Homily for Ordinary Time 32
November 6, 2022
Created Things Point to Heaven
What is
up with these Saduccees, who don’t believe in the Resurrection? The Sadducees
were a group of Jews who only acknowledged the Torah – the first five books of
the Bible – as inspired Scriptures. And these first books of the Bible do not explicitly
reveal a belief in Heaven, so they reject it.
How does
Jesus respond? By using the Torah itself – he quotes Exodus 3, when Moses had a
vision of God in the burning bush, and the Lord introduced Himself as the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus uses the Torah itself to prove that there
is a Heaven!
But this
begs the question – how do we know anything about Heaven? I’ve never
been there, nor have you. But Jesus Christ came from Heaven, and so He reveals
to us what Heaven is like.
Imagine
that a person was born in a prison. His whole life he lived in prison; he
didn’t know anything else. Just gray walls, prison food, drab clothing, and boredom.
But then, a man comes in from the outside world, and tries to encourage him to
leave the prison – after all, he is innocent, he can leave whenever he wants.
The man from outside tries to describe trees and music, pizza and football…but
how can you describe it to someone who hasn’t experienced it? It takes a lot of
courage to leave the only prison you’ve ever known…but if you trust the outside
visitor, you’ll listen to his description and perhaps follow him to the real
world outside.
In the
same way, we only know the rather drab world of this earth. But an outsider –
Jesus Christ – has come to reveal what eternal life is like. We have a hard
time trying to conceptualize what it’s all about, but if we trust Him, we will
believe what He has revealed.
So what
HAS He revealed about Heaven? Let’s take a look at a few things from this
Gospel.
First,
Jesus reveals that there will be no marriage in Heaven. Woah, wait a
minute…some of you are thinking this is terrible, while a few others might be
breathing a sigh of relief. I am certain that you will still have a close
relationship with your spouse in eternity, but marriage itself was given to us
on earth for two purposes. First, for the procreation and education of
children, and second, to sanctify you and your spouse, to help you grow in
virtue and get to Heaven. But once we are in everlasting life, we will have no
need to have children, and we won’t need to grow in virtue – so marriage as we
know it will not be present in Heaven.
Here on
earth, we only get to know God through intermediaries. We observe the beauty of
creation, and we recognize that God is good and beautiful and life-giving. We
experience the love of family and friends, and we get to know that God loves
us. We read the Bible, and we learn about sin and grace and redemption. But in
Heaven, we will know God directly – and we will know everything else through
God. It’s as if God is a prism – we look into the prism, and we see a wide
variety of colors…when we gaze upon God Himself in eternity, we will see the
rest of the created universe in Him.
In fact,
the Scriptures reveal that the whole reason we have good things on earth is to
be a foretaste of Heaven, to remind us of Who God Is. People often ask me,
“Will I have pizza in Heaven? Will we have football in Heaven?” But pizza and
football and friendships and art are given to us, not as an end in themselves,
but to remind us of the goodness and love of God. Once while in college, I went
hiking with a very faith-filled friend, he looked up at the sky and said, “The
sky reminds me of the Blessed Mother – it is blue like her cloak, it stretches
from end to end like Mary’s queenly reign, and it allows the sun to shine
through, as Mary lets Jesus shine through her.” At the time I thought, “Wow,
that’s super corny,” but now I realize that he was right – every good gift
ought to remind us of eternity, rather than being an end in itself. When I
enjoy a good meal, it reminds me of the Banquet Feast of Heaven. When I enjoy
time spent with family, I remember that I have a truer family awaiting me among
the angels and saints. When I am in awe of the beauty or majesty of a starry
night sky or a beach scene, it reminds me of the all-powerful, all-beautiful
One. Even when we suffer, it helps us to keep our eye on eternity – the aches
and pains of growing older helps us to remember that our bodily life is
temporary… financial hardships drive home the point that our lives should not
be built on money.
Remember,
Jesus says that in Heaven “we will be like the angels.” What do the angels do
for eternity? They adore and worship the Lord. They don’t spend time worrying
about anything, because they know that God takes care of their every need.
There is no more sorrow or tears, no more emptiness or longing.
Many of
the great saints and mystics had visions of Heaven. For example, Saint Dominic
Savio was a young man of great holiness, who lived in a school run by another
saint, St. John Bosco. Dominic died at the age of 15 after a life of intense
love for God, saying on his deathbed, “Oh, what beautiful things I see!” A
while later, his spiritual mentor, St. John Bosco, had a mystical dream where
he visited Heaven. He describes it as a place of profound natural beauty and
music. In this dream, he saw a number of people he knew who had passed on, all
of whom had luminous smiles. Much to his delight, he saw young Dominic Savio
come up to him and begin to converse with him. Fr. Bosco was speechless, and
didn’t know what to say. But Dominic reassured him, “You had treated me with
such love while on earth, so I wish to share some of the blessings of Heaven!”
They conversed for a while, before Fr. Bosco asked, “Please, could I see just a
small glimpse of the glory of God?” Dominic replied, “No one can see God until they
is pure, as God is pure.” And here the mystical dream ended – but it kindled in
the holy priest an even greater desire to become a saint!
My
friends, every day we get a foretaste of Heaven in the good things that God has
given us. But these are only tiny crumbs from the Banquet Feast of the Lamb.
Let these crumbs stir you to a greater hunger to possess the joys of Heaven!
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