February 20, 2005: Heaven

+ The Second Sunday of Lent

When I arrived here in Cullom on Tuesday, it was fairly warm — and then, all of a sudden, the winds came up and the temperature dropped down into the teens at night. No wonder they call this “flu season”!

Let me ask you a strange question: do you believe in the flu?

You may be wondering: what kind of crazy question is that? But I think it’s a legitimate question. After all, you can’t see flu bugs, can you? You can’t see germs. So why should we believe that they really exist?

And come to think of it, there are a whole bunch of invisible things that I’m not sure we should really believe in: radio and TV sound waves, electricity, microwaves, gravity, X-rays…

Now you must really think I’m off my rocker! Of course we believe in those things — and in many other things, besides, that we can’t see.

Yet some people perhaps draw the line when it comes to believing in heaven. Maybe for them, heaven is just pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking to keep us on a good moral track as we go through this life… kind of like a parent making the kids eat their broccoli with the promise of chocolate cake for dessert!

But according to today’s Gospel account, we can state with certainty that heaven is not just a fantasy; it really does exist, and Our Lord’s three companions got a tiny glimpse of it.

St. Peter, St. James and St. John saw Jesus transfigured before their very eyes. They saw Christ’s face shine like the sun, and His garments become white as snow. That’s something similar to His appearance in heaven.

Actually, I don’t have to prove to you that there is a heaven. The fact that you’re here today shows you believe in it; why else would you bother to come to Mass? We have it on Christ’s own word that He has gone to prepare a place for us. Faith tells us that there is a place of future reward. Reason and logic say this must be so. How else could we explain the desire of every human heart for perfect happiness? You and I want to be as happy as we can. This life doesn’t give it. Wealth and health and fame and honor don’t guarantee happiness. There must be something somewhere that completely satisfies. That “something” is God; that “somewhere” is heaven. The trick, of course, is to get there ourselves.

When I got here this week, I needed some stamps. So I asked Mike Kane where the post office was. He told me, I thanked him, and I said, “If you come to Mass this weekend, you can hear me telling everyone how to get to heaven.” Mike said, “I don’t think so. You don’t even know your way to the post office.”

Fortunately, I know my way around Cullom now, so I hope now you’ll be more willing to listen!

What exactly is heaven? First of all, heaven is not the place that we see in cartoons or in movies where people have haloes and wings, wear long white gowns, fly around with harps and basically do nothing else. To me, that doesn’t at all sound like the heaven that St. Paul describes when he says, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2, 9).

So it’s wrong to picture heaven as a place where we lounge around doing nothing. To be sure, heaven is a place of rest — a place of rest from worry, sin, sickness, suffering and death. But we’re not going to sit around and rust! It’s not a place of idleness. In heaven, we’ll have interesting things to do. Some folks wonder whether there will be golf courses or euchre tables or video games in heaven; some people worry about taking their cats with them. Others would like to believe that heaven will be a place of sensual pleasure. But those things are not what heaven will be all about.

So what then is heaven?

Very simply, heaven is the home of God, a place where we will fully enjoy absolute peace and love. And we are not uninvited guests. God wants us to be there with Him. He’s rolled out the red carpet for us. It is His gift to us!

What a contrast to our earthly home! Here in our world, even pleasant things soon become tiresome. How quickly we’re bored to death if we’re not constantly given something new, something different, something exciting. We can eat only so much of our very favorite food and no more. We can listen to our favorite song or watch our favorite TV show only so many times. There is a limit to earthly pleasure.

Not so in heaven. There, pleasure is never-ending — in fact, it’s ever-increasing. It’s always interesting, always new, always getting better and better. There will be no pain, no illness. No more toothaches, headaches or arthritis. No cancer, heart disease or mental illness. And we’ll never again have to worry about paying our Visa bill, making a mortgage or car payment, paying the Nicor bill, or otherwise making ends meet.

But the very best thing about heaven is that there, we get to see God face to face. Like the apostles Peter, James and John in today’s Gