Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: heaven

  • Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    There’s a funny picture I have seen go around on social media fairly often. It’s a picture of a student’s math test, and the student was clearly stumped. So he or she wrote in, “Jesus is the answer.” But the teacher corrected it in red, and wrote, “Not to this question it isn’t!”

    Probably the most urgent task of our lives is to find our way.  Lots of people get hung up on that: often in happens in young adulthood, or perhaps even later.  They lose their way and maybe they don’t even know where they are going.  Thomas gives voice to that kind of thing which the other disciples were probably experiencing as well: we don’t know where you’re going, we don’t know where we are supposed to go, so how can we know the way?

    At some level though, we know the goal is heaven, that’s where we are supposed to go. We know we want to be there in the afterlife, but we forget, or we never realize, that getting there in the afterlife means finding it now.  The disciples thought they didn’t know the way, and maybe we think that too.  But really they, and we, have always known the Way, and also the Truth, and also the Life. Because it’s Jesus, it’s always been Jesus, it will always be Jesus. Jesus is the answer!

    To get to heaven, we just have to follow the Way.  Now, and in the life to come. Christ is risen.  He is risen indeed.  Alleluia.

  • Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    When people ask you where you are from, the way that you answer that question probably depends a lot on the context.  For instance, if it was a stranger who asked you that question when you were on a vacation out of the country, you might answer, “I’m from the United States.”  If you’re at a business meeting at your corporate headquarters in another state, you might say, “I’m from the Chicago area.”  If you just move into a house and you’re meeting your new neighbors for the first time, you might tell them where you used to live.  If you are at a ministry function with people from other churches, you would probably say “I’m from Saint Mary Immaculate in Plainfield.” 

    Today’s Scriptures ask that question in the context of our faith.  Where are you from?  In the first reading, we find there are Christians in Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, but all of them had their hearts – their true citizenship – in the new Jerusalem, the city of God.  They may have been from all over the known world at the time, but they were one in faith, united as brothers and sisters in Christ.  The Gospel reading has some Jews gathered around Jesus in the Temple, asking if he was the Christ.  They wanted to know where he was from.  And it was obvious – they had seen his works and heard his words.  But they could never be united, because even though they were in the same place, their hearts were from different places.

    So where are you from?  We could answer that one all kinds of ways.  But spiritually, at our core, we are citizens of heaven.  Our life’s journey takes us all sorts of places, but its source and its destination are one and the same: our true home is in the City of God.  And right now, we are not home yet.  As always, the Psalmist says it so well: “One and all were born in her;” – that is, the City of God – “And he who has established her is the Most High LORD.”

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • The Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s gospel reading is a rather heartbreaking story, to be honest.  The rich young man is obviously a follower of the law and a religious man, because he is able to talk to Jesus about his observance of the law.  But when Jesus tells him to let go of what he has in order to gain eternal life, he walks away dejected because he has so much.  We don’t know what ultimately happens to the rich young man.  Maybe he did go and begin the hard work of letting go, selling his possessions and giving to the poor.  And maybe he just couldn’t do it.  But at least he knows what he has to do.

    I think that far more heartbreaking than this story of the rich young man is the story of modern men and women, rich and not-so-rich, young and old alike.  I am more heartbroken for these because as much as the rich young man in the gospel story asked what he had to do to gain eternal life, too many of today’s men and women have lost the desire even to ask the question.

    I hope your heart is breaking too.  These are not words of joy and blessing that Jesus is speaking to us today.  They are words of challenge.  He wants to light a fire under us and smack us full force out of our complacency.  “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!”  So many people are not with us here at Mass today.  Whether it’s soccer or football or work or sloth or whatever, they are missing, and our gathering is the poorer for it.  Many of them will feel guilty about missing, perhaps some of them will even confess it.  But far too many of them don’t care or don’t even know that they should care.  How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!

    People today, even maybe some of us gathered here today, are so greatly focused on getting ahead, becoming rich in the things of earth, skyrocketing careers, being well thought of – we are so embarrassingly rich in all these ways.  But none of those things are going to get us into heaven, into the kingdom of God.  We are all being told today to go, sell those paltry, fading glory things and give to those who are poorer, so that we can all enter the kingdom of God together.  Will we too walk away, like the rich young man in the gospel, dejected and depressed because we have too much to let go of it all?  How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!

