Today's mass readings: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/082513.cfm
It seems to me like it was longer
ago, but it was just last summer, a year and a couple weeks ago, that the Summer
Olympic Games were held in London. The
games lasted for over two weeks, and one of the big stories of the Olympics was
how well would Michael Phelps do? Recall
that Phelps, the greatest swimmer in history, had won eight gold medals in
Beijing in 2008, and everyone wanted to know how he could possibly top
that. Well he didn’t – he won only six
medals – including four gold, but he still won the most medals of any athlete
in London. But Michael Phelps retired
with Olympic records of 22 medals including 18 gold medals, twice as many golds
as any other Olympic athlete in history.
Now his swim races didn’t take much
time – some were over in less than 50 seconds.
So it is difficult to imagine, watching a race that was over in under a
minute, how much time, and discipline, and diet and hard work and sacrifice all
came together in preparation for that 50 second race. A little google research tells me that Phelps
would swim five hours a day, six days a week, for a total of 50 or so miles a
week, 8 miles a day. And he did this for
nearly twenty years.
Fascinating stuff, but what’s my
point? Well the training and hard work,
discipline and sacrifice that Olympic athletes put in to prepare for their
events came to mind as I focused on one word that Jesus uses in today’s Gospel
– and that word is “strive.” “Strive” he
says, “to enter through the narrow gate.”
The greek word that St. Luke used, which is translates as “strive” in
this Gospel passage, is agonizomai, (ah-go-nid-zo-mah-ee)
which means to “contend for a prize, especially against an adversary.” It implies a struggle, a fight. It’s the same root word for the English word
“agonize.” It’s not unlike the
“discipline” that we just heard proclaimed in the letter to the Hebrews.
Agonizomai is the same word St. Paul
uses in First Corinthians 9:25 when he tells the people of Corinth to “run so
as to win. Every athlete exercises
discipline in every way. They do it to
win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.”
And we find agonizomai again in Paul’s
second letter to Timothy chapter 4 when near the end of his life Paul says “I
have competed well, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
So I think what Jesus is telling you
and me today is that Faith in Him is no easy street. Jesus Himself is the narrow gate to salvation,
but following Him is something that requires us to agonizomai, something we
must strive for, we must struggle and work for, to remain faithful. To grow in holiness. Following Jesus is not to be one more thing
in our lives, one pursuit among many.
It’s to be the most important thing in our lives, indeed the reason for
our lives! It’s something that requires
our time and effort. Michael Phelps
wouldn’t have won a single medal had he trained for an hour a week. No, he had the prize, the gold medal that he
strove for, worked for, sacrificed for, and that was the focus of his life for
twenty years. How much greater than a
gold medal is eternal life! How much
more should we be focused on our eternal salvation!
Indeed, Jesus is today taking the
question “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” and turning it into the
question to you and me “Will YOU be saved?”
He’s asking, how important is that to you, that you be saved? What are you willing to do differently? How will you live your life differently?
Now it’s important to note that no
amount of work, or sacrifice, or effort, can merit you or me eternal
life. It is only by grace, won by the
death and resurrection of Christ, that we can merit eternal life. But what is to be our response to that
grace, our response to His love for us, our response to His invitation to
follow Him – that is what Our Lord is asking us today.
What Jesus is asking of you and me
is that we strive to grow in holiness.
Holiness, which means to be different than this world. True faith in Christ should make us look, and
act and be very different than this world.
Saint Matthew in his Gospel records this same scene with Jesus comparing
the narrow gate which leads to life, which few will find, with the wide gate
and broad road that lead to destruction, where many will enter. I
cannot grow in holiness if I am of this world, if I think like this world, if I
take on the subtle and not-so-subtle attitudes and beliefs of this world. That, my brothers and sisters, is the broad
road, the wide gate. You and I are
called to follow after Christ.
Our attitudes are to be formed by
Christ, by His written word, and by His Church.
We are so blessed to have 2000 years of Church teaching and tradition to
guide us toward the narrow gate.
Teaching and tradition that is usually at odds with the attitudes and
beliefs of this world. In matters of how
we treat the poor, the prisoner, the elderly and infirm, the unborn. In what we believe about human
sexuality. In how we view material
goods, material wealth. And in how we
love. How we love each other. How we love our neighbor. How we love our enemies. In each of these, the narrow way of Christ is
vastly different than the broad road of this world.
My sisters and brothers, throughout
our lives, every single day, you and I are faced with decisions, with
choices. To choose this world’s way, the
broad road, or Christ’s way, the narrow gate.
With the grace of frequent reception of the sacraments, by study of the
bible and spiritual writings, by constant, regular prayer, by expressing our
faith in love and service to others, Jesus calls us today to strive to follow after
Him, the narrow gate. He calls us to strive
to grow in holiness, to grow in love.
So that at the end of our days, you and I may
be able to proclaim with St. Paul “I have competed well, I have finished the
race, I have kept the faith.”
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