The Narrow Gate

Intrate per angustam portam... Quasi dicat: Dura videntur vobis quae praecipio et angusta sed per hanc duritiam et angustiam intrandum es vobis ad vitam, et vere per angustam portam, quia non per latam viam, per latam enim viam intratur ad mortem, et hoc est quod dicit. Porta vero quae ducit ad vitam, non solum est angusta, sed etiam arcta quia per labores et jejunia panditur. Considerandum est quod competenter de utraque via locutus est. Per latam multi ambulant, angustam pauci inveniunt, latam non quaeramus, nec investigatione opus est, sponte se offert erranti in via; angustam vero nec omnes inveniunt, nec qui inveniunt, statim ingrediuntur per eam. Multi enim, inventa veritatis via, capti saeculi voluptatibus, de medio itinere revertuntur. Anselmus Laudunensis, Enarrationes In Matthaeum, Caput VII Source: Migne PL 162.1316a-b

Enter through the narrow gate... 1 As if He said, 'It seems to you that what I command is hard but through this difficulty and narrowness you must go to enter into life, and truly through the narrow gate, because it is not through the wide way, for going along the wide way one enters into death,' which is what He says. But the gate that leads to life is not only narrow but even difficult because it is opened by toil and fasting. One must consider what has been said of both ways. Many walk on the wide way, and few find the narrow way. We do not seek the wide way, there is no toil to discover it, because it is immediately offered to those who wander on the way, but not all find the narrow gate, nor do those who find it immediately enter through it. For many who have found the true way are seized by the pleasures of the world and in the middle of going along it they turn back. Anselm of Laon, Commentary On The Gospel of Saint Matthew, Chapter 7 1 Mt 7.13