    In this respect life month, we might find we are too rich in other ways as well.  We may cling to the way that we’re thought of and so encourage or at least look the other way when a mother ends a pregnancy.  Or we’re so concerned about the value of our homes and the safety of our riches that we tolerate the death penalty.  Or the care of a loved one takes us away from our work so we don’t care for those loved ones the way we should.  But we are a people who are gifted with life from conception to natural death, and we are called to reverence that life and celebrate that gift.  We have to let go of anything that gets in the way of that.  How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!

    Taking hold of the kingdom of God necessarily means we have to let go of something.  That is the clear message of today’s gospel reading.  What we have to let go of is different for all of us, but clearly there is a rich young man or woman in all of us, and we have to be ready to give up whatever gets in our way, or what we will end up letting go of is the kingdom of God.  And that would be truly, horribly, unforgivably heartbreaking.

    “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!”

    And so what do we do?  Do we give up, throw up our hands, and walk away dejected because we know it’s all too much – that what we have to let go of is beyond our capacity to do it?  Certainly not.  For us, truly, it may be impossible.  But nothing is impossible for God.  God hears that desire for eternal life in us and opens up the way to salvation.  He gave his Son to live our life and die our death and rise to new life that lasts forever.  That same glory is intended for all of us too.  All we have to do is let go – as frightening as that may well be for us – let go, and let God worry about the implications of it all.

    And Jesus points out that this will not be easy.  Those who give up their riches to follow him will receive blessing, but also challenge: they will receive “receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.”  There will be persecution in this life.  Not everyone will get why we are letting go.  And that makes the letting go so much more difficult.  But the rewards of a hundredfold here and a million-fold in the kingdom are worth it.

    So let’s pray with this Gospel reading now.  I’d like you to close your eyes and put the stuff that you’re holding onto in your hands.  Whether they are possessions, ambitions, improper relationships, patterns of sin, whatever they are – put them in your hands and close your hands around them.  Hang on to them tight, and try to remember why they are important to you.  Then, imagine Jesus, coming to you, reaching out to you, offering you eternal life – everything you ever hoped for.  Do you reach out and accept it, dropping the stuff you were hanging onto?  Or do you keep hanging on and let the Lord pass you by?  Spend a little time now, quietly, speaking to Jesus about what you’re hanging on to, and ask him for the grace to let go of all that, and accept what he really wants to give you.

  • The Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I really don’t have a green thumb, but for a while when I was young, I was very interested in growing things.  My grandmother on my dad’s side had quite the green thumb: anything she planted grew to be quite prolific.  I have whatever the opposite of that is!  But still, I have always been fascinated by things growing from tiny little seeds to become large plants; no matter if they become beautiful flowers to decorate the landscape, or delicious vegetables to bring to the table.

    It’s really a miracle when you think about it.  A little seed, this tiny little dried-up thing, looks for all the world to be useless and dead.  But when it gets planted in the earth, and watered by the rains, new life springs forth from it, and a tiny sprout appears, which grows day by day to become a fully mature plant by the summertime.  Sure, we or the farmers might do a little work to nurture it and water it and keep the weeds and rabbits away, but we don’t make the plant grow: day by day, almost imperceptibly, growth happens.  One day, for all the grace given it, it becomes a mature plant that gives nourishment and delight and shade for the birds of the air.

    And this is the image that Jesus uses today to describe the Kingdom of God.  These parables are a lens through which we are to see life: the life of God, and our life, and how they all come together.  And it’s an encouraging message that we hear today.  Today, our Lord assures us that the Kingdom of God doesn’t come about all at once, in great power and glory, or in some kind of dramatic explosion.  The Kingdom is like those crops that grow to be fully mature plants and yield a harvest, but it happens little by little, almost imperceptibly, always growing, but we know not how.  And the Kingdom is miraculous like a mustard seed which one day is the tiniest of all seeds and eventually becomes a large plant that gives shelter to the birds of the air.

    Here’s why I think these parables are so encouraging:  We all want to be part of the Kingdom of God.  We all want to grow in our faith.  We all want that faith to sustain us in good times and bad, and eventually lead us to heaven.  That’s why we’re here today.  But the truth is, if you’re like me, you get frustrated sometimes because it doesn’t seem like there’s any real growth going on.  We commit the same sins despite our firmest resolve.  We take one step forward and two steps back.  But still, like the seed scattered on the land, being here for Mass today isn’t nothing.  Our prayers, however lacking they may seem to be, are still a manifestation of our desire to be in relationship with God.  And God takes those tiny seeds of faith and waters them with grace and the sacraments and the life of the Church, until one day, please God, our faith makes a difference in our lives and the lives of those around us.  And even if whatever we start with in the life of faith is as tiny as a mustard seed, in God’s hands, it can become that shrub that is a shelter for those who are flying around in life from one thing to the next, without any real hope except for Christ in us.

    And that’s an important thing for us to get.  Our faith life gets nourished and we grow in it from day to day.  That’s a gift to us, for sure: every step gets us closer to the life of heaven.  But it’s not for us only, friends.  We are called as we mature to become the shrub that gives shelter to the birds of the air.  We are meant to help others along the way of faith too.  Because we don’t go alone to heaven; we’re supposed to take as many fellow seekers along with us as we possibly can.

    We may not be perfect yet, friends, but we’re graced.  And grace will perfect whatever we sow and make our tiny little beginnings into great things, all for the Kingdom of God.

  • The Solemnity of All Saints

    The Solemnity of All Saints

    Today’s readings

    I think we all bristle, unfortunately, at the idea of being a saint.  Saints are those super-holy folks who are depicted in artwork and glorified in amazing stories.  We are just ordinary people who struggle with our holiness, at best.  But today, the Church is asking us to think about saints in a broader way.  Yes, we include all those “official” saints that have been canonized through the ages.  The Church rejoices in the saints because when someone becomes a saint, the Church recognizes that he or she is definitely in heaven, the goal of all our lives.  That’s what the process of canonization is all about.  And bringing people to heaven is the whole point of the Church.  So, from the many saints of every time and place, we know of thousands of people that are certainly in heaven.  Thanks be to God!

    But, as I said, I think the Church wants us to think about saints in a broader way.  There is the story of a schoolteacher who asked her children what a saint was.  One little girl thought about the saints she saw in stained glass windows, and said “Saints are people the light shines through.”  Think about that for a minute – that little girl isn’t far from the kingdom of God there.  Because all people are called to let the light of Christ shine through them, and saints are those people who have made that the business of their lives.

    Heaven is that great multitude that John the Revelator tells us about in today’s first reading: that multitude “which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.”  They are wearing, he tells us, white robes, which have been washed in the blood of the lamb.  That seems very counter-intuitive, doesn’t it?  Everyone knows that blood stains like nobody’s business.  But he’s speaking poetically here, and recognizes that nothing washes us sinners quite as clean as the saving blood of Jesus Christ.

    And that’s really the only way.  Because we’re quite right when we bristle a bit at being called saints.  We can’t be saints all on our own.  We aren’t good enough, we can’t make up for our sins with any kind of completeness, and there’s basically no way that we can jump high enough to get to heaven.  But this feast of All Saints recognizes that we don’t have to.  We don’t have to because Christ has saved us through no merit of our own but based solely on God’s love for us.  The fact that we can be called saints is a grace, and we dare not bristle so much that we turn away from that grace.

    Our Gospel today gives us some help here.  Because all those saints we know about would probably have protested they weren’t saintly themselves.  But these are people who knew the Gospel and lived it in their lives.  These are the ones who were poor in spirit, who mourned, who hungered and thirsted for righteousness.  These are the clean of heart, the peacemakers, those who were persecuted for the sake of righteousness.  And through it all, they depended on their God who used their hunger for holiness to transform their lives and make them fit for heaven.  And the Good news is that God still does this, and will do this, not just for some people, but for all of us who give our lives to him.

    And none of the saints would have said any of this is easy.  Think about Saint Paul himself: he began his career by persecuting Christians and we know that he had a hand in the stoning of Saint Stephen.  Or think about Saint Augustine who was an intellectual man who disdained Christianity, until his mother’s prayers caught up with him.  Or we might think even more recently of Saint Teresa of Calcutta who experienced a very dark time in her life when she could not even communicate with Jesus.  But she trusted in Jesus, who was still there and led her to heaven.

    We are all of us on a journey, and we know that our true home is not in this place, however good it may be.  We are on a journey to heaven, and that means that we are in the process of becoming saints.  That journey consists in following the Way who is Jesus the Christ, our Lord and Redeemer.  He has commanded, “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” and there is no way to do that except to follow him.

    So, no, of course, not all of us will be canonized.  Most of us will go to the Kingdom rather imperfect in many ways, and will have to work that out in the grace of Purgatory.  We pray for those souls on tomorrow’s feast of All Souls.  But if we look to those canonized saints for inspiration, perhaps our relationship with the Lord will lead us and our brothers and sisters to that place where all the saints worship around the Throne of the Lamb.

    Today we, the Church militant, honor the Church triumphant: not only the great saints like Mary and Joseph, Patrick and Benedict, Michael and Gabriel, Francis and Dominic, but also those saints that God alone has known.  We glory in their triumph that was made possible by them joining themselves to Christ.  We take inspiration from their battles and from the faith that helped keep them in Christ when they could have turned away.  If God could do that in their lives, he can certainly do that in ours too.  Perhaps, if we are willing to accept it, he can fill us with saintly attributes: strength in weakness, compassion in the face of need, witness to faith in times when society lacks direction, and so much more.

    Those virtues are virtues that we think about when we call to mind those official, canonized saints.  But they are virtues for which we can and should strive as well.  The desire and the grace to attain those virtues comes from God himself, and the reward for receiving that grace and living those virtues is a heavenly relationship with God. What could be better than that?

    This is a lot of work, and it’s not easy to live a saintly life, but Jesus makes a promise today to those who strive to do so: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven!”

  • The Second Sunday of Lent

    The Second Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    This weekend’s homily is brief, because I’m also talking about our capital campaign.

    I think it’s very important for us to realize that we are not at home in this world, wherever we are.  We are always travelers until we reach heaven, which is our true home.  I remember on the last day of my dad’s life, he kept looking at his watch and saying, “It’s almost time to go home.”  We kept telling him he couldn’t go home, because he was too sick.  But later that day when we were talking, we realized what he really meant.  He was on his way to his true home, our true home, that place we all want to go one day.

    Jesus gave Peter, James and John a glimpse of that in today’s Gospel.  On seeing the vision, I think Peter realized that there was something like that going on here.  He wanted to build tents, to keep Moses and Elijah there and make that their home.  But he really was babbling, because, quite understandably, he didn’t know what to make of it all.

    What they were getting, in a way, is a glimpse of heaven.  Jesus appearing with Moses, the giver of the Law, and Elijah, the epitome of Old Testament Prophets.  It’s Jesus himself who brings the Law to fulfillment, and Jesus himself who is the fulfillment of all the prophets’ messages.  They appeared in a dazzling vision that revealed what Jesus’ resurrected body would be like.  It was obviously different and glorious, and had the disciples stunned.

    So in these days of Lent, it is well for us to remember that there is more to life than just what we see here.  The task, then, is to live our lives like we’re going to heaven.  Because that’s what we want.  Yes, we will have to take up the cross to get there.  Yes, we will have to venture into unknown territory like Abram.  But if we ever want to get to the joys of heaven, we have to be willing to brave the unknown and endure the cross and go wherever it is God takes us.

  • The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    You know, it doesn’t take too much thinking to see that our culture is way off base.  I saw a post on social media this week about the “do what makes you happy” aspect of our culture, and how toxic that is for us Christians. Our God does will our happiness.  But he directs that happiness to the afterlife, when all is perfected.  We are called to reasonable happiness in this life, but in this life we are called to glorify God in all of our thoughts, words and deeds, and depend on God to be the source of our joy.

