Homily
for May 13, 2007
Liturgical Year C - Cycle I
6th Sunday of Easter
By Fr. John Carney Topic: Heaven
+ + +
Reading
II Rev
21:10-14, 22-23 The
angel took me in spirit to a great, high mountain and
showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.
It
gleamed with the splendor of God. Its radiance was like that of a
precious
stone, like jasper, clear as crystal. It
had a massive, high wall, with twelve gates where twelve angels were
stationed
and on which names were inscribed, the names of the twelve tribes of
the
Israelites. There were three gates facing
east, three north, three south, and three west.
The wall of the city had twelve courses of stones as its foundation, on
which were inscribed the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the
Lamb. I
saw no temple in the city for its temple is the Lord
God almighty and the Lamb. The city had
no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it
light, and
its lamp was the Lamb. Gospel Jn
14:23-29 "Jesus
said to his disciples, 'Whoever loves me will
keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and
make our
dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my
words; yet
the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.
I have
told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom
the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind
you of
all that I told you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to
you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let
your
hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard
me tell you, ‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’ If
you loved me, you would rejoice that I am
going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have
told you
this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Today,
in the second reading, John gives us a view of
heaven. If you read the Book of
Revelation, it’s very complex. It is
full of numerology, and symbology. It’s
hard to tell what are symbols, what is real, what we should take
literally, and
what is figurative or symbolic. The
Church doesn’t interpret the scriptures for us completely. There
is so much in the scriptures that we
just touch the surface. Could it be that
John’s vision of heaven today is the real physical description of
heaven? I think we tend to think about heaven as a
kind of a spiritual place of nirvana, but actually, the scriptures
don’t
support that at all. Jesus talks about
heaven today, too. He tells His
disciples that He is going to “ascend into heaven.” He said, “If
you love me, you’d be happy for
me, because it’s a better place.” As
beautiful as the earth is, heaven is a better place. We
need to think about heaven a lot. It’s my experience that we
hardly think about
heaven at all. Most Catholic Christians,
or most Christians, when they talk about heaven, its the place they
want to go
and it is better than the other place but they are not anxious to get
there. You know what I mean. Today, on Mother’s Day, I want
to talk about
heaven, because mothers love heaven. Many,
many times I have asked mothers, “What do you want for your children?”
Almost inevitably, they respond, “I want my
children to get to heaven.” Do I have an
“amen” from the mothers? “Amen.” Thank you, ladies.
You know, we have do what momma wants,
because if momma ain’t happy … “Ain’t nobody happy.” Really,
how often do we think about heaven? The Church’s teaching on
heaven is a very
small teaching. We don’t know. The great scripture about
heaven is, “Eye has
not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man,
what God
has prepared for those who love Him.”
St. Ippolyts wrote this in the early Church, “When we have come to know
that true God, both our bodies and our souls will be immortal and
incorruptible. We shall enter the
kingdom of heaven because while we lived on earth we acknowledged
heaven’s
King. Friends of God and co-heirs of
Christ, we shall be subject to no evil desires or inclinations, to any
affliction of body or soul, for we shall have become divine. It
was because of our human condition that
God allowed us to endure these sins, but when we have been deified and
made
immortal, God has promised us a share in His own attributes.”
That is heaven. Now,
is heaven a physical place? I was taking a poll yesterday among
altar
servers. They seem to think its
not. However, Jesus ascended into
heaven, body and soul. Where’s His body? Our Lady was
assumed into heaven – where is
her body? We believe in the resurrection
of the dead on the last day, the body will be resurrected and glorified.
Where’s it going? More and more, I am beginning to believe that
clearly heaven is a physical place.
Perhaps John’s view is what it looks like, or at least part of it.
I don’t know.
I
read this at New Advent.org, an excellent website – it
has a link on our parish website. New
Advent.org dedicates itself to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so it
comes well
recommended. It said that, “Theologians
generally hold that the heaven of the blessed is a special placed with
definite
limits. Naturally, this place is held to
exist not within the earth, but in accordance with the expressions of
scripture, ‘without and beyond its limits.’
All further details regarding its locality are quite uncertain.”
A lawyer wrote that one. The
Church has decided nothing on the subject. The Church knows that
it does not know. That doesn’t keep us from thinking about it,
because we need to think about heaven.
It’s our goal in life, right?
What guidance counselor in the high school doesn’t spend time with his
or her students talking about goals? You
should think about your goals, and spend time contemplating them, if
you are to
achieve them. If
we thought about heaven every day, we would all get
there, because we would sin less. I was talking
about this after mass to a parishioner.
You don’t sin for one of two reasons:
you are afraid of the punishment, or you love God and you want to get
to
heaven. The more we think about heaven,
the less sin will be attractive to us.
We’d say, “Oh, I can’t do that.
I’m heaven-bound!” “I can’t do
that! I’m going to be deified one day
with Christ. He is going to share His
divinity with me. How can I commit this
sin?” We will continue to do it. The confessional will
always be busy but you
know what I am saying? We sin less when
we are motivated from holiness, as opposed to fear of punishment. Therefore,
we need to think about heaven. I
was thinking about heaven a few weeks ago. One of our
parishioners died. He was an excellent scientist, a rather young
man. Throughout his life, he had this
awe of God’s creation. The morning that
I was writing his homily, for his funeral mass, I was home on my
computer. I have AOL, and AOL had a link or story about
the space probe New Horizons. I hope some
of you are aware of that. Some of you
probably work on it. New Horizons is a
spacecraft that was launched 13 months ago.
