These words come from our Gospel reading for today: ‘Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is 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’.

St. Benedict has this to say regarding the ‘school of the Lord’s service’: ‘If, for good reason, for the amendment of evil habit or the preservation of charity, there be some strictness of discipline, do not be at once dismayed and run away from the way of salvation, of which the entrance must needs be narrow. But, as we progress in our monastic life and in faith, our hearts shall be enlarged, and we shall run with unspeakable sweetness of love in the way of God’s commandments’.

Elsewhere in the Holy Rule, he speaks of the ‘narrow way’ as being a deliberate choice; and in the above quotation we can see that it is a way that leads to salvation, to joy and freedom, and to enlargement of heart. May we truly learn this Gospel way in our own lives, and may God bless you in your own walk of faith this day.