    But our culture is all about selfishness being the source of our joy, which is completely disordered. Our attachment to stuff borders on hoarding.  Recently I noticed the proliferation of “you store it” businesses in our area.  Stuff does not make us happy; in many ways it almost makes us less happy because we have to figure out what to do with the stuff. We can be very rich in what matters to us, but the question is, when does it all become too much?

    Listen to the last line of this morning’s Gospel one more time: “Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.” So right away the parable is turned around and directed at all of us. And it wouldn’t be so hard to put that parable in modern terms, would it? Think of winning the lottery, only to know that the day you receive the check is the day you go home to the Lord. Or think of spending your days and nights in the office, building wealth and prestige, only to be part of massive layoffs when the company is sold. Or, even worse, spending your days and nights at the office, only to miss the growing of your family. So, Jesus asks us, what treasures have we built up? With what have we filled our barns?

    Today’s first reading is from the book of Ecclesiastes, which in Hebrew is Qoheleth, who is the teacher in the book. Among the Wisdom books in the Scriptures, Ecclesiastes can be the hardest to read because it is almost prophetic in content. Qoheleth is the main character in the book, a man who is considered wise among his contemporaries, much like many of the popular wisdom teachers of his day. While we don’t know who Qoheleth was, the book is attributed to Solomon, the wise king. Solomon often wrote of the prizes that lay in store for those who were successful. But this book is a little different. Here he questions if it is all worth it, and challenges the complacency and dishonesty that run rampant in that society. If we didn’t know any better, he could well have been writing his words today, couldn’t he? In the end, though, Qoheleth’s message is basically encouraging, and brings us back to the God who made us. At the end of his book, which is not part of today’s reading, he says: “The last word, when all is heard: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is man’s all; because God will bring to judgment every work, with all its hidden qualities, whether good or bad.” (Ecc. 12:13-14) Which is exactly what I found in that social media post: we need to concern ourselves with glorifying God.  That’s what Jesus is telling us in today’s Gospel, too.

    St. Paul has a little bit of Qoheleth in him too, today. In the letter to the Colossians, which we have been hearing these past few weeks, he is trying to get that community to lay aside earthly things and seek God. Sounds like the message of Qoheleth, doesn’t it? “If you were raised with Christ,” he tells them, “seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” In other words, stop thinking about what makes you happy and do what glorifies God; stop filling your barns with the stuff that you accumulate on this earth, and be rich in what matters to God. Qoheleth, St. Paul, and Jesus are in complete concert today, and we must be careful to hear their message. St. Paul, typical for him, is very blunt about what he is asking us to lay aside: “Put to death then,” he tells us, “the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry.” And, “stop lying to one another.” We are called to be disciples who are pure, compassionate and truthful, because absolutely nothing else will lead us to the kingdom of God!

    So, let’s look at Jesus’ instruction at the end of today’s Gospel parable: “Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.” We have to ask ourselves, then, the very important question: “what is it that matters to God?” I think we know what doesn’t qualify – St. Paul made that very clear. I think the things that matter to God are those things we might count among our blessings: namely our family and friends. Those things that matter to God might also be the things that make us disciples who are pure, compassionate and truthful. So we might seek to be rich in prayer, rich in reaching out to the poor and needy, rich in standing up for truth and justice.

    Today God is tugging at the heart-strings of the hoarder in all of us. What are we stockpiling? Maybe we need a look at our checkbooks, our calendars, and our to-do lists to see where our money, time and resources have gone. Can we take any of that with us if we are called home to God tonight? If those things are all we have, we could find ourselves in real poverty when we arrive at the pearly gates. This week’s to-do list might find us letting go of some of what we thought was important, so that we can be rich in what matters to God. These, brothers and sisters in Christ, are the riches that will not spoil and can never be taken away from us.

  • Thursday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    In the aftermath of the great flood, what’s left is what God wants us to know is important: life. Life is the way we participate in the essence of our Creator God. And that life is so important that absolutely nothing could completely blot it out – not even the waters of the flood. What humankind had done to bring on the flood was not enough for God to allow that deed to completely blot out all life from the face of the earth. Indeed, God preserved life in the Ark so that, even in its impure and imperfect state, it could be brought to perfection in these last days.

