The Narrow Door

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 86 (85): 1-3 Turn your ear, O Lord, and answer me; save the servant who trusts in you, my God. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I cry to you all the day long.

Collect O God, who cause the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose, grant your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that, amid the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: Isaiah 66:18-21; Psalm 117:1, 2; Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13; Luke 13:22-30

Jesus 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.” (Luke 13:22-30)

The Narrow Door One cannot help but notice that in a large proportion of TV current affairs programmes, it is the moral dimension that is portrayed and discussed. It could be some malpractice in a large company. It could be some corruption in a government department or in some police department, or whatever. This is not to say that the moral judgment the programme makes on such ethical issues is even generally correct. But it does show how fundamental is the moral and ethical dimension to all human activity, be it personal, be it in the family or in society at large. Moral judgments and the lack of them lead to great good or evil in society, war, massive company frauds, infidelity in the home, or by contrast, great and beautiful developments in society. Society hangs on the action of the conscience. So do our eternal prospects. In his famous Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (1875), Cardinal Newman described conscience as nature’s (‘the aboriginal’) vicar of Christ. The narrow door is, in the first instance, obedience to the voice of conscience. Our conscience is the power of our mind to judge whether what we are intending to do, or are now doing, or have already done, is morally good or bad. At the heart of our conscience, and pervading all its judgments, is the instinctive awareness and judgment that we are obliged to follow faithfully whatever we know to be objectively just and right. What is just and right is known by the prudent exercise of our moral judgment, and is revealed to us in the teaching of Christ and his Church. If we are aware that we do not yet know what is morally right in any matter that we must act upon, our conscience tells us that we should try to determine it from the most authoritative and reliable sources. If we do not form our conscience in this manner when we sense that we should, we know in our conscience that we shall be held to account for the good we have failed to do and the evil we have done by our culpably mistaken judgment. It is so important in everyday life that we learn to live by a sensitive, upright and properly informed conscience.

The properly formed conscience is the first narrow door that our Lord refers to in the Gospel. By means of the conscience we attain to knowledge of the objective moral order. It is manifestly wrong to think that the only objective facts are physical ones. Moral laws are just as factual. A moment’s reflection makes clear that the life of individuals and of society depends for its wellbeing on obedience to a properly formed conscience apprehending the objective moral law. There are two dangers we must avoid. Firstly, there is the danger of choosing to ignore one’s conscience when the following of it will be inconvenient or costly. In this case, the voice of conscience is ignored and other considerations are allowed to hold sway. Rather, our truest flourishing depends on our faithfully attending to our best conscience, whatever be the cost. The second danger is to fail to take steps to enlighten one’s conscience by consulting the best sources, so as to ensure that one’s conscience will guide us to the knowledge of what is objectively right and good. Apart from our own conscientious efforts to judge aright, the principal sources are the advice of prudent and upright persons, and the formal teaching of the Church when speaking in Christ’s name. This is important because, as mentioned above, the properly disposed and informed conscience is, in the context of our human nature, the original representative of God (or, to use Newman’s expression, “the aboriginal vicar of Christ”). The Creator has shown by the entire history of man, by his providence, and by his historical and supernatural revelation, that typically he speaks to man through his representatives. The chosen people heard from properly accredited prophets what was the will of God. The greatest of his representatives was his own divine Son become man and now abiding in the Church, his body. Conscience is his original and natural messenger and representative, but of course it must be a conscience that acts prudently and which is committed to being properly informed. This is the conscience equipped to grasp objective moral truth.

Therefore our union with Christ and our path to sanctity will depend on our fidelity to the conscience in all its detail, provided we understand the conscience in the way described. Our Lord tells us in the Gospel that we are to try our best to “enter by the narrow door, because, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed” (Luke 13:22-30). The narrow door is the correctly formed conscience which apprehends moral duty and God’s revelation as it comes to us through Christ and his teaching Church. Let us ask our Lord and our Lady to help us every day to try our best to enter by this narrow gate that leads to life here and hereafter.

(E.J.Tyler)

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