My name is Don and I’ve been a Catholic priest now for over 50 years, and during that time I keep going back to the same readings over and over again, only to discover that they contain something I never understood was there before. It gives me new enthusiasm and excitement for the message that keeps revealing itself, and I pray that the message that I’m sending you will be valuable. And if you find it so, please share these podcasts with your friends. Thank you. Good morning. Today we celebrate the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time.

The Opening Prayer oh God, who caused the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose. Grant your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that amid the uncertainties of this world our hearts may be fixed in that place where true gladness is found through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. A Reading from the Old Testament from the book of Isaiah 86:18 21 thus says the I know your works and your thoughts, and I come to gather nations of every language. They shall come and see my glory. I will set a sign among them.

From them I will send fugitives to the nations, to Tarshish, put Lud Mosoch, Jubal Javin to all the coastlands have never heard of my name or seen my glory, and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations. They shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all the nations as an offering to the Lord. All on horses and in chariots, in carts, upon mules and dromedaries to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their offering to the house of the Lord in clean vessels. Some of these I will take as priests and Levites, says the Lord the Word of the Lord. Sponsorial Psalm Go out to all the world and tell the good news. Praise the Lord, all you nations, glorify him.

All you peoples, go out to all the world and tell the good news. Steadfast is his kindness toward us, and the fidelity of the Lord endures forever. Go out to all the world and tell the good news. A reading from the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews, 12th chapter, fifth through the seventh verse and 11 through the 13th verse. Brothers and sisters, you have forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as children. My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when reproved by him.

For whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, he scourges every son he acknowledges. Endure your trials as discipline. God treats you as sons for what son is there whom his Father does not discipline? At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain. But later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it. So strengthen your drooping hands, your weak knees, make straight paths for the Lord, that what is lame may not be disjointed, but healed.

The word of the Lord, I am the way, the truth, and the life, says the Lord. No one comes to the Father except through me. Hallelujah. The gospel for this Sunday is taken from St. Luke 13th chapter 22nd to the 30th verse. Jesus passed through towns and villages, teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.

Someone asked him, lord, will only a few people be saved? He answered them, strive to enter through the narrow gate. For many, I tell you, will attempt to enter, but not be strong enough. After the master of the house had risen and locked the door, then you will stand outside knocking and saying, lord, open the door for us. And he will say in reply, I don’t know where you are from. And you will say, we ate and drank in your company, and you taught in our streets.

And he will say to you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, you evil evildoers, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves cast out people will come from the east and the west, and from the north and the south, and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last. The Gospel of the Lord. This is such a rich, clear set of readings that have touched my heart. And every time I read these readings, they awaken something in me that feels like this amazing sense of strength and peace.

And I love the way the gospel ends. It’s a phrase Jesus used over and over again in the Scriptures. And it goes, you know, you’ve heard it, last shall be first, the first shall be last. It had to be one of those phrases people used all the time. And what it would be, maybe in the simplest, most direct way, is most of us get it backwards. What you think you is is not always what is and what you are, you know, are you.

You’re basing your life and your work with God in an area or in a. With a goal that is not, is not it. And one of the most common ways in which one can have a relationship with God, because it’s so much about the God of the Old Testament is. The God of the Old Testament made it clear. I’m calling all my people together. I want them to know me.

I want people and I want them to see something about me. It’s almost like God is saying, look, I’m a good God. I’m not like the other gods that you know. I want people to understand my nature. I am not there to punish you and whip you into shape and make you make all kinds of sacrifices for me. No, I’m there because I want a relationship with you and I want you to flourish my glory that I want you to feel and see is my deepest longing why I created the world.

I did it because I wanted you to fall in love with me and I wanted you to feel my love for you. That’s what I want. Because when I created you, I knew you could not do the work that you’re here on this planet to do without me. I remember a wonderful quote from St. Bonaventure, who was a great doctor of the Church, lived at the same time in the middle ages as St. Thomas Aquinas.

And these were great doctors of the Church who gave us wisdom. And Bonaventure is a Franciscan and he’s very different than Thomas Aquinas. They’re both incredibly gifted people and gave us insight after insight. But the one thing about Bonaventure that he said that struck me so powerfully. He said, when you ask God, why did you create human beings? I mean, you create everything else first and it’s all there.

And it’s pretty clear you created this world for them. But then why humans? What do you want? You gave him one thing that nothing else in creation has, free will. They can say no to you. They can say, I don’t want anything to do with you.

