PaddlingPadre

Strive to enter through the narrow gate, says our Lord, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. A lack of strength – that is what condemns one to the outer darkness, according to this parable. Not a failure to recognize the way to salvation – those who enter into the feast as well as those who are denied entry both recognize where the kingdom of God is to be found – but the latter, though they recognize the feast, have proved too weak to share in it. Of them, I think, our Lord speaks in another parable:

Some seed was sown on rocky ground, and this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a little while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. And then some seed was sown among thorns, and this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing.

Salvation, in other words, does not consist in responding to the message of the gospel only for a single moment, and even less does it consist in a mere intellectual assent to the lordship of Christ and the truths of the faith. Rather, salvation consists in being configured to Christ, in persevering in the race and staying strong in the face trouble and persecution, in resisting and rejecting the allures of the world that would lead us astray. This is the path through the narrow gate, and, as our present gospel teaches, to pass through it requires strength.

 And so what is this strength, and where does it come from? Certainly it is not our own strength, and it does not come from us. Pelagianism is a heresy, after all. Rather the strength to pass through the narrow gate, to enter into the kingdom of heaven and persevere in attaining our salvation, comes from Christ himself. For if the end towards which we are making is to become ourselves like Christ, then this can only be possible because Christ himself will transform us with his grace, grace that is poured out on us in the manner in which Christ has chosen to bestow it: namely, through the Church, which continues and perpetuates Christ’s saving ministry through history.

 This is not, however, a simply passive process, but is instead a receptive one. True, we cannot conjure up grace for ourselves, but neither will Jesus force grace upon us. If we do not will to receive him, if we do not will that we should be transformed through his work in the Church, if we prefer to him the allures of the world or if we abandon him in the face of suffering, then he will let us go our chosen way, to our ruin.

But if we do desire to be transformed, to be configured to Christ, then what will that look like, concretely? Generally speaking, it will involve submitting ourselves to discipline. For whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every sone he acknowledges. So do not disdain the discipline of the Lord, nor lose heart when reproved by him. And what is the discipline of the Lord? Is it not the rules and precepts of the Church? For just as God is our Father, the Church is our mother, and to nourish us in our faith she does not leave us to find our own way, but instead acts as our trainer, helping us to put on Christ and put away sin, through Christ who works in and through the Church.

Thus, as the catechism teaches, “the precepts of the Church are set in the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life. The obligatory character of these positive laws decreed by the pastoral authorities is meant to guarantee to the faithful the indispensable minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth in love of God and neighbor.” They are:

You shall attend mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation.

You shall confess your sins at least once a year.

You shall humbly receive your Creator in Holy Communion at least during the Easter season.

You shall observe the prescribed days of fasting and abstinence.

And you shall, according to your ability, provide for the material needs of the Church.

These precepts are not, of course, magic in themselves, as if one merely had to do these things to guarantee personal holiness. But they, rather like how a coach might give an athlete a training plan in preparation for a race, are a good means for exercising ourselves in those Christian virtues that do make for holiness. For if we are to learn to love as Christ calls us to, then it is quite beneficial for us to be called out from ourselves by an authority that has been put over us precisely for the sake of training us, with the help of grace, to better love God and neighbor.

But if we are to undergo this training, then we must be prepared to encounter pain. For what training is there that is not painful? If you want to run a marathon, for instance (and I can attest to this), the training runs that you put in to prepare for race day will involve a certain amount of pain. Or if you are studying for something or working on developing a new skill, then you will doubtlessly encounter periods of difficulty and drudgery, where frustration seeps in, or else weariness takes over and you are tempted to close the book or give up the effort. For it is a general truth that virtue in anything is gained by discipline, and that all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.

And how much more will this be the case for we who seek to attain to salvation? For truly our very hearts must be remade for this. Our hearts of stone must be taken from us and transformed into hearts of flesh! So much that we now love we must learn not to love, and so much that we do not yet love as we ought we must learn to love most deeply. In other words, the discipline that will strengthen us to travel upon the narrow way will involve nothing less than dying to our old selves and being born anew, of taking up our crosses and being crucified with Christ so that we might share in his resurrection.

 And so, when you encounter difficulty along the way, when you come up against that friction that is a sure sign of fruitful training, remembering the greatness towards which you journey, so that you may strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees, making straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed, so that you might have the joy, in the end, of reclining at table in the kingdom of God.