The Narrow Gate
"How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few."
—Mt 7:14
We face a challenge when we read this famous admonition, from the Sermon on the Mount. It is a challenge of understanding. We might have seen and heard it a hundred times or more, so we are tempted to stop thinking about it. We think we already know what Jesus means. He's saying most people go to Hell. No, He's saying only Catholics go to Heaven. No, He's saying only the right kind of Catholics go to Heaven. No, He's saying it's really hard to be holy, so I guess I don't have much of a chance. No, He's saying God is very demanding, so I better watch out.
St. John of the Cross discusses this line at length in the Ascent of Mount Carmel. He doesn't give it any of the above interpretations, all of which tend to focus on the judgment of God. For him, it is a piece of good advice about how to make progress, in prayer, and in the spiritual life generally. It is about the spiritual nights.
On the night when St. John of the Cross escaped from the monastery where his fellow Carmelite monks had imprisoned him, he showed courage and daring worthy of any action movie. First, he worked loose the bolt holding his door shut, and he did this somehow without waking up the monks sleeping right outside his door. Slipping past them, he came to an open window some distance from the ground, maybe two or three stories. He fashioned a rope made of strips of cloth, to which he trusted his weight. He tied this to a flimsy bracket that seemingly was too weak to hold him. Quietly clambering down the outside wall of the monastery, he found his makeshift rope was too short. He dangled there, in complete darkness, unable to see how far he was from the ground. And he let go.
This episode is an illustration of where we are, and what we must be willing to do, if we are to sincerely follow Jesus Christ. The essence of devotion is not in doing good works or accumulating spiritual experiences. It is in a willingness to leave behind the comfort and security of our material and spiritual attachments. We must have a will to follow Christ, at all costs.
Applying Jesus' saying, St. John of the Cross observes that a gate is not a destination but an entrance. "[E]ntrance, through this gate of Christ (the beginning of the journey) involves a divestment and narrowing of the will, in relation to all sensible and temporal objects, by loving God more than all of them." AMC II.7.2. It is so important to recognize that, through all the trials of purification that the soul undergoes, the focus always must be on love of God. People who white-knuckle their way through these difficulties will advance only so far. They might weed out certain sensual vices, and that itself is to be applauded. But it is no benefit to overcome lust and fall into pride. If the glutton of the family detaches from this sin, but then exhibits an increase of wrath by becoming irritable and hostile, the members of his household might wish for a return to his former state.
Ultimately, we have only one reason to follow the way of purification. Repeatedly in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, Chapter 7, the saint urges the importance of undergoing purification "for God's sake." People often use this expression merely to emphasize the importance of something. But St. John of the Cross means it literally. We must be willing to detach ourselves from comforts, not for our own sake, but for God's sake. Otherwise, we will be seeking experiences for ourselves, consolations for ourselves--ultimately, seeking ourselves, not God.
Seeking oneself in God is the same as looking for the refreshments and consolations of God. Seeking God in oneself entails not only the desire of doing without these consolations, for God's sake, but also the inclination to choose, for love of Christ, all that is most distasteful, whether in God or in the world; and this is the love of God. ...
And this is what our Lord meant, when he said: "For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Mt. 16:25
AMC II.7.5, 6
To advance in prayer past the stage of beginners, we must identify our attachments, both material and spiritual. Material attachments should be obvious to anyone who has them. I may have an inordinate fondness for certain food or drink, or clothes, or cars, or other possessions. A good way to identify these attachments is to consider how I react when I am denied them. When my charity is degraded by the absence of a thing, I probably have an attachment that will impede my progress.
Spiritual attachments are subtler, and identifying them requires deeper discernment. St. John of the Cross explains them in the opening chapters of The Dark Night. What is common to all spiritual attachments is that they produce agreeable feelings in us. I go to Mass, and I really enjoy the nice music and the pretty stained glass--and most of all, I enjoy the warm glow of satisfaction with myself after it's over. I engage in devotions to the Blessed Virgin, because of the cozy and comfortable emotions that I associate with my heavenly Mother. I indulge in feelings of righteous anger over the perceived impiety of others, and my outrage is rather seductive and exciting. The danger in all these should be clear: my desire must be for Our Lord and Our Lady, not for the way they make me feel.
Why should we seek to detach ourselves from the familiar comforts of the senses and the spirit? The reason is that they inevitably will hold us back. They become, eventually, the cell where we are imprisoned. It might be a most agreeable captivity, but it is not freedom. And we were created to be free.