studies. I know that the parish in Slovak has a group that normally attends, and I hope our parish will be able to participate in the future as well.

When one attends a banquet, it’s good manners of course to not just show up unannounced. The difference between being welcome and unwelcome is whether those who are preparing know that you are coming! In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives a parable in which he describes two kinds of visitors: one who is welcome but long delayed in coming, and another who is very much unwelcome. These images are meant to represent the kingdom of God, continuing the theme of last week’s Gospel: rather than focus on the passing things of this world, it’s better to focus on the final reality of God’s kingdom, building up spiritual treasure there. But this week, there’s a new wrinkle – Jesus teaches that we cannot know the exact moment when God’s kingdom will come. Instead, we have to remain ever vigilant.

Let’s take a closer look at the two images that describe the coming of the kingdom. The first is that of the joyful return of a Master to his house, who finds his servants prepared for his arrival despite the fact that he is long delayed. Notice that Jesus says the Master was returning from a wedding. Because, wedding celebrations in the ancient world lasted for several days, maybe even a week or more, there would be no telling exactly when the Master might return. Thus, the servants had to be ready at any time. Because travel in the ancient world was difficult – it might take several days to reach one’s destination – the servants are prepared for whatever the Master might need following his long journey. But as we heard, in the kingdom of God, the Master does something unexpected – he has the servants sit at table and he proceeds to wait upon them. They had prepared for their Master and waited eagerly for his return, and now they are rewarded by taking their place at the banquet of his kingdom.

The second image Jesus uses is more alarming. He says the kingdom of God will come like a thief in the night who catches the master of the house unaware. It might seem as if this image is totally unconnected to the first image: instead of a Master arriving home to his servants, a thief is coming to break into the master’s house. However, in the longer version of this parable (Lk 12:32-48), one can see that these images are connected. The thief who breaks into the master’s house is really the Master himself, who has returned to take back the house from the malicious servants who have begun acting as if they are the master. Unlike the faithful servants awaiting the Master’s return, the wicked servants are punished, and some of them are thrown out of the house into the darkness outside.

Evert Jan Boks, The Surprise of the Master's Unexpected Arrival (1896)

If these two images – the Master of the house and the thief in the night – feel a little complicated, the last line of today’s Gospel sums up the point: “At an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Throughout the Gospels, whenever Jesus refers to the “Son of Man”, he’s referring to himself in his divine mission, the role for which he was sent into the world. It’s clear then that the kingdom of God is not an abstract, esoteric concept. What we are talking about is the return of Jesus himself! How we await him, how we prepare for him makes all the difference between whether his arrival will be welcome or unwelcome for us.

Sometimes the Lord’s return can seem long delayed, especially when we look at the disorder and dysfunction in our world. Perhaps we think, “What are you waiting for, Jesus? Come back, Lord, and save your people!” But just as quickly, we should also then think whether we are really living in a way that is ready for his coming. Are we prepared for his return? Have we attended to our disorder and dysfunction on the inside, making sure to have our lamps lit by his grace? Or have we grown drowsy and inattentive, sinful and slothful? Have we perhaps allowed ourselves even to think that maybe the Lord is not coming, at least not now, not until some long distant day. And when we have begun to think that, then perhaps we have decided also to take up his place as master of our own affairs, doing what we think is best rather than what he has commanded? If we are honest with ourselves, I think that most of us would say that if Jesus returned this very minute, we would be a little caught off guard – there would be at least a few things we wished we had done, a few more preparations we had made. The Lord seemingly delays, but it may well be he does so out of mercy, hoping that we will at last attend to what we need to before he arrives.

Friends, today’s Gospel asks us this question: Who is the master of your house; who is the lord of your life? If it’s yourself, then there’s a not insignificant chance that you may be unprepared when the Lord does come for you. It’s a terrible feeling to be unready for a visitor, wishing desperately that you had had more time to make ready, especially when it is the Lord who is arriving. Even worse is to not be expecting him at all, so that his arrival is unwelcome, like that of a thief. If you do say that Jesus is your Master, then be sure you are truly living that way, not just in words but in action.  Make preparations now and remain vigilant for his arrival, so that the kingdom of God will be for you not a break-in by force but a joyful and expected banquet. For “at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

Seek What Is Above

Some people naturally take an optimistic view of life, and some people a pessimistic one. There’s an old joke that perhaps you’ve heard before. An optimist and a pessimist meet up for coffee. The pessimist says, “Things just can’t get any worse for me!” The optimist says, “Oh, come on – sure they can!”

