Photo was taken at Green Glens, Millstreet, Co.Cork (Irl)

This bunch were taking shelter from a shower, at the Millstreet Horse Show last Sunday, thanks to The Irish Field!

Thought on Sunday – August – 25/08/2013

The following reflection is by Triona Doherty

A narrow door, a locked door, futile knocking and an unsympathetic doorkeeper – it’s almost as if the master in today’s Gospel story wants to keep people out!


In the opening chapter of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice has a bit of bother with doors. The doors in the hall in which she find herself are all locked. When she finds a key, it doesn’t fit the locks. When she manages to find a door to match the key, she herself won’t fit through; the doorway is too narrow. Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head though the doorway.

There is a similar predicament for those in Jesus’ story. They knock on the door and expect to be admitted, but it is not that simple. They are too late – the door has been locked and the master turns them away. What does Jesus mean when he says we must strive to ‘enter by the narrow door’? Is it almost impossible to enter the kingdom of God? The narrow door is Jesus. But it is not enough to have encountered him and heard his teachings. One must have walked the narrow path of the Gospel.