Finding and Entering Through the Narrow Gate, 12th Tuesday (I), June 22, 2021

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Tuesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of SS. Thomas More and John Fisher
June 22, 2021
Gen 13:2.5-18, Ps 15, Mt 7:6.12-14

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

he following points were attempted in the homily: 

• As we begin to approach the end of our annual 16-day reexamination of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus, the Master, begins to summarize for us what he has been revealing to us over the previous two weeks. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ Magna Carta of Christian morality, the way he wants to form us to live like him with a holiness surpassing that of the Scribes and Pharisees and virtuous pagans, to fulfill the law, to seek first the Kingdom, to love God, to love neighbor and to love even those who make themselves our enemy. Today he gives us three images.
• The first is to recognize the treasure he is giving us. He says, “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine.” His teaching is an extraordinary gift. It is the path to life. Just like we would never put diamonds in a toilet or priceless masterpieces in a doghouse, so we need to treasure his words and protect them within. We should never take them for granted. While we are obviously called to spread the faith and share Jesus and his teachings with others, we should at the same time do so with reverence for what we are transmitting. In the early Church, this passage was often used to refer to the Holy Eucharist, something we can ponder two days after Corpus Christi. The Didache said, “Let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist except those baptized into the name of the Lord; for, as regards this, the Lord has said, ‘Give not that which is holy unto dogs.’” We need to treat every word that comes from God’s mouth in a similar way, treasuring it and not just throwing it away or giving it to others the way we could give food we cannot finish or don’t want to eat to salivating dogs at our lap. Jesus wants us to grasp that in sharing this gift with us, he is not throwing pearls before swine, but accentuating our dignity. He wants us to treasure both the gift and the recipient. That’s what he’s asking of us here in terms of the way we will live and transmit his words.
• The second image is what we call the Golden Rule. Jesus summarizes everything he has been teaching us in the update, the interiorization, the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, as “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the Law and the Prophets.” Often it is said that the Golden Rule exists in many religions but that is false. God has given the seeds of the word to many over the course of the centuries, but it was always in some version of the “Silver Rule”: “Don’t do to others what you would not want them to do to you.” Jesus was far exceeding that here. He wants us to treat others as we would want to be treated. If we want to be loved, we love first. If we want to be forgiven, we forgive first. If we want to be thanked, we thank first. If we want to be helped when we’re in need, we help first. It translates everything from a principle of justice to one of love. “I must not harm,” is much different from “I must love.” Not to hurt others is quite possible for everyone; but to love others by the standard of the golden rule is something that requires God’s help, it requires the love of God within. To obey this command in short is to become a new person, to look at the world in a new way. It means to look at things the way Christ does, when he loves us first in the way he would have us love others.
• The third image helps us both to choose the path we will follow and to recognize that it is not the popular path. “Enter through the narrow gate,” Jesus says, “for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.” Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, he is indicating to us the narrow gate and the constricted road, but we need to strive, to agonize, to move from where we are and enter through it. Most don’t, Jesus implies. Most are on the broad road leading to perdition. Through his teaching, through our sharing it as a treasure with others as we would want others to share it with us, we seek to help others join us on the pilgrimage following in Jesus’ footsteps up that narrow path through the gates of the eternal Jerusalem.
• We see these truths lived out in today’s first reading in the life of Abraham. Abraham treasured God’s promises and possessions, holding onto them with firm faith. He was never going to waste them or to dismiss them, like Sarah would through her laughing. When he was faced with the situation of conflict between Lot’s herdsmen and his own, he gave Lot the choice, doing to him what anyone would appreciate being done. He could have easily chosen what he wanted first, as the senior, as the one given that land by God, but he offered it to Lot. And in a sense Lot chose the broad path while Abraham the narrow one. Lot chose the one of putting himself first, choosing the best and leaving the other the second best; Abraham chose to love and to sacrifice. But even in the seemingly lesser possession, God was blessing Abraham and Abraham, rather than regretting, showed his gratitude by building an altar. The choice that faces us, between Christ’s way and the “broad road that leads to perdition” is the choice of treating others with maximal love, and not wasting any opportunities to do so. When we do, we open ourselves up to receive so much more from God.
• Today we celebrate two great saints lived according to the fullness of the faith taught by Jesus, who loved even their enemies to the end: Saints John Fisher and Thomas More. They knew their consciences were like precious pearls and they wouldn’t throw them before bullies, no matter what crowns or insignia the bullies were wearing. During a time in which every other bishop in England except him behaved as false prophets taking oaths that were both schismatic and apostatic, saying that Henry was the head of the Church in England and that his adulterous second bond was a true marriage, John Fisher remained true to Christ; at a time when so many of Thomas More’s lay contemporaries and others likewise betrayed the Lord, he refused, even though it meant the loss of his property, his high position in the realm, his freedom and ultimately his life. They gave to others the example of faith they would have wished to have received. Thomas even treated his executioner with kindness as he prepared to be murdered. In everything, they were choosing the narrow path that leads to life that, unfortunately during their time, few even bishops found and chose. We prayed at the beginning of Mass through their intercession that “we may confirm by the witness of our life the faith we profess with our lips.” We ask for the grace to treasure that faith like a precious pearl, to share it with others as we would love to have it lived by those among us, and to do so in a way that others are drawn to join us on the narrow way.
• Today as we prepare to receive the holiest possession of them all, Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, the pearl of great price, Jesus wants to transform us on the inside to learn how to love others as he has loved us, laying down his life for us to save us as we would want to be saved and then transforming us to love others enough to cooperate with Jesus in their salvation. This is the path that leads to life — and we are grateful to be among the few who are here at the altar today.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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