How to enter the Narrow Gate

How to Enter the Narrow Gate

The first thing should be that God is present in our life. The sums of human life don’t work out if God is left out: all that remains then is nothing but contradiction. So we mustn’t just believe in some theoretical way that God exists: we must consider him to be the most important and real thing in our life. As Scripture says, he must penetrate every layer of our life and fill it completely: our heart must know about him and let itself be moved by him; our soul; the power of our will and decision; our intelligence. He must be everywhere. And our fundamental attitude towards him, our fundamental relationship to him, must be called love. 

Often this can be very difficult…. Often assent to God seems almost impossible. But those who abandon themselves to this rebellion poison their lives. The poison of negation, of anger against God and against the world, eats them away from within. But God wants from us as it were a down-payment of trust. He says to us: “I know you don’t understand me yet. But trust me: believe me when I tell you I am good and dare to live on the basis of this trust. Then you will discover that behind your suffering, behind the difficulties of your life, a love is hiding. Then you will know that precisely in this way I have done something good for you.” There are many examples of saints and great people who have dared to have this trust and who have thus found true happiness—for themselves and for many others—precisely in the greatest darkness.

Pope Benedict XVI

His Holiness Benedict XVI reigned as pope from 2005 to 2013. [From The Yes of Jesus Christ: Exercises in Faith, Hope and Love, Robert Nowell, Tr. © 1991, The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, NY.]