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As I was going through my desk earlier this week, I came across a prayer card that had belonged to my Aunt Pat. Aunt Pat was my Dad’s oldest sister and she passed away a few years ago. The night before her funeral, her daughters gave me this prayer card, which they had found in her well-worn Bible. The card contained a well-known poem often read at funeral’s called “Safely Home.” But, in the margins my Aunt had handwritten two notes. One said simply, “Please read this at my funeral.” But on the other side she had written, “My last prayer is that you all get right with God, so I’ll see you all again.” Aunt Pat, especially as she was nearing her own death, had a mind and a heart that was fixed firmly on Heaven – and she wanted the same for all of the people she loved.
But there is another reason why we don’t give too much thought to Heaven: it’s simply because picturing eternal life is hard for us. This is where Jesus’ revelation in today’s Gospel is so helpful. He tells us exactly what eternal life is: “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one you sent, Jesus Christ.”
We all know that the greatest joy of human existence, even here on earth, consists in relationships of love. What would all of the most beautiful things in the world be – the wonders of nature, the joy of children and family, beautiful works of art, even nice homes and cool cars – what would these be without others to share them with? Loving relationships make life’s most ordinary activities enjoyable and meaningful.
Today Jesus is telling us that Heaven is nothing more or less than a perfect relationship of love, an everlasting getting-to-know-God, Christ, and all the saints. These relationships will never get boring or tedious, because God is infinite, and getting to know Him is an adventure that will never end. If the best human friendships never lose their luster, how much more indescribable will our eternal friendship with God be!
I am a big fan of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia series. A strong Christian, Lewis, in this series, has a beautiful way of explaining the reality of that Heavenly relationship with God. Narnia tells the story of English school children who find their way into another world where they have many adventures and go on special quests to defeat the forces of evil. All the children love Narnia, and they love their adventures there; and are always sorry to have to go back to England at the end of each adventure.
At the end of the last book, however, it turns out that they don’t have to go back. They are permitted to stay in “Aslan’s Country” forever, which in the books is the equivalent of Heaven. Lewis tries to describe what their lives were like from that moment on. He uses the analogy of a book, a story. Lewis writes, “But for [the children], [the end of the books] was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the title and the cover page. Now at last, they were beginning Chapter One of the great story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
Lewis explains that compared to life in Heaven, absolutely everything that had come before, all the amazing adventures and thrilling experiences, both in this world and in Narnia, were nothing more than a hint, just barely a faint idea of how wonderful the rest of the chapters were. And life in Aslan’s Country was always getting better and better, like a book with an endless amount of chapters, each one better than the last.
My friends, the eternal life that Jesus promises us is like that. An everlasting adventure that only gets better and better. God is the source of all the goodness and beauty we see in the universe, and so He Himself is pure, inexhaustible goodness and beauty - we never become tired of getting to know and enjoy Him.
One of the most dangerous things we can do in the spiritual life is to not think about Heaven often. After all, the less focused we are on our destination, the more likely we’ll be to make a wrong turn along the way. Imagine a baseball player who never thought about the game; or an actor who never thought about the performance; or a businessman who never thought about the bottom line. Well, a Christian who never thinks about Heaven is equally absurd. So what can we do to keep Heaven in mind?
In his encyclical, “Saved in Hope,” Pope Benedict gave one very simple suggestion. He suggested reviving what used to be a common practice among Christians. It’s the tradition of “offering up” the small trials of each day, those little sufferings, pains, and inconveniences, that we all go through all the time. We all experience them. No one escapes them. From traffic jams to money worries, the trials of daily life effect us all. “Offering them up” simply means turning them into a prayer. Instead of uselessly complaining, we turn our minds to Christ on the cross, and we unite our small sufferings with Christ’s redeeming sacrifice, joining them with God’s plan of redemption.
By doing this, we defend ourselves against the lie that earth should be Heaven, and we keep our hearts set on the Lord. And if we do that, with the help of God’s grace, eternal life will surely be ours.
As St. Bernadette Soubirous, the peasant girl to whom the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared at Lourdes, put it: “Let us work for Heaven: all the rest is nothing.”
My friends, St. Bernadette and my Aunt Pat had it right: let us get ourselves right with God so that in the glory and complete and perfect joy that is Heaven, we will see each other again. Let us work for Heaven: all the rest is nothing.
May God give you peace.
For those of you interested, here is the text of "Safely Home":
Safely Home
by Unknown
I am home in Heaven, dear ones;
Oh, so happy and so bright!
There is perfect joy and beauty
In this everlasting light.
All the pain and grief is over,
Every restless tossing passed;
I am now at peace forever,
Safely home in Heaven at last.
Did you wonder I so calmly
Trod the valley of the shade?
Oh! but Jesus' arm to lean on,
Could I have one doubt or dread?
Then you must not grieve so sorely,
For I love you dearly still;
Try to look beyond earth's shadows,
Pray to trust our Father's Will.
There is work still waiting for you,
So you must not idly stand;
Do it now, while life remaineth--
You shall rest in Jesus' land.
When that work is all completed,
He will gently call you Home;
Oh, the rapture of that meeting,
Oh, the joy to see you come!