They can live among the people you love and do the most horrific, damaging, frightful, painful things and you don’t stop them. What is all that about? And Bonaventure’s image is you can’t be loved by someone unless they freely choose to love you. If you are looking to God to be the one that keeps you out of hell, and you’ll do anything he wants you to do in order to not go to hell, and you’re in attention with that and you’re forcing your will and your mind to obey all the rules and laws, and then you’re calling that your relationship with God. You’ve missed the whole point. God doesn’t need people to follow him blindly.

Like plants and animals don’t have to Decide whether they’re going to be who they are. No, we have the ability to control who we are, and we have the ability to love or not to love. And what I know has been said over and over again when we look at theology and you look at morality, and there is no real, true moral decision unless it’s freely given. And the most important moral decision we have is, how do we feel about this God? Do we really love Him? And so he said, I want you to see my glory.

So that first reading, I want you to get all the people together. I want you to see who I am. I demand a lot, but I love a lot. So you get into the next reading. God’s gathered people in the first reading together, we’re going to see his glory. And then he’s going to say one thing about my glory is that I am not going to be easy on you, necessarily.

It’s not the kind of thing where I love you and give you everything you want and your spoiled children. No. I want you to know that I’m here to do something that’s difficult, and you can’t do it on your own. And it’s not easy. It’s called the narrow gate. So what’s fascinating is the question that is in the.

In the Gospel is a question, I guarantee you’ve asked it of yourself on two levels. I wonder, if a lot of people go to heaven, is there a lot of people in hell? Or am I going to go to heaven? Or am I going to go to hell? And this image of having this weight of responsibility for your own self, saving yourself by your actions, saving yourself by the things you will promise to do. Because God said, if you do this, I won’t destroy you.

I won’t allow you to be destroyed. In Gehenna, which is an interesting word because he uses that word often. Gehenna is right outside of Jerusalem. It’s a dump. It’s where they burn trash and put things that are valueless. When he said, you’re going to end up in Gehenna, he’s meaning, your life is going to not have any meaning and you’ll be like trash.

And that’s a kind of accusation he can use to motivate people. It’s a discipline form to yell at your children and tell them they better stop what they’re doing or they’ll be punished. That’s one way to do it, but that’s not the best. But it’s interesting that this God said, I want you to go through a process and experience My glory, and it’s going to be hard. And it’s called the narrow gate. Right, Let me give you two images of these two gates.

One of the things about sticking to an image that I love, it makes my worth as a homilist so fun and exciting. There’s a million ways to look at these two things. They’re not just one meaning. But let’s say the wide gate is the people that were living at the time of Jesus, following the rules and regulations of the temple. They did it perfectly, and they were blessed and they felt confident and they were on their way to paradise, whatever that was going to be in their mind, they were saved. Why?

Because they had the strong will and the discipline and a motive of fear. I will do everything I’m asked to do and I’ll be saved. That’s what the wide gate is. And it leads to destruction. Wait a minute. How can it lead to destruction if you’ve done everything you need to get into heaven?

Well, that image of doing everything you’re told in order to get into heaven is not anything that is close to what God has prepared for you and me. When we talk about this narrow gate. What’s the difference? Well, you get a really good clue of what the difference is when you listen to. Once Jesus says to the one who asks, who can be saved? He said, it’s hard.

That’s the first thing you say, narrow gate. There actually is a narrow gate in Jerusalem. Maybe people know that. And it’s called, you can get into this city, but you can’t get into it with a camel. So you go in alone. Only you can pass through it.

No Range Rover or anything else will go back through it. But think of it, this thing, the narrow gate, has something to do with you alone passing through a narrow passage. And he wants to give you an image of what is going to happen in that narrow passage by this next story that you just listened to. A man comes to his master’s house. That’s you at the end of life. Just say, coming to God.

And you knock on the door and. Let’s just amplify Lib. He opens the door, he looks at you and he goes, don Fisher. You don’t look like. No, I don’t know you. I know a Don Fisher that I made.

But you’re not him. No, I don’t know who you are. No, no, I was here. I listened to you. I went to mass. I said mass.

I’m a priest. I did all this work. I mean, of course you know me. You Know me? I mean, I’m Don Fisher. I don’t know you.

I’m sorry. And the door closes. What is it? What’s the image in the Old Testament of sin? Sin is missing the mark so far so off center that you can’t find the peace and the gift that God wants to give you. It’s leprosy.

Why would he use leprosy as a symbol of sin? What does leprosy do to your body? It affects your skin. It’s a skin infection and things begin to. Your skin swells at different places and it turns color. And what it can actually do is be so severe that your fingers fall off and your nose is not distinguishable from any other part of your face.