    These last days came about through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. What the flood could not wash away was cleansed completely by the blood of the Lamb. Unfortunately, Peter and the Apostles did not yet understand that. Jesus rebuked Peter not just because he was slow to get the message, but more because his kind of thinking was an obstacle to the mission. The mission is about life – eternal life – and nothing must interfere with it.

    We are the recipients of the command to be fertile and multiply. This command is not just about procreation of life, but also about life in the Kingdom of God. It was always God’s plan that we would not only populate the earth, but populate heaven as well. That’s what we were created for, and that’s why God would sooner allow his Son to die on the cross than live without us. That’s what that rainbow sign of the covenant was about – when we see one, may we remember the love of God.

  • The Solemnity of All Saints

    The Solemnity of All Saints

    Today’s readings

    Today, the Church militant – which is all of us – rejoice with the Church triumphant – which is all the Saints in heaven – because of the great glory of God. This glory they can already see; we hope to see it one day. And we will see it if, please God, we perfect ourselves and grow in holiness to the point that we too become saints for the Kingdom of God.

    But I think many of us bristle at the very idea of becoming a saint. We might even throw up our hands in some conversations and say something like, “hey, I’m no saint…” Saints are those people in elaborate paintings or statues, who lived lives that we find very remote. Saints just seem out of touch and sainthood seems way past our grasp.

    But that’s all wrong. We were all made by God to come back to him one day: we were, in fact, made for heaven. Becoming a saint is the vocation of all of us. That’s what we were put on earth to do. Because the most important thing we know about saints is that they are definitely in heaven, which is our true home, and that’s where we were meant to return some day. To get there, we ourselves have to become more like them. We have to grow in holiness and make our reliance on God’s grace and mercy the central focus of our lives.

    It may help to know that most, if not all, of the saints struggled with holiness too. Think about Saint Paul himself: he began his career by persecuting Christians and we know that he had a hand in the stoning of Saint Stephen. Or think about Saint Augustine who was an intellectual man who disdained Christianity, until his mother’s prayers caught up with him. Or we might think even more recently of Saint Teresa of Calcutta who experienced a very dark time in her life when she could not even communicate with Jesus. But Jesus was still there and led her to heaven.

    And so this feast in honor of all the saints is an important one. We celebrate those saints we know of like Mary and Joseph, Peter and Paul, Patrick and Dominic and so many others. But we also celebrate the ones we don’t know of; people whose faith and goodness only God knows. And most importantly, in celebrating them, we vow to become like them: close to Jesus who leads those who believe in him past the gates of death to the glory of heaven, where our reward will be great, as Jesus says in the Gospel today. On that day, we will indeed rejoice and be glad!

  • The Fifth Sunday of Easter

    The Fifth Sunday of Easter

    Today’s readings

    I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but to be Catholic means being on the move.  Many of the ancient churches were built in a shape that evoked a ship, which hearkened back to Noah’s ark, which was a foreshadowing of the Church.  Just as that ark was the means of salvation for a few people and a refuge against the storm, so the Church is the means of salvation for the world, and a refuge against everything that the world has raging around us.  We are always and forever a people on the move; we are not at home in this world, wherever we may be.  Our true home is in heaven and we are on our journey there.  Every moment of our lives has to be a choice to move closer to our heavenly homeland.

    And that’s what today’s Gospel is all about.  Jesus, having died and risen from the dead, is now preparing his disciples for his immanent return to heaven, where he intends to prepare a place for us.  He promises that we can get there one day by following him: he who is the way, the truth and the life.  And we need him to be that way for us, because our sinfulness had cut us off from God, and it was only the death and resurrection of Christ that could ever restore us to the inheritance that God always wanted for us.  So today’s Scriptures, I think, give us the goal, the way to get to the goal, and the effects of achieving that goal.

