12th Tuesday in Ordinary Time

“Enter through the narrow gate.” To the proud man, everything that contradicts him seems narrow: love, humility, truth, holiness. God is too narrow, too restrictive, too different from me. The further away I perceive myself from God, the narrower this gate seems – so narrow that it seems almost closed. But the gate is not that narrow, nor is it closed. This gate seems narrow because the eye seeing it is narrow, the mind peering into it is narrow, the heart loving it, is narrow. How can we change this? By desiring to change. The desire to change is already a change. Desiring the gate of God is already the beginning of its crossing. When we try to love God, who seems so narrow to us, the width of the gate remains the same, but the width of our heart, eyes and mind, not. They expand and begin to accept with less and less resistance what previously seemed intolerable. The narrow gate is the gate of a new life, a life of forgiveness, meaning and union with God. May this Eucharist be a gate towards deeper encounter and communion with God, the God who loves us far beyond our narrowness.