The words of our Saviour in Matthew 7:13-14 stand as a sharp rebuke to the easy-going spirit of this present age, and to every soft-hearted delusion which imagines that the Kingdom of Heaven is obtained without effort or cost: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” These words are not the ornamental advice of a religious teacher seeking admirers, nor are they the sentimental platitudes of the modern pulpit. They are the command of the King, the Creator, the Judge of the living and the dead. Our Lord does not give permission for men to fashion their own path toward salvation. He gives clear instruction. The wide and easy road leads to destruction — not to temporary misfortune, but to eternal ruin, and the Lord adds with dreadful clarity that many walk it. This is the true state of the world. Few will take the narrow road, because few are willing to sacrifice their self-will, to crucify their pride, and to tear out their sinful pleasures by the root. The wide road promises comfort, ease, and worldly satisfaction, but it is nothing but the road to Gehenna.
The narrow path, on the other hand, is not paved with the sweet consolations and flatteries of this world, but with thorns, crosses, and the constant warfare against the passions. It is the royal road of obedience, ascetic struggle, and self-denial. It is the way by which the saints were sanctified, the martyrs were crowned, and the ascetics inherited the Kingdom of Heaven. The Saviour walked this path before us, bearing His Cross upon His torn and bruised shoulders, and He bids every one of His disciples to take up their own cross, to carry it without excuse, without negotiation, and without compromise. There is no other way to follow Christ. To walk any other road is to walk away from Him. This narrow path demands the death of the old man within us — the man of vanity, self-love, and lust for comfort — so that the new man, created in Christ, might live. The path of Christ will not twist itself to accommodate the ever-shifting fashions, whims, and false doctrines of a world sick with rebellion against God. It is not subject to modern tastes or opinions. The path is narrow because it is carved out by divine commandments, and because it leaves no room for the swollen ego of modern man. It does not widen itself for the benefit of the ecumenists, the modernists, or the sentimental deceivers who preach cheap grace and easy salvation. It remains fixed and unbending, regardless of the century, regardless of the culture, regardless of human protest. This is the path walked by the holy martyrs who were torn apart by lions, burned alive, and beheaded rather than deny Christ. This is the path walked by the confessors who endured exile, imprisonment, and scorn rather than renounce the Faith. This is the path walked by the ascetics, who fled the cities and the comforts of the world to struggle alone in the deserts and the forests, conquering the flesh and the devil by prayer and fasting. This is the path of the saints — not of the spiritually indifferent — and it remains the only path that leads to life eternal. There is no broad and comfortable road to the Kingdom of Heaven. The path is narrow, and it will remain narrow until the end of the age.
To walk this narrow path is to declare total war against the corruption of this fallen world — not in hidden whispers or safe corners, but openly, publicly, and without apology. The corruption we face today is not new in essence, but it wears a fresh disguise: it parades itself under noble-sounding names — liberty, progress, dignity, self-expression. But these are hollow idols, false freedoms that lead to bondage, and Saint Paul unmasks them with force in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.” The Christian is not permitted to walk in the ways of the world, not even slightly. Conformity is enmity with God. The soul must be re-formed by grace, not re-shaped by popular opinion. What the world praises today, God has condemned from the beginning. What the world despises, God has sanctified. We must never forget that we have been set apart — not to be admired, but to be holy. We are not here to be accepted, but to be faithful.
The wide road is not only the path of atheists and blasphemers. It is the road of the lukewarm, the careless, and the cowardly — those who confess Christ with the lips but deny Him in deeds. It is the road of spiritual indifference, of polite tolerance for heresy, of compromise with sin for the sake of comfort or reputation. It is the way of those who behave as if the commandments of God were optional, or as if God were too merciful to care whether we obey Him. But the narrow path does not allow such delusions. It demands daily repentance, not sentimental remorse but the cutting off of sin at the root. It demands vigilance, the guarding of the mind, the censoring of thoughts, the scrutiny of speech, and the discipline of the body. The Church Fathers speak again and again of nepsis, watchfulness — the constant sobriety of soul that prevents spiritual sleep. Without this, the soul becomes prey to demons.
The narrow way requires not tolerance of sin, but hatred of it. In the Psalms, we read: “I hate every false way.” (Psalm 119:104) It is not enough to dislike sin. It must be hated as poison, as filth, as death. If a man entertains it, excuses it, or lets it linger, it will master him. The saints did not become holy by partial repentance or occasional resistance. They waged total war. They cut off hands and gouged out eyes — not literally, but spiritually, as the Lord commands in Matthew 5:29-30. One cannot tread this path with one foot in the world and one foot in the Church. The path is narrow because it allows only the man who is wholly committed to Christ. It is fenced about — not loosely, but firmly — by the holy canons of the Church, which are not suggestions but divinely inspired safeguards. It is lined with the teachings of the Holy Fathers, whose ascetical wisdom exposes every deceit of the enemy. It is illumined by the Holy Scriptures, which must be read not with rebellious sentiment, but within the mind of the Church, preserved unbroken from Pentecost until now.