    We know, then, what our goal is.  The goal is that mansion that Jesus speaks of – the Father’s house in which there are many dwelling places.  It’s a mansion in which there is room for everyone, just as long as they find the way to get there.  This reminds us that as nice as our home may be here on earth, there is something better awaiting us.  It also serves as a reminder to those whose earthly home is difficult, or even non-existent, there is a place where they truly belong.  Whatever our current living situation, however entrenched we are in our earthly life, we are reminded today that we are not home yet, that ultimately there is a place where we can live that will make us feel truly at home for all eternity.

    The way to get to that goal is made pretty clear in the Gospel too.  Jesus is very direct about saying, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  So if we want to get to our promised inheritance, there is just one way to get there, and that is through Jesus Christ whose sole mission was to pave the way for us to get back home.  Notice very carefully that Jesus does not say, “There are several ways, and I am just one of them; there are many possible truths, and you can hear one of them in me; you can live your life all sorts of ways, and my life is a nice one.”  No – he says “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  This is a statement that has all sorts of implications for the work of evangelization, because if we believe this, seriously believe it – and we should! – then we have to make sure that everyone comes to know the Lord.

    Does this mean that those who do not ever come to know the Lord will never receive the heavenly inheritance?  Put another way, more directly perhaps, does this mean that non-Christians don’t go to heaven?  That’s a tough one.  Vatican II addressed that concern by stating that while the fullness of the means of redemption were present in the Catholic Church, still there are elements of redemption present outside the Church.  It says, “… some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ.”  (Unitatis Redintegratio, 3)  Basically, we don’t have a monopoly on how Christ reveals himself to people, and we cannot know the depths of God’s mercy.  Still, helping people to come to know the Lord needs to be at the top of our to-do lists.

    So the goal is heaven, and the way is Christ.  The readings today also give us the effects of achieving the goal.  Those effects include a community where relationships can overcome difficulties, a relationship with God the Father, and an ability to do amazing works in the name of Christ.

    In the first reading, we see the early community addressing perhaps the first challenge they have had.  There is an inequity in the distribution of aid to the widows, and presumably, their children.  This is not unlike inequities that exist in parishes everywhere at one time or another.  But, being that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and that they had chosen Christ as their way, truth and life, they were able to resolve the issue in a prayerful way.  They are able to appoint seven members of the community to take care of that, so that the Apostles can continue to preach the word.  There is an attention to the needs of the less fortunate, there is a sharing of authority, and an empowerment of the community.  These are all fruits of trusting Jesus to be our way.

    The second effect of achieving our goal is a relationship with God the Father.  This is very directly what Jesus came to accomplish.  Jesus, the one who was completely united with the Father, came to our world so that we could have that same relationship.  That would not ever have been possible without Christ, because the only way to know the Father is to know him.  Because of their complete unity, when we see Christ, we see the Father.  As Jesus says to Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?  The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.”  This also has implications for us believers.  Because people come to see Christ in us, they will come to see the Father in us as well.  This promise makes it all the more important that we make sure that we are not an obstacle to people coming to know the Lord.

    And finally, the third effect of achieving our goal is that we can do great works in the name of Christ.  Some people say that Jesus never came to establish a Church, but today’s readings tell us that is patently false.  He certainly came to establish a Church, because after his death and resurrection, it was the actions of the Church that continued his saving work.  It was the Church that continued the healing, reaching out to the needy, preaching the Word, and all the rest.  And the Church continues this saving work in our own day.  We are empowered to do wonderful works: to preach, to heal, to serve and love in the name of Jesus Christ.  None of this happens on our own, or as a result of our own ambition.  It only happens by joining ourselves to the One who is the way, the truth and the life.

    There’s a lot at stake in our Scriptures today.  There is a world that needs to know Jesus so that they too can know the Father and experience the joy of a real home.  There is a world that needs to know the touch of Jesus so that they can be healed and strengthened for life’s journey.  There is a world that needs to hear the Word of Jesus so that they can come to the way, the truth and the life.  It’s on us now, none of us can be passive observers or consumers only.  As St. Peter says today, we “are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that [we] may announce the praises’ of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light.”  We are not home yet, but we can get there through our Jesus, our way, our truth, and our life, and we have to gather everyone we can, and take them with us!