In today’s first reading, we hear from someone who might easily be described as a pessimist. The Book of Ecclesiastes sums up the wisdom of Qoheleth, a mysterious figure who seems to have been something of a philosopher or sage living four or five hundred years before the time of Christ. Qoheleth takes a rather dim view about a lot of the ways we human try to find lasting happiness, and in today’s passage he describes how earthly riches are not the answer. Those who strive for earthly riches, he says, end up deluding themselves: their labors only cause anxiety and worry, and even if they do attain wealth, they will have to pass it on at the end of their life to someone else who didn’t work for it. Qoheleth sums up his gloomy outlook with the famous words: “All things are vanity!”

In the Gospel, Jesus gives a parable with much the same point. It’s foolish enterprise to place our hopes in earthly pleasures and pursuits, because they will pass away; even more, so will we someday, perhaps without warning. Like the man in Jesus’s parable, it might be tomorrow or even this very night that our life will be demanded of us and we will have to give an account for our time on this earth. How foolish, therefore, to spend the limited span of one’s life seeking earthly comfort and security, since those things are fleeting. “All things are vanity!” 

James Tissot, The Man Who Hoards (c. 1892)

Of course, not much has changed since Jesus’s day. We still pay a lot of attention to material things in today’s world. We may not think about the size of our barns, but we do watch the stock market, track commodity prices, try to maximize investment returns, and spend time and effort managing college savings funds, and health care packages, and retirement plans, and much more. The pragmatic voice inside of us says it would be foolish to ignore the fact that money is what seems to make the world go around. And yet we also know implicitly what today’s readings tell us: that trying to find happiness in material things is a losing game. What are we to do?

Obviously, we can’t avoid material things entirely; neither Qoheleth nor Jesus is advising us to try to do that. But the point of today’s readings is that our end goal should be something much higher. As human beings created in God’s image and likeness, our mortal lives are a preparation for eternity, one way or the other. Material things can’t be the key to happiness for a very straightforward reason: when we die, we don’t take them with us. What we need to accumulate is wealth of a different kind, something that will benefit us beyond death.

St. Paul has some good advice for us in that regard in today’s second reading. He tells the Colossians: “Seek what is above, where Christ is seated at God’s right hand.” In a sense, Paul is providing a response to Qoheleth’s “All things are vanity!” Material things pass away, true, but what will not pass away is the Resurrection of Jesus. His life, his kingdom is the final reality, the only thing in the end that will endure. Ultimately, then we must strive to be a part of that reality; we should be seeking above all else to store up our treasure there. The kingdom of God is counter-intuitive to the logic of this world. Greed, ambition, impurity, passion – the very things that define people who are successful by the world’s standard – those things don’t get you anywhere in God’s eyes. Thus, St. Paul says we should “put to death” those earthly desires and goals where they are present in ourselves. We have to be single-minded in setting our sights on our goal of the heavenly kingdom, determined not to let anything lower, anything earthly take its place.

If you feel as if you have heard all of this before, you probably have. But the Church keeps giving us these lessons to ponder, and this encouragement to seek what is above, because earthly things remain such a tempting distraction. St. Basil the Great, a monk and bishop of the fourth century, once preached to his congregation: “You are going to leave your money behind you here whether you wish to or not. On the other hand, you will take with you to the Lord the honor that you have won through good works. In the presence of the universal Judge, all the people will surround you, acclaim you as a public benefactor, and tell of your generosity and kindness.” 

What a powerful image! St. Basil says that when we meet God at the end of our lives, we will present to him not our earthly possessions but all of the people for whom we have done good works: the poor whose need we met, the sinners to whom we showed mercy, the disagreeable to whom we were kind, the downtrodden whom we encouraged by prayer and example. That’s the kind of treasure we should be seeking: to serve God and those around us. The way in which we use our material blessings indicates whether we are trying to do that – whether as individuals, as family, or even as a Church. But just as important is examining our own hearts. You don’t have to necessarily be rich to fall victim to greed in the heart, to letting material goals and concerns blind you from seeking your heavenly homeland.

Friends, in the end, not everything is vanity, not if we seek what is above. True wisdom is attained not by the pessimist nor the optimist but by the person who understands how to use rightly the things of this world in order to attain the heavenly goal. Let’s reexamine our hearts this day to make sure we are taking heed of what Qoheleth, St. Paul, St. Basil, and indeed Jesus himself tell us: to seek the heavenly kingdom and make it our true goal. May we use the material blessings entrusted to us not in foolish ways but to build up spiritual treasure, so that one day, when we stand before our heavenly Father, the universal Judge, we may give him a full account of how we have used all that he gave us.