21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Bishop of Lake Charles
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
August 22, 2010
21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” Luke 13:24
The best teachers I ever had were the ones who challenged me to do more and to think in different ways. This I learned early on, in my earliest experiences in elementary school. One very early recollection involved history.
The teacher entered the classroom one day when I was in the sixth grade. The subject she introduced was Viet Nam. I found this puzzling, because we were not accustomed to being taught Asian history. As a matter of fact, I do not remember up until that point having been introduced to its before, but there we were, learning the geography, the culture and the history of a country completely foreign to me. I must say, the first question that came to my mind was, “Why are we doing this?” That was 1960.
Only later, as I entered high school, did I learn that we were at war in Viet Nam. Only in college did I see my classmates drafted or volunteering for military service in that war, the newspapers filled with reports of offensive and defensive actions and casualties. Then, I understood why my teachers six years before had taught me about Viet Nam. It was called education, and when you are a student, you trust that the teacher is challenging you in the right direction, that what you are learning will be of benefit in the future.
Our Lord presents us with a situation that is not that different in the Christian life. “Strive to enter through the narrow gate,” Jesus says in the Gospel (Luke 13:24). He says this in response to a question that we hear asked even in our day, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” (Luke 13:23). As a matter of fact, people even today are confused by that concept. Many think they are already saved. Others think that it doesn’t matter what you do, God will always save you anyway. Still others have despaired long ago into mediocrity. To all of these, Jesus says, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” He seems to be saying, “Don’t take the easy way in,” “Realize that to achieve a good end, you must be challenged.”
To illustrate this point, Jesus tells the parable of the master of a house who has locked the door and retired for the night. Suddenly there comes a knock at the door. When the master arises and goes to the door to see who it is, he looks out into the darkness and sees someone He doesn’t know. “I do not know where you are from,” He says (Luke 13:25).
It reminds me of those phone calls you get form someone you haven’t seen in years and maybe only met once or twice. They call and ask, “Remember me.” Frankly, we don’t. But you must, they continue, we met at so-and-so’s and spoke of such-and-such. “We ate and drank in your company, and you taught in our streets” (Luke 13:26).
I remember once being mistaken for someone else. The person met me at a wedding anniversary celebration. She carried on a familiar conversation, citing details and names, thanking me for having visited her mother when she was sick, until finally I realized she had mistaken me for another priest. Not wanting to embarrass her, I gently said, “I think you have me mistaken for Father so-and-so.” She paused a second, looked surprised, smiled, and said with a laugh, “Oh, Mama liked you too.”
Here the parable doesn’t end so pleasantly. Jesus ends with a condemnation for those He does not know. “Depart from me, all you evildoers” (Luke 13:27). They presumed too much. They thought they knew enough and probably took great delight in what they thought they knew, but they in fact did not know Him at all, and in not knowing Him, He did not recognize them. In fact, He did know them. He knew they made no effort to really know Him. “For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last” (Luke 13:30).
As Pope Benedict XVI has reminded us, we must develop a friendship with Jesus. With every friendship, we must have knowledge of the friend. This means we spend time with Him, we visit Him, we converse with Him. Only in this way do we get to know Him, and the more we know Him, the more we love Him. This is “in twenty-five words or loss” a description of the interior life we have with God.
This requires time, effort, and challenge. It demands faith, even the size of a mustard seed. And most of all, because of these demands, it is often a “narrow gate” that people do not enter because it means too much sacrifice on their part. I do not have to know everything. I am a creature, after all. What I know, however, must be essential, so essential that it reveals to me what God knows of me. It is not a question of my right to anything. It is a gift. It is a question of whether or not I am willing to sacrifice enough to know God. In getting to know Him, I come to know myself. Love encounters love, and the layers of ignorance and selfishness are stripped away. I am put in its place, and I come to “know fully as I am fully known” (I Corinthians 13:12).