Strive to enter through the narrow gate

Rm 8,26-30; Ps 12; Lk 13,22-30
30 OCTOBER

In the New Testament there are several catalogues of vices that exclude from the eternal kingdom of God. Let us recall some of them: Letter to the Romans, First Letter to the Corinthians, First Letter to Timothy, Revelation. There are others, but well enclosed in these four.

Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper. They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite. They are gossips and scandalmongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them (Rm 1,26-32).

Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (1Cor 6,9-11). We know that the law is good, provided that one uses it as law, with the understanding that law is meant not for a righteous person but for the lawless and unruly, the godless and sinful, the unholy and profane, those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, the unchaste, practicing homosexuals, kidnapers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is opposed to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted (1Tm 1,8-11). Then he said to me, “Do not seal up the prophetic words of this book, for the appointed time is near. Let the wicked still act wickedly, and the filthy still be filthy. The righteous must still do right, and the holy still be holy.” “Behold, I am coming soon. I bring with me the recompense I will give to each according to his deeds. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Blessed are they who wash their robes so as to have the right to the tree of life and enter the city through its gates. Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the unchaste, the murderers, the idol-worshipers, and all who love and practice deceit (Rev 22,10-15).

What does then to strive to enter by the narrow gate mean? It means that those who want to inherit the kingdom of heaven must not be found in these catalogues of vices. They exclude from the eternal kingdom. But is it enough to leave from the catalogues to inherit eternal life? Not even this is enough. One must walk through the path of the Word of Jesus. One leaves vice, he gets converted to the Gospel, he becomes the body of Christ and remains in it forever. It is the body of Christ the vehicle that leads from the earth to Paradise. One must go up in it.

He passed through towns and villages, teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answered them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ And you will say, ‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’ Then he will say to you, ‘I do not know where (you) are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!’ And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out. And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

Today we are living in a time when we witness the “scrapping” of the vehicle built by God, for Christ, in the Holy Spirit. In truth, other vehicles do not exist, because other vehicles do not free from vices. In other vehicles one remains in the catalogues of vices. Christians are just the ones that thought about the most “beautiful” invention. They have abolished every vehicle, because they have abolished the narrow road, because they have abolished hell. In Paradise we no longer go by conversion, but by nature. We are men, we are safe.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, free the Christian people from all lies and falsehoods.