Connections&  
August 26 -- 21st Sunday of the Year
+ "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you , will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough."      Luke 13:22-30
Reinventing ourselves
You may remember the horrible murder of a two-year old child that took place in England eight years ago.  Two ten-year old boys lured the toddler away from his mother and then brutally tortured and killed the child.  The two, who were apprehended and imprisoned, joined the ranks of Britain's most reviled criminals.
     This past June, the British government announced that the pair, now 18 and therefore legally adults, had won parole.  The parole has engendered almost as much anger and outrage as the crime itself.
     Under the terms of the release, the two teenagers will be assigned new social security numbers, bank accounts, identification numbers and birth certificates.  The news media is forbidden to reveal details about their post-custody lives, including where they settle, what they look like and who they may become.  Nor will the media be allowed to publish photographs of the two.  The parolees are forbidden from ever contacting each other or the slain toddler's family or from ever entering the small community near Liverpool where the murder took place.  The government has devised for each of the two a whole new history and background to guarantee the killer's "self reliance, further education and training, and the safety of themselves and the public."
[The New York Times, June 23, 2001.]

CONNECTION:  It's mind-boggling, isn't it, to comprehend such a re-invention of a life?  Imagine being able to change any element of our identity, to wash away our past mistakes and regrets with a brand new story.  But even for these two teenagers--no matter how effectively their new pasts are established and their real hidden--the horror of what they have done cannot be changed; they will always know and understand the horror they are capable of.  The "narrow gate" of today's Gospel is the honest confrontation of who we are, what we believe, what we have done with our lives, what accomplishments--and horrors--we bear responsibility for.  The "narrow gates" we encounter in life require of us an honesty and integrity that we cannot ignore or fake our way through or reinvent ourselves to ease our way through.  The "narrow gate" to God can be difficult to negotiate--the way of limitless love, unconditional forgiveness, sacrificial selflessness--but Jesus promises that anyone willing to struggle through the "narrow gate" will be welcomed into the eternal dwelling place of his Father. *