Its mission is to go to the end of our solar system, to the planet of
Pluto. (Now, after last mass, two
parishioners came up to me. One said,
“Pluto is not a planet. It’s been
de-planetized, because it belongs to some other thing we’re not sure of.
It got thrown in our solar system.” Another guy came and said,
“Father, I’m glad
you mentioned Pluto is a planet. You are
absolutely right. There’s some crazy
people claiming Pluto’s not a planet.”
It’s a great parish!) Anyway, a
few weeks ago, New Horizons, 13 months out, passed the planet Jupiter
and took
pictures of Jupiter and one of its moons, Io.
Have any of you seen those pictures?
They’re fascinating. They are
clear, and full of color. They are just
beautiful. It’s hard to believe that
this spacecraft took these. This
spacecraft is expected to reach its destination near Pluto in about 8
years. If you go to its website, you’ll
see to the second when it will arrive, if all goes well. Pluto is
2.7 billion miles from earth. New Horizons is traveling at 52,000
km per
hour, about 37,000 miles an hour. You
could be in New York City in 3 minutes, but then again, who would want
to go
there, when we live here? Isn’t it
amazing that when you look at these pictures and you realize that this
is God’s
creation. We are talking about our solar
system, of which of course, our sun is a star.
Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone. There
are believed to be at least 100 billion
galaxies. Wow! When
I was writing Robert’s funeral notes, I said to
myself, I could see him flying through this stuff going, “Whoa!” Out
there, somewhere is heaven. It could be beyond this, what we
think we
know of the universe. It’s a real place,
and it’s there. All of this creation, He
created – isn’t it beautiful? It was
created by God for you. You’re the crown
jewel of God’s creation. Wow! He gave us this, to look on
it with awe, and
to know that its creator is much greater than His creation. Our
creator intends to share His very life
with us, for eternity in heaven. It is
amazing! Now,
having said all that, why don’t we want to go
there? We don’t want to leave here. We cling to this world
as if it’s a magnet
and we are metal. Even in sickness and
old age, people don’t want to go. I
remember a couple of years ago, after mass on Sunday,
there was a big Lincoln Continental in our parking lot. I
couldn’t see anyone driving it. It was a little tiny lady.
It had Texas plates. If she wasn’t 90, she wasn’t a day. I
said, “What are you doing?” She said, “I’m thinking of moving
here.” I thought, “Your next move ….” Why in the world at
that age is she packing
bags to move? Tony Porto’s nodding,
“That’s right!” I
hope some of you are familiar with the “Confessions of
St. Augustine.” His mother is St.
Monica, a great lady. She prayed for Augustine’s conversion, and her
prayers
were heard. Many a mother can identify
with St. Monica, many a mother is here today.
There is a wonderful story in St.
Augustine’s Confessions. Shortly before
his mother died, they were in Italy.
They were from Hippo, which today would be in Algeria. They had
traveled to Italy. Augustine was
converted, and he may have been a bishop at this time, I’m not quite
sure. He was talking to his mother about
heaven. They were dreaming about the
greatness of heaven, and this is what Augustine writes: “You know, O
Lord, how
on that day amid this talk of ours that seemed to make the world with
all its
charms grow cheap, Mother said, ‘For my part, my son, I no longer find
pleasure
in anything that this life holds. What
am I doing here still? Oh, why am I
still here? I do not know. For worldly hope has withered
away from
me. One thing only there was, for which
I desired to linger in this life, to see you a Catholic Christian
before I
died. And my God has granted me this
more lavishly than I could have hoped, letting me see even you spurning
earthly
happiness to be His servant. What am I
still doing here?’” I
have even a better story than that. It is my own story.
This will be published in the Confessions of
John Carney, which will be published posthumously. Several months
before my mother died, she had
probably one of those passing strokes.
What are they called? TIA? She kind of lost it and I got
very concerned. She couldn’t speak, and I was about to call
911. She came to and she grabbed my hand
and said, “Don’t you ever call that number.
I don’t want them men knocking the door down and ripping my clothes
off,
beating on my chest, and putting me in some hospital with those tubes
sticking
out of me. When God’s ready for me, I’m
ready for God. And I’m ready.” She spent the weekends with
me in the
rectory. I would pick her up on Friday –
by Monday we were fighting. Mothers
never think you grow up. You could be
the smartest person in your field, and your mother still thinks you’re
a dumb
little boy. More often than not, she’s right. Shortly after
that, one morning when I was
bringing her coffee, my mother looked at me and said, “I saw my mother.”
I had never met my grandmother. I said, “Really.” She was
lucid, and she wasn’t on drugs or
anything. She said, “No, she was there! She was young and
she was beautiful. She was calling me.” You’ve heard those
stories, in your own
families, haven’t you? I don’t
know. I’m not preaching this as …, but I
believe it. There’s something great out
there, beyond this life, that we need to look forward to. Now,
I am not saying that this life is not a good
thing. It is a great thing. This earth, this planet is a
joy. It is
beautiful. It is ours to use, to enjoy,
to keep beautiful. That’s why we’re good
environmentalists, because God made this, and what God made, we respect.
However, this is not our end. We were not made for this planet.
We were made for heaven, and we need to think
about that every day, and prepare for it every day of our lives. Finally,
this quote from C. S. Lewis, “If you read
history, you will find that Christians who did most for the present
world were
those who thought most of the next. It
is since Christians have ceased to think most of the other world that
they have
become ineffective in this world. Aim at
heaven, and you will get earth thrown in.
Aim at earth, and you will get neither.”