What it means to strive for the narrow gate

August 24, 2025 – Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Isaiah 66:18-21; Psalm 117, R. Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.; Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13; Gospel – Luke 13: 22-30
Almost 25 years ago, my spiritual director, Fr. Benny Calpotura, S.J., told me that at that point in my life I had to choose whether I will enter the core of my relationship with Jesus or stay in the periphery. I remember that moment. Our conversation paused and warmth flowed throughout my body, from head to toe. It became clear to me that it was entering the Paschal Mystery, the Cross and Resurrection.
I think we all come to this point in our life when we need to make a choice. It’s what the Lord refers to in today’s Gospel as “striving to enter the narrow gate.”
The second point to consider is the denial of the master of the house to let people in after he locked the door. Then the last point is Jesus’ declaration, “For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
The choices that define us
The challenge of entering the core of our relationship with Jesus is made difficult by the thought of the need to embrace the Cross in making this choice.
Fr. Benny often told us during our formation years that the constant struggle—the tension that marks the life of one following Jesus—will come to a head in the Paschal Mystery.
It is in this mystery of the Cross and Resurrection where the struggles and tensions of extreme opposites—life and death, God’s forgiving love and man’s cruelty, hope and despair, redemption and damnation—and out of this comes our commitment to a creative tension.
This is why the Lord said “Many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” (cf. Luke 13: 22-30)
The struggle to enter and endure the creative tension requires courage. It requires trusting the Lord’s assurance, “Courage. It is I. Do not be afraid.” But the denial of the master of the house to let people in after he locked the door is a warning that we must guard against a sense of entitlement, which always makes us complacent, if not arrogant.
This also is a reminder that, in the end, accountability will be demanded of us. It is not so much an accountability of us being judged by an external power but of being measured against the choices we made.
At the heart of salvation
As the Lord consistently said, he came not to judge, but to save. He opened for us the path to salvation and ours is the choice to journey on this path which at a certain point brings us to the choice to enter the Paschal Mystery that lies at the heart of our salvation.
The final declaration of the Lord in today’s Gospel struck me as a double-edged sword.
To those who have less good fortune in this world, it is a comforting assurance of God’s justice and mercy. To those who have more in life now, it is fair warning. If we become inordinately attached to the comforts and pleasures of this world, this is what we will be judged with in the end.
In all this, the key lies in the choices we will make in our life, particularly the choice to enter the core of our relationship with Jesus.
It is a choice with no half measures, either we enter the core all the way or stay in the periphery. As it was in the Gospel, I believe in the periphery, too, is where there will be “wailing and grinding of teeth.”
The choice is for us to make.