And you’re completely, in a sense, not looking like you. I’m wondering if that isn’t what Jesus is trying to say. My journey with you is for you to come into this narrow way, the way you don’t expect. It’s not about you doing what I’m telling you, it’s being with me, letting me love you, letting me enter into you, and you enter into me. And in that intimate relationship, you’re going to tell me and share with me who you are. And if you don’t, I’ll strip you and bear your mistakes in front of you to where it’s so painful.

And then I’ll name it as evil as it is. And then I’ll tell you I love you. But I’ll tell you if you don’t look at that, if you don’t see that’s who you are, you can’t enter the kingdom of God. You’ve got to face everything in your life that you’re doing. And also discover the person I made is often hidden under our shame, our fear, our anger, or trying to be somebody we’re not. And it’s like, could this discipline of the narrow gate be nothing more than an intimate relationship?

And the word that is used to describe the pain that’s in that is. It’s a groaning, it’s an agony. The narrow way is agonizingly painful. What else sounded in Jesus life that he went through, which is the agony? It was the agony of the cross. So what I’m trying to open your eyes to is that the narrow way is that you participate in some way in the work of crucifixion.

And the crucifixion is dying to every single thing your ego wants you to achieve. Everything that you look at yourself and say, I am. This is my. This is what Makes me special. This is why I’m better than everybody else, whatever it is, or worse. This is why I can’t look at who I really am, because I have to think of myself as much better than I am.

All of that has to be crucified. And in the crucifixion, what you’re seeing is Jesus accepting every single thing in his life as it is written, as it was meant to be. Jesus was a man. Did he do everything right at the end of this period of life that he’s in right now, going back to Jerusalem? Does he ever sit back and wonder if I did the right thing? The way I treated the Pharisees?

Should I have been better? I don’t know if he’s human, he had to have doubts about how well he did. He has to have fear that he might have disappointed his father. Otherwise, he’s just a God acting like a human. He was fully human. And the fact that at the end of his life, when he had a desire for something to be different than the end and went through the agony of accepting that, that has everything to do, in my mind, with the absolute terrifying experience of self disclosure, 100% self disclosure between you and God, which is another way of saying, seeing it exactly as it is.

Can you do that? If you say that’s a piece of cake, then I don’t think you understand what I’m talking about. It’s one of the most difficult things. It’s why I love talking about spirituality as not some little part of your life, like the wide gate as well. I go to mass, I do sacraments, I do all that. And then.

But my real life is with my family, and things I worry about are with my business and what’s going on in the world. And, you know, yeah, then we get a Sunday, we go to church, and it’s like, that’s. And if you’re doing what you’re supposed to do, you think, well, you know, I’m not committing any major sins. No, you’re not murdering people or hurting people. But if you’re ignoring this intimacy with God, that might be the worst, most frightening sin we can get caught up in and not even know it. That’s why everybody’s going in this direction.

You know, if you were walking along and saw two entrances to an auditorium or something, and 99% of the people are going in through these doors, and over there, there’s another little door, would you ever just instinctively say, I bet they’re not going the right place, Or I bet that little door is better. I don’t know. You would just naturally go with the herd. That’s what we do. We go with what everybody else is doing. But there’s a growing, growing number of more consciously evolved people who are looking not for rules and regulations to guide their life, but they’re looking for an experience.

An experience that’s personal. And the personal experience is the intimacy of love. And if you’re in love with someone and you hide things from them in order to improve the relationship, if you’re old enough, you know that that’s. That’s a form of leprosy. You’re disfiguring who you are. You’re not being yourself.

So go back to that beautiful image, the end of your life, knocking on the door. The door opens and God looks and said, wow, that’s what I created. You look fabulous. You look great. You are Don Fisher and you did the work. That’s what he’s asked.

That’s the promise and that’s his glory. Because you could sit down and try to do it on your own, you could never do it. If you’re in him and he’s in you, it’s not only possible, but it will happen. Amen. Father, your promise exceeds our most ambitious of desires. And that is to come to some intimate awareness of you and have you in our lives and have you transforming and joining us in everything we do.

It seems beyond my imagination that you have that power to be so intimately connected to each and every one of us. But I believe it. I’ll preach it till I die. And I pray everyone can experience that wonderful warmth of your presence, but especially its transformative power. Amen. The music in this program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner.

I’m excited for the opportunity to awaken your spiritual journey. If you enjoy this program, please subscribe and share it with a friend. This ministry also needs your support, so make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on on our website. Thank you so much for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible.