The Gate is Narrow and the Way is Hard

Dear Theophilous,

Every week when the local paper shows up at the door, one of the first things I do is flip to the back and scan the obituaries. Whenever I get caught doing this I’ll glibly reply that I was just making sure my name wasn’t there and I can continue breathing.

Joking aside, I have noticed an interesting trend from obituary writers, most of who use opening lines such as:

… has gone to reside in the Lord.

… has become another angel in heaven.

…has joined mom/dad in heaven.

Reading the obits these days, it seems as though everyone gets into heaven and no one is going to hell. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that we all don’t go to the Lord, we do since He is our final judge, but it seems that we think we have already figured out what His verdict of our loved ones will be.

This is our calling, and this is our hope; that we will be reunited with our Lord in paradise. This is something I pray for everyday; for myself, for my family, for my friends and for those who have no one to pray for them.

Yet, in a world that’s rife with evil, we need to acknowledge the existence of hell. We need to recognize that not everyone accepts the will of God. We need to understand the truth behind one of Christ’s most difficult teachings; a lesson I’m certain it pained him to share:

Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Mt 7:13-14)

This teaching of Christ struck me recently while I was reflecting on my misspent youth, and I realized the irony of the titles of two of my favourite songs from my teenage years: Highway to Hell and Stairway to Heaven. It seems these two rock bands understood Christ’s teaching on traffic flow. Even within the songs’ lyrics we can see hints as to cosmic battle for souls:

No stop signs
Speed limit
Nobody's gonna slow me down
Like a wheel
Gonna spin it
Nobody's gonna mess me around
Hey, Satan
Payin' my dues
Playin' in a rockin' band
Hey, mamma
Look at me
I'm on the way to the promised land

I'm on the highway to hell
Highway to hell

(excerpt – Highway to Hell – AC/DC – 1979)

To which the answer would be:

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.

(excerpt – Stairway to Heaven – Led Zeppelin – 1971)

Intentional or not, these songs fit so nicely into Jesus’ teaching on salvation.

The pathway to destruction is wide and easy, very much like a highway. Although it may not be the Autobahn without a speed limit, once we get rolling along that highway to perdition it becomes very hard to slow down, change lanes and take the off ramp. And Satan makes no bones about it, even though he promises you greatness and pleasure in this life, he promises neither joy nor comfort in the life to come.

The pathway to life is hard, just like spring cleaning or climbing a stairway that seems to go on forever (or an eternity). However, be not afraid, don’t be alarmed, because the May queen, Mary, is here to help. Christ’s mother draws us closer to Him with a simple phrase: Do whatever He tells you. (Jn 2:5)

There’s till time, dear Theophilous, for both of us, as well as the whole world, to change the road we are on; to find the narrow gate; to take the way that is hard; and to climb the Stairway to Heaven.

The Burn of God's Love



Dear Theophilus,

The other day, I was asked for my opinion on what heaven and hell are like. As is par for the course in my classes, my answer seemed to leave my interlocutor more confused than when we started our conversation.

Good or bad, I explained, we are all called to spend our eternal lives with God.

With a puzzled look, I was then asked to clarify if evil people go to heaven. I don’t think my answer: “Yes and no,” really helped much, so I tried to clarify my perspective of heaven and hell, gleaned from Fr. Robert Barron’s Catholicism.

I find it always raises an eyebrow when I state that hell (along with purgatory) burns with the fire of God’s love.

The reason is this: those who are in a state of sin or who have turned away from God are not prepared for the light of His loving embrace in eternal life.

I’ll generally use two parallels to demonstrate my vision of purgatory and hell:

Purgatory is like a smelter. To transform a metal, such as gold, from the ore that’s mined from the earth to its pure form that we wear around our necks or on our fingers, the impurities need to be burned away. Our souls are like gold to God, and before He can adorn Himself with the brightness of our love for Him, the impurities of our sins must be burnt away – purged. Although I do my best as a human, I’m still a sinner, and I look forward to the burning fire of God’s love in purgatory so that I can rejoin the Lord that much quicker.

As for the souls in hell, they too burn at the touch of God’s love. I see the darkness of evil as much like the darkness of a movie theatre. Over the course of a film our eyes adjust to the darkness of our surroundings so that we can see not only the screen, but the others sitting around us. When we leave the movie theatre on a bright summer afternoon, we shield our eyes from the sun’s blinding rays – the same way that the light of God’s love in heaven is blinding to those who chose to live in the darkness of evil.

Put in these concrete, earthly terms, I find that most people begin to understand my original thought of how everyone is called to be in the presence of God, it’s just a question of how prepared we are for the light of His love.

Needless to say, I was struck dumb when, the day after this conversation, I read the Gospel reading of the day:

Jesus said to Nicodemus: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

“And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.

“But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” (Jn 3:16-21)