The Narrow Gate

Strive to enter through the narrow gate.

One of the greatest gifts

that we have been given by God

is the gift of free will.

Free will is a double edged sword

because we have the freedom to do anything

and the Lord gives us this freedom.

We have the freedom to accept God and his way for life

and the freedom to reject God and his way for life

and that seems shocking at first.

No one would actually do that,

but we would be surprised how readily

we turn away from God and his ways in our lives.

Maybe not in massive ways,

but small ways that accumulate

to maybe greater than we sometimes think.

This exercise of free will comes with consequences.

In other words, when we choose to do bad things

and we harm ourselves,

these are the consequences of free will.

We do silly things, silly things happen,

and we pay the price for it.

But also on the other hand,

when we choose to do good things,

and not only good for ourselves,

but good for everyone else, there also are good consequences.

Positive consequences versus negative consequences.  

This process of deciding how to use our free will,

or maybe for our purposes here,

how do we align our will with that of God's?

How do I come to know God's will

so that I can do that action?

It is an iterative process.

There is a lot of learning.

We have to learn to listen to God in our own life,

and learn to act as God would have us act.

To do good versus to do evil or to not do good.

It is a learned process,

and that is what the letter to the Hebrew talks about.

How discipline helps us learn

and that God the Father will discipline us

so that we can come to learn his ways.

And it is true.

We have to find a way to make this a habit.

When we are younger, we do this for our children all the time.

We help them decide how to make good choices.

We do not make the choice for them.

We teach them how to make the choice for themselves.

Eventually they become adults

and they have to make the choices for themselves.

But you never decide for them,

although some parents do this,

it is not a good thing.

When you choose, when you decide, it is all yours.

You are free to choose what you want,

and then all of a sudden there are consequences for that.

Let me give you an example that mirrors

what the letter to the Hebrews said.

When I was in college, I came to America for summer work.

It was my second year of college.

I always remember the year, 1984.

I was 19 years old, and I came on a J1 visa for students.

So I worked in Dallas as a waiter at a high class restaurant.

I was able to make a lot of money that summer.

Now, to show you how much money,

I cleared a thousand dollars a week for eighteen weeks!

That is a lot of money back in 1984,

$18,000 was a lot of cash!

I aatended Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, we finished school early.

We finish in May, and we did not start until October.

So I had eighteen weeks off for summer.

I spent it all working.

I had a wad of cash of $18,000

in my pocket coming back into Ireland.

You can imagine how proud I was.

I was wearing big old Texan cowboy boots,

big old Texan hat, a long leather jacket

that went from my shoulders down to my feet.

My father looked at me at the airport and said

I looked like a tall wallet!

Anyway, I was so proud,

I was telling everyone how much money I earned.

Now, bear in mind that my father was at the end of his career,

and he had earned $17,800 for the entire year

and he ran a household of 12 children.

That tells you how much,

because the exchange was a one to one back then.

So it was literally $1 for one Irish pound.

My father sat me down, and he put the cash between us.

One hundred and eighty $100 bills.

That is a lot of bills.

My father looked at me straight in the eye, he says,

“I am very proud of you.

You saved a lot of money while you worked away,

and that is a fine lot of cash.

Now I am going to let you keep it if…”

I was like, “Woah.”

I did not think there was a question about that.

But all of a sudden he says,

“I am going to let you keep it if you use it wisely.

If you do not, I will be charging you

a thousand dollars a month rent.”

I looked at him. I said, “Why?”

Then he proceeds to tell me

how much money he earned that year,

and he ran the whole household.

“I have not charged you any rent.

I have raised you and all the children on this money,

and I want to see how you spend this money.

Because if you spend it unwisely,

I will be taking it all from you.

And if you do spend it wisely,

well then you will spend it for many eons to come

and enjoy the fruit of your labor.

It is your choice.”

I learnt to use it wisely!

I used to buy groceries regularly for my mom.

I used to always come home with a cake on a Friday nights.

Night usually when boys are out on the town.

And so I learned how to be generous with that money

while at the same time saving an investment.

That lesson came from my father's discipline,

like the letter Hebrews talks about today.

We have to learn our lessons hard sometimes,

but that has stuck with me all these years

because I became wise about how to use money

or how to flirt with it, or how to show it off or not show it off.

I learned how silly that was and how that did not matter.

What mattered was who you became with what you had.

The narrow gate that Jesus talks about is our free will,

and it seems so easy to do,

because we have so many temptations

to use our will for our own purpose.

But it is narrow because it requires strength

to not to do the silly thing.

And that is where this this metaphor comes in.

It requires strength to get through the narrow gate

because here is the challenge with American society,

and we are imbued in this.

We associate free will with freedom

to do whatever the heck I want to do,

and you cannot say anything about it.

In the religious sense, in the Catholic sense,

that is not freedom.

That is actually unfreedom.

The freedom in the religion, in the Catholic sense,

is to know the will of God and to choose to do it.

That is freedom.

Now, that requires of us to listen to God

and then to discern what is God having me

do in this particular situation.

My friends, we need to teach our children this.

We need to teach ourselves this

because we are not doing a very good job,

because we are not leading straight.

We are allowing these secular values to penetrate into us,

that somehow I can say and do whatever I want

without any consequences.

Yes. We can do whatever we want.

That is what God's gift is.

But believe me, there are consequences,

and they will hurt us, and it will hurt us individually,

and it will hurt us as a society.

We are making a lot of those mistakes right now,

and we need to find a way to, in our own lives,

to assert our freedom in doing

what the Lord would have us do.

We know what the commandments are:

to love the Lord with all your mind,

with all your heart, with all your soul,

and love your neighbor as yourself.

That neighbor is everybody.

The example that Jesus gave was in particular

was a neighbor, was the one

who was most despised, a Samaritan.

These are the ones that he gave as example.

He wants us to be the ones who

reach out to those who are in need.

Now we have to decide how we do that as an individual,

and we need to decide how do we do that as a community.

Over the last several weeks,

we have prepared for a rummage sale these last few days.

These last three days, we put on

an incredible demonstration of volunteerism,

of decision, of aligning ourselves with God's will.

Of accepting all this stuff,

and then sorting it out to people for people who are in need,

and then giving away all the rest.

My friends, that is doing the will of the Lord,

sharing our resources with others.

We are going to present lots more

of those opportunities for you during the year.

I cannot force you to choose to help.

I cannot force you to go to Tijuana.

I cannot force you to help out in the the Rummage Sale.

I cannot force you to go help out in some of these homeless shelters.

That is your free will.

But be assured that I am asking you to do

what I believe the Lord is asking you to do in your life.

I am presenting you with these challenges.

It is up to you to choose the hard path, that narrow path.

And for you who are young parents,

you have a critical time in your life

where you are passing on your faith to your children,

and this is what it means.

It is discipline.

Yes, it means getting your children here,

and I know that is hard.

And for those who are at home who have not done it,

try harder to get them on down here.

It is hard. I understand that,

but this is the discipline that lasts a lifetime.

It forms these children's young minds

to do what needs to be done,

to choose the Lord's will in our lives.

The Lord did not mince his words today,

and neither am I!

We need to do the will of the Lord.

We need to listen to what the Lord is asking us,

and then try our hardest to do it.

And then we keep coming back to the table every week

because we all know we do not succeed every week.

And that is okay.

Try, keep coming back for strength.

Try. That is the cycle.

When we keep on together, we will be better at it.

So today, let's listen to the Lord

and choose to do the will of the Lord.

Strive to enter through the narrow gate.