The Christian who walks this path must be ready to suffer — not only physical suffering, but the scorn, isolation, and hatred of the world. He must be willing to be mocked by the crowd, hated by the media, and despised by friends and family who have bowed before the spirit of the age. Loyalty to Christ is not admired in this world — it is loathed. And yet the path must be walked. If the world praises you, beware, for the Lord said, “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:26) Our loyalty is not to the shifting sand of modern opinion, but to Christ the King, Who reigns eternally. His way is not popular, but it is true. His way is not comfortable, but it is holy. His way is not easy, but it is the only way that leads to life. The Saviour not only preached this narrow path with words, but carved it into the earth with His own footsteps, leaving mankind without defence, without excuse, and without delay. From His Nativity to His Ascension, He walked the road of obedience, the path of suffering, and the way of utter self-emptying. The eternal Son of God, enthroned beyond all worlds, humbled Himself to be born in a cave, in swaddling clothes, laid not upon silk but upon straw, teaching us from the cradle that the path to His Kingdom begins with self-abasement. He, Whose word summoned the stars, lived in poverty, possessing not even a place to lay His head, as He Himself declared, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Luke 9:58) He tasted hunger and thirst, not because He lacked power, but because He desired to show that man shall not live by bread alone, but by the will of God. He endured mockery, spitting, scourging, betrayal, and stood calm and unshaken before both Pilate’s tribunal and the Sanhedrin’s assembly — a silent rebuke to every Christian who seeks comfort, popularity, and the approval of the world.
Christ’s life is the perfect pattern of the narrow way, a path drenched in blood, not paved in comforts. He commands plainly, without the false softness of modern preaching. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) Here the Saviour does not promise personal growth, inner peace, or social success. He demands self-denial. The daily cross is not a decorative symbol, but the sign of death to the world, death to the passions, death to the old man who clings to his pride, greed, and lust. The Christian life is crucifixion from beginning to end. Without the cross, there is no crown. Without self-denial, there is no salvation.
The saints, whom the world pretends to honour but never wishes to imitate, became saints by this path alone. They did not bargain with God for an easier road, nor did they seek to blend the Gospel with the spirit of the age. Their souls were tempered in the furnace of affliction. Their pride, which is the root of every sin, was stripped away like rotting flesh from a wound. Their worldly ambitions were slaughtered upon the altar of obedience. They did not seek after the favour of princes or the applause of crowds. Some were kings who forsook their thrones. Some were merchants who abandoned their wealth. Others were labourers and peasants who embraced hardship with gladness, for they saw that earthly glory, wealth, and status are baited traps laid by the enemy, designed to ensnare the soul in vanity and pride. The narrow way permits no attachment to such things. The Lord Himself warns that no man can serve two masters. “You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Matthew 6:24) The soul that binds itself to earthly riches and honours will find that these things are millstones, dragging it downward to destruction. The saints cast off all such fetters, and followed Christ in poverty of spirit, in chastity of heart, in obedience unto death. Their example leaves us without excuse. The way has already been walked by Christ. The martyrs and ascetics followed after Him, and the Church still points to the same road, narrow as ever, unchanged by the passing centuries. There is no alternative path for those who would enter the Kingdom of God. One must take up the Cross, or one will never wear the crown.
In the end, there are no alternative routes, no clever detours, no secret arrangements to enter the Kingdom of God. There is only one path, and Christ Himself has marked it plainly — narrow, steep, and hard. The wide road is the road of self-will, of pride, of self-justification, of endless excuses, of lawlessness disguised as personal freedom. Its pavement is smooth because it is greased with human vanity. It is filled with the self-satisfied, the religiously indifferent, and the morally blind — and it leads with certainty to everlasting ruin. The world prefers this road because it costs nothing at the beginning, but the price at the end is eternal. The narrow path, on the other hand, demands everything at the beginning — self-denial, crucifixion of the passions, loyalty to Christ against the world — but it ends in life, joy, and the unending light of the Kingdom.
The narrow path is not an optional discipline for monks, nor is it reserved for the especially pious, nor for the isolated few who “take religion seriously.” It is the single, non-negotiable obligation of every baptised Christian, whether man or woman, married or celibate, young or old, rich or poor. Baptism is the beginning of this walk, not the end of it. Once marked with the seal of the Holy Chrism, the Christian is bound under oath to walk the path of Christ, not the path of the age. Saint James leaves no room for polite excuses when he writes: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:4) This world, with its fashionable ideologies and decaying morals, offers temporary pleasures, but at the price of eternal death. One cannot walk with Christ and with the world at the same time. To try is to deceive oneself and to stand already condemned.
To walk this narrow way is to bind oneself, soul and body, to Christ the King — not as a passing affection or a Sunday ritual, but as the defining and ruling purpose of one’s entire life. It is to forsake the false comforts of the world, which vanish like smoke, and to walk daily in the fear of God, grounded in repentance, labouring in unceasing prayer, and placing hope only in the mercy of Christ, not in the crumbling securities of the age. The road is hard, but it is the only road worth walking. Salvation is not handed to the comfortable. The Kingdom is not inherited by those who entertain the world’s values and live as spiritual vagrants. It is possessed by those who endure the path with constancy, with courage, and with unswerving faithfulness until their last breath.
The words of our Saviour close the argument beyond all debate — “The one who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13) Not the one who begins the race. Not the one who claims Christ with his lips while bowing to the world’s idols with his heart. Endurance is the mark of true faith. This is the narrow path — walked by the saints, commanded by Christ, and offered to every man who would dare call himself a Christian. There is no other way. The world mocks it, but the Kingdom belongs to those who walk it.
May God bless you +
Fr. Charles
Holy Tuesday, 15 April 2025
