Matthew 7:13
Enter through the narrow gate. A homily from the Rome pilgrimage.
I’ve been thinking about all the narrow paths we walked on the pilgrimage in Rome and Florence and Assisi, down the alleys and crooked streets and up the many steps and stairways.
I’ve been thinking about the all narrow gates, through the security checkpoints and into the churches and museums, and about the Holy Doors, at St. Peters and St. Paul Outside the Walls and all the others, which were narrow, too, massive and high but narrow.
All the lines we stood in.
All the squeezing to a point.
I’ve been thinking about the tight schedule we were on, the narrow margins of time we were given, and necessarily—all of this was necessary. If we didn’t come back on time, we missed the bus. If we didn’t stay on the narrow route, we didn’t get where we were going.
Sometimes, in some ways, it’s good to be narrow-minded.
I’ve been thinking about the eyes of the David, in Florence, of their great intensity, and focus, and determination—and of the intensity and balance and poise of his whole magnificent body, and how it’s only this focus and this narrowing, this great coming to a point, that makes it possible for him to kill Goliath with his single stone.
Sometimes, in some ways, it’s good to be narrow-minded.
And of the intensity of Michelangelo in his making of this glorious thing, his great single-mindedness, blow by blow and cut by cut, over three years.