Until Heaven

A few years ago, when I left St. Benedict’s Church in Stamford, the fifth-grade CCD class chipped in to get me a book. I was very grateful to receive the present, but when I unwrapped it I found that they had gotten me a book by St. Alphonsus Liguori called “Preparation for Death”. Was there some sort of subliminal message there?

I suppose leaving a place is somewhat like a death, and our readings today speak about death. But I don’t want to preach on death today, to end my time here at St. John’s on a morbid note – although, of course, for Christians, death should be a joyous thing as we are reunited with the One Who loves us infinitely.

But upon further reflection, these readings really aren’t about death, but about life – finding life, being restored to life. Not just biological life, but the abundant, fulfilling life that comes when we encounter Jesus Christ.

There is a difference, of course. Many people are walking around, breathing, eating, going to work and school – and they have no idea why. They are not really alive, just surviving. Once when I was teaching Confirmation class at a different parish, I had a kid named Matt in my class. He was the typical uninterested teen – bored, surly – but as the year progressed, he started asking good questions and really diving into his faith. The next year he got involved in our youth program and told me he had been praying the Rosary daily. I asked him what changed – how did he go from not caring about Jesus to suddenly being a disciple? He said something I’ve never forgotten: “I felt like I was living my life half-asleep, and now I’m finally awake.

Yes, and many of us are living our life half-asleep, because we are just taking up oxygen and not really sure if we want to follow Jesus. Perhaps we feel like we can’t follow Him because we’re too much of a mess. But look at the Gospel – Jesus takes people who are wounded, who are a mess, who are dead – and brings them back to life, to restoration. The woman with the hemorrhage didn’t say, “Oh, I’m too much of a mess for Jesus.” The family of the daughter didn’t say, “Oh, she’s already dead, there’s no more hope for her.” On the contrary! Like those broken, wounded people in the Gospel, we can say to Jesus, “Lord, I’m a mess, I fail all the time, I’m imperfect and weak and dead – heal me, raise me to life!” And we bring ourselves to the Sacrament of Confession, we pray daily for mercy, and we allow Him to make us fully alive. After all, He is the Savior – and He loves to save us weak creatures!

So do not let your weakness prevent you from living for Jesus, because He wants us to be truly alive! The happiest moment of my life took place a few years ago when I was leading a father-son pilgrimage to Italy. We were all in Assisi, which is the coolest little town – it looks perfectly preserved from the 1300s, and you can sense the holiness there along those streets where Francis and Clare walked. After dinner, despite a spattering of rain, we decided to hike up to the highest point in town, an old 800-year-old fortress that overlooked the entire Umbrian valley. We had just reached the top when the skies parted and a dramatic rainbow covered the sky from one end to the other. It struck me that this was a foretaste of Heaven – here I was, with some of my favorite people in the world, in a place of holiness and surpassing beauty, to praise God and glorify Him. Can it get any better than that?

And if this is what Heaven is like, let us live for Heaven here! Even the suffering we endure on this earth is “nothing compared to the glory to be revealed”, says St. Paul. We don’t need to wait until Heaven to become fully alive – as a wise priest once told me, “Heaven is wherever God is being enjoyed.” If we live for Him, in union with Him, here on earth, then we have brought Heaven into our daily lives.

And what else can offer such happiness? Can anything in this world truly satisfy us? I know a young man who, when he was a freshman in high school, refused to go to his school dance where they would be playing raunchy music and gossiping and dancing immorally. His mother tried to convince him to go, but he resisted and said, “Why do you want me to go so badly?” She replied, “You need to experience the world!” He responded, “I have seen the world, and I don’t want it.” What the world says is happiness – make a lot of money, have a lot of fun, drink and indulge every lustful pleasure, become powerful and influential – does any of that really lead to the real, abundant life that Christ wants for us? That our hearts really desire?

When St. Faustina was a young teen, she felt a strong call to become a nun. But she kept postponing it and putting it off, figuring that it was too hard. Even though she loved God, she said to herself, “First I want to see what the world has to offer!” One day when she was about eighteen, she and her sister went to a nightclub for a dance with hundreds of other people, jammed into a tiny club. She was having a great time, but something was off…something in her conscience bothered her. As she was dancing, all of a sudden the dance floor seemed to empty and everyone faded away from her sight. Instead, across the room, appeared Jesus Christ, covered in blood and wounds and walking to her. He said to her, “Faustina, how much longer will you put Me off?” After He asked the question, He disappeared and the dance continued like usual. But Faustina was shaken. White as a ghost, she fled the dance hall, ignoring her sister’s questions, and went straight to the nearest convent of nuns where she stayed all night in the chapel, and when the sun came up she asked for admission to the convent. For all that the world could offer, Jesus was calling her to a more abundant life.

So my final words are not about death, but about life. If you want to be truly happy, fully alive – live for Heaven here, and strive to be a saint.

Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time/Year B, Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24, 2 Corinthians 8:7, 9, 13-15, Mark 5:21-43 OR Mark 5:21-24, 35B-43

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Originally published at The Cross Stands While the World Turns

Photo: Johannes Plenio, Unsplash / PD-US