We are tight-rope walkers
for the Lord.
By Rev. Thomas Coughlin
I
remember many years ago watching a TV show about a tight-rope walker who tried
to walk across a raging river with no safety net. He used a large pole in his hands to balance
his walk and it helped him to have a steady footing on the wire.
For us,
it was a very suspenseful watch. We did not know whether he will make it or
not. He did not look around at the
scenery. He did not even bother to look
at the river below. His eyes were fixed
on a goal, the platform at the other end of the high-wire. He moved slowly but
surely towards his goal. There were some
moments when he nearly slipped on the wire due to an unexpected cross wind but
the balance and support of the pole in his hands helped him to regain his
composure on the high wire.
It was
quite a while before he was able to make it to the other end. He did not have a tether, a safety rope tied
to his body. It was a risky performance
and he could have plunged to his death in the river below if he had slipped.
Nevertheless, he continued to defy the odds of walking across the river without
a harness or a safety net. It was an act
of total confidence. Naturally, we were
impressed with his courage to take the risk of walking across a river on a
tight-rope. We cheered when he got to
the platform safely.
Our
spiritual life is very much like this.
Our Lord told us this: “Go in through the narrow gate. The gate to destruction is wide, and the road
that leads there is easy to follow. A lot of people go through that gate. But the gate to life is very narrow. The road that leads there
is so hard to follow that only a few people find it.” Matthew 7:13 The
path to eternal life is truly a narrow path.
It is so narrow that only one person can walk on it, akin to a
tight-rope. No two persons can walk on a tight-rope together. We walk alone and the passage is truly
narrow, so narrow that we will have trouble staying on its path.
How can
we help ourselves if we are to walk on a narrow path to eternal life? Can we make it? The truth is that we cannot make it on our
own unless we learn a lesson from the tight-rope walker. What did he do in order to accomplish his
walk on a narrow strip of rope in the mid-air?
All we can see that he carried only a large pole, nothing else. What can we learn from this? If we look at this tight-rope walker, we will
notice that he balanced himself carefully on a very narrow path with the pole
The
lesson is that we need to carry a similar kind of pole in our spiritual life
with faith on one end and hope on another.
With these two important virtues, faith and hope, each on its own side
of the pole, we can balance carefully when we walk on a narrow and slippery
path, following Jesus. But this is not
all. We need one more important virtue
to help us to reach our goal. The love
we have for God and neighbor will be our third virtue and undoubtedly the most
important virtue of all three. We need
this gift of love to serve as a motivating factor in our attempt to cross the
chasm of life to God.
Any
tight-rope walker who depends on his pole for balance will also need his heart
as the source of courage and determination to move on. If he lacks courage and determination in his
heart and soul to walk on the tight-rope, he could never make it safely across.
In our
spiritual life, we may walk on path of life as a tight-rope walker with our
faith and hope balanced on both sides. Our love for God will be the force that
makes us move. With all three virtues
together: faith, hope and love, we will succeed in our spiritual journey. If one of the three important virtues is
missing, we will not succeed well. Life
is full of treacherous pitfalls that will make us fall and lose. With our faith and hope as a balancing factor
in our spiritual life, we can move on carefully on the narrow path that leads
to everlasting life.
When
the tight-rope walker crossed over the wire and reached his platform of safety,
he gently put down the pole on the bar and stood in his exultation. He no longer needed the pole as he had
reached his destination safe and sound.
The
same goes for us. Once when we reach our
destination in heaven, we will lay down our balancing pole of faith and hope
because we will no longer need them as we have reached our ultimate goal,
God. We do not need faith anymore
because we are rewarded with the beatific vision of God. God is no longer obscure or mysterious. Everything will be clear as the noon day
sun. Furthermore, we will not need to
hope for anything else because when we have God, we will have everything.
In our
eternal happiness with God, we will discover that faith and hope will yield to
the power of God’s love. Our happiness
with God will be rooted in our love for God.
The love of God is what will bind us with God forever. In Corinthians 13:13,
Life on
earth is one long narrow path, similar to a high wire in the mid-air. We may get frightened by the challenges that
beset us in every way: