the way to heaven is a narrow gate

Even when we were little children our mothers and grandmothers have already readied us to listen and to accept this gospel passage – the way to heaven is a narrow gate. It might be good to reiterate once more this passage now that we are older and more experienced.
First, the way to heaven is a narrow gate. This implies struggling with some difficulty. In fact Jesus would emphasize the word strive: strive to enter through he narrow gate. To strive means to do all we can and make every effort to go through it with all the means at our disposal to attain it. It entails effort. It entails sacrifices.
Experience for example has taught us by now that it is not easy to pray, much more to be consistent in prayer or even just to stay awake (as some of you must be experiencing right now), it will take some effort to be consistent, even just to be consistent in going to mass. It is not easy to be patient and it is not easy to persevere in our service more so if our efforts seem to produce no result and may even go unnoticed and unappreciated. Most often we will be tempted to give up. Even our personal struggles against personal sins may appear futile and it is only with difficulty that we begin our strivings anew whenever we falter and fall.


Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect - and yet experience tells us that the best we can ever hope for in this world is that kind of perfection which can only mean that one has no plans of giving up. It can only mean that we are climbing a mountain peak that can never be reached in this life. And it can only mean that the climbing will never stop until we die. He died climbing – that is the epitaph of one who is aware and has embraced that the way to heaven is a narrow gate.
Second, the way to heaven is a narrow gate. It implies that there is no finality in Christian life. We cannot relax, we cannot take things easy, and neither could we simply bunk on the guarantee that we are baptized. These are never guarantees to heaven. Like St. Paul we just have to work out our salvation “in fear and trembling.”
Life is a day to day decision – the way to heaven is a daily decision. We have learned from experience that it is not a decision made once and for all, but a daily utterance, a daily conviction. As a priest I have to reaffirm daily the decision I made during ordination 18 years ago, and I must admit that there are days when you just want to pack your bags, leave the seminary and call it quits. But silently, in the solitude of my room, I have to renew my vows to stick it out.
As married couples you have to say your “I dos” daily, not once and for all, but daily, and you must have already noticed by now that there are days when they are no longer uttered with the same excitement as when you uttered it the first time in your wedding day. There are occasions and events, in your relationship when the temptation to leave is real, when divorce becomes more than agreeable. But there and then you made the decision to stick it out no matter what. Indeed the way to heaven is a narrow gate and we are always in for a certain difficulty many, many times.
Thirdly, the way to heaven is a narrow gate. We cannot simply live on borrowed goodness. We have to do our own, make our own mark, bring in our own contribution to the cause of Jesus. Every age, every generation, every person builds on what was left behind. It is therefore important that we have an eye to whatever opportunity that lies before us so that we can do our part and be part of what is happening before us. The church, this chapel for example offers you a variety of call, a variety of invitations so that you can make your own personal contribution as you pass this world, a contribution we could not just leave to others. If the way to heaven is a narrow gate, a fence sitter who does nothing except to sit kag manglibak would have a much harder chance of reaching the other side of this life; and one who merely intends to sit it out and leave things to others, or to those churchy people, or to those who are willing, one day the door may be shut close on his face forever. The invitation to the banquet though far and wide is an invitation that cannot and will not remain open for all times, for the door may shut anytime and the shutting is eternal just as opportunity passes us by but once. Remember, there is a parable in the gospel which is called the parable of a shut door. A shut door is how Jesus describes hell.
Finally the way to heaven is a narrow gate. Though we struggle and strive, in the end all is dependent on the mercy and goodness of God. We can never be certain. We could only hope, we can only strive and struggle, we can only never to give up. We can only pray.
In the end everything is grace, not merited, and surely not something personally gained and earned. We may have done our best and given our all to God, yet these would not suffice to gain what can only be gained for us by Christ. For though heaven is a narrow gate, heaven is above all a gift from God.