Is 66:18b-21; Ps 116 (117); Heb 12:5-7.12-13; Lk 13:22-30

The narrow door may allude not only to the door of a house, but also to that of a city. In the walls, in fact, there was the great door, through which many could pass at the same time, along with wagons and cattle, horses and dromedaries, as Isaiah writes in the first reading. This great door was closed at sunset. Next to it was a smaller door, through which one person could pass at a time, and served for the latecomers or for emergencies, when the main door is already closed. It was the last door possibility. We can guess that it was not opened in any case or anyone, but only to who it was known and reliable. “I don’t know where you are from,” the landlord says to those who ask him to open.
Knowing the Lord and above all being known by him: this is the condition for passing. To be known means, the letter to the Hebrews reminds us, to allow ourselves to be corrected and transformed by him, to let oneself be conformed to his way of being and feeling. Through a wide door, all may pass; if the door is narrow, our shape must be modified in order to pass through. The door is Jesus: knowing him means letting yourself be given his own form.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey