Jesus tells us we should enter through the narrow gate, for the wide gate is the one that leads us to destruction. As I thought about this verse, I reflected up the criticism that the Church often receives. In the eyes of the secular world, we are often a prime target. But, we need to realize that bringing God’s love into the world doesn’t mean that what we say and what we do are going to be politically correct. Standing up for what we perceive to be the truth is not always easy and comfortable. While we see many in our society trying to go through the wide door, what sense does that make of the narrow door that Jesus mentions in today’s Gospel? As a parish, we try to reach out to the least of our brothers and sisters, to the children and the youth. We can always do more, but we try to live out our faith as best we can, and that is always a huge challenge.
All of us need to look into our hearts to see how we are living out the Gospel. But if we believe that the Gospel of Life calls us to be against abortion and against capital punishment, that puts us out of line with our society as it tries to look for the easiest and most convenient way out. If we say we define marriage between a man and a woman in our Church, it is not because we are against at certain groups or individuals in society, but rather it is because we believe that that marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman who are united before God in a holy way. Standing up for the freedom to practice our faith may not be the entrance through the wide door of our secular world. But, in standing up for our rights to practice our faith, we do so because we believe it is the right thing to do. In a lot of ways, we are in the Church are really the ones who are counter-cultural to the ways of the world.
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