21st Sunday - Fr. Leo
In Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, he speaks about the discipline that is necessary for true discipleship. Discipline is the handmade of humility. In order for us to be faithful to God’s truth and love, we will from time to time have to discipline ourselves away from out immediate wants and urges and embrace what is better for us in the love of God.
Our inner journey requires this discipline too, in that we need to be honest about ourselves and feel the pain of our clinging to a false self with its ego drives, an obsession about how we present ourselves and our concern about what others think of us. This inner journey takes discipline and there will be discomfort, but if we are willing to embrace our pain we can see it for what it is and let it go. We become freer because our false self is not holding us in the narrow darkness we created for ourselves.
The gospel speaks of the same thing when it talks about the narrow gate. At first the gate of living in God may seem very narrow, but the longer and deeper we learn to live in God, we find infinite freedom and an experience of mystical union that does not have to wait until we die. When we pray and things arise in our mind that hurt or distract us, we can simply relax into them and let them go and learn that our world does not need to be defined by the fears we feel are unconquerable, because in God’s love, they don’t exist and his love replaces all fears.