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Narrow Is The Gate (Matthew 7:13-14)

 Jesus speaks of a narrow gate or way, and few find it. It leads to life. The wide gate or way leads to destruction, and many find it. This is a hard saying. I have to conclude that Hell is real, and that more end up separated from God, than united to him. I’m not the final interpreter here—thank you, Jesus, for the Magisterium—but that’s a plain reading of this text, and a few others. Jesus in the Gospels is the lens to interpret literally everything else in the Bible, because He is the Word, the beloved Son of the Father, Lord of the Sabbath, and everything else.

How empty or full either Heaven or Hell are—other than saying an empty Hell wouldn’t need to exist, for one—is wasting time. You can drive yourself crazy with fear, and activities designed to mitigate or manage the fear, to little effect. We can have moral certainty of being in a state of grace by examining our conscience, and going to Confession if necessary. Beyond that, we have to trust in the mercy of God. If God were a curmudgeon who barely tolerated us, well, that’s a very different Bible than the one I have read. He’s not to be trifled with, but He does love us. Indeed, he cannot do otherwise.

I still don’t fully trust people who spend most of their time scaring people about God. On the other hand, if God seems like the vaguely effeminate passive aggressive guy at your local “open-minded” church or parish, well, that’s wrong, also.

Some need to get serious about God. But still others need to chill out. High religiosity correlates with several species of mental illness. That’s a hard saying, too, but it’s also true. If life is overwhelming, some people turn to spiritual practices—or unspiritual practices—to soothe themselves.

Meanwhile, those Christians we tend to call “Protestants” might be upset that I even referred to a formal, sacramental process of repentance before God. Respectfully, get over it. The lot of you offer an assurance that you have no reasonable access to. Everyone who is truly Christian believes Jesus died for our sins, and rose again on the third day. Other than that, “I got a lotta problems with you people, and I’m gonna tell you about it.”

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