Through the narrow gate
Homily for August 24, 2025, 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate.”
Scholars will tell you that this passage is where we get the familiar phrase, to “walk the straight and narrow.” We tend to think it means to follow the rules and try to be good. You can even find it defined in Webster’s online dictionary, which says it means “the way of living that is honest and morally proper.”
We like to think it’s just that simple. It isn’t. It’s complicated. And it’s hard.
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate.”
So just what does that mean? How do we do it?
Well, we’ve been hearing the answer every week this summer.
Look back at the readings. Week after week, in St. Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has been telling us what the narrow gate is, and what we need to do to enter it.
For one thing, we don’t need to be skinny.
We need to be brave. And beyond that, we need to want, more than anything, to be holy.
Consider the stories we’ve heard these last weeks, and you realize with a blinding clarity just how hard it is. You understand why Jesus says we need to “strive” to enter.
It involves effort. Sacrifice. Struggle.
It begins by understanding just what “the narrow gate” means.
A commentator once noted that a narrow gate is only big enough for one person. That one person is Jesus Christ — and entering through that “gate” involves everything he has been teaching us on his journey to Jerusalem.
What is the “narrow gate”? It is the way of Christ.
The narrow gate is way of the Samaritan who realizes the broken bleeding man by the side of the road — a man he doesn’t know, a man who might even despise him — is his neighbor and that he is called to love him.
The narrow gate is the way of the woman named Mary who sits at the feet of the Lord to listen, and learn, and love — and does it despite how angry it makes her sister.
The narrow gate is the way of praying as Jesus taught — praying to forgive, praying for God’s will to be done, praying to never tire of asking God for his grace.
The narrow gate is the way of those who build barns to hold the treasure that is important to God, instead of the treasure that is important to the world.
The narrow gate is the way of the servant who is always alert, prepared, ready for his master’s return, reluctant to put things off because he never knows when the master will be back.
The narrow gate is the way blazing with the fire of Christ, lighting the way for those who live as people following the way, the truth and the life — even if it means being rejected by family and friends.
It’s worth asking ourselves this Sunday: we come here week after week, but have we been listening?
There’s one part of this Gospel that really struck me. It’s in the parable, when people stand outside the master’s door and beg to be let in. “We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets!”
The reality is: that could describe any of us. Every Sunday, we eat in Christ’s company, we dine at the table of the Lord, we listen to him teach, we hear his Word.
But then what?
In the parable, the Master is unconvinced. He says, “I don’t know where you are from.”
The Gospel makes clear: just showing up isn’t enough.
We need to do more.
We need to BE more.
I was reminded of someone whose name you’ll be hearing more in the days ahead: Pier Giorgio Frassatti. Pier was born in Turin, Italy, in 1901. He grew up to be an extraordinary young man, with a deep love of the Lord and a passion for justice and mercy. “Charity is not enough,” he said. “We need social reform.” He believed in working to make a culture built on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
He was also a man of irrepressible joy, with a taste for adventure. Pier loved mountain climbing. He organized trips into the mountains with his friends, and he turned them into occasions for prayer and conversations about faith.
Through it all, he was striving to enter through the narrow gate, to live Christ’s teaching daily. One biography said “Pier embodied Christ’s love in action. He would give away his bus fare or even his own coat to help those in need. He saw the face of Christ in every suffering person, recognizing their inherent dignity.”
Pier had many gifts and throughout his life he felt called to do more, to be more.
But the one gift he didn’t have was the gift of time.
In his early 20s, Pier was stricken with polio. Some believe it may have happened because of his frequent contact with the poor and the sick. He died tragically young, at the age of 24. Days after his death, friends found a simple note he wrote on a photograph of himself on a mountain. It was from his last climb. The note said: "Verso L'Alto", which means "to the heights."
On the day of his funeral, thousands of the poor turned out and filled the streets around his church. Over the years, his reputation for holiness spread. The church began the investigation for his cause of sainthood. When workers went to his grave to disinter his body, they opened the casket and were stunned. He was incorrupt. He looked the same as he did the day he was buried.
Next month, 100 years after his death, he will be canonized and become Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati. He is considered the patron of young people, of athletes, and of “ordinary people,” people like you and me, all of us striving to enter through the narrow gate, working to climb “to the heights.”
Blessed Pier understood something that all of us need to learn, and all of us need to live. It is part of this Sunday’s message.
Just showing up isn’t enough.
A narrow gate is big enough for just one person and that person is Jesus Christ. Entering through him demands more.
More devotion. More sacrifice. More love.
As we come forward to receive the Eucharist this morning, and pray to become what we receive, let us ask Blessed Pier to walk with us, and climb with us, and help us enter through the narrow gate.
There is already a church in the United States, in South Carolina, named for Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassatti … it will soon have its name changed to Saint Pier Frassatti.
On its website you will find this prayer:
Heavenly Father,
Give me the courage to strive for the highest goals,
to flee every temptation to be mediocre.
Enable me to aspire to greatness, as Pier Giorgio did,
and to open my heart with joy to Your call to holiness.
Free me from the fear of failure.
I want to be, Lord, firmly and forever united to You.
Grant me the graces I ask You through Pier Giorgio's intercession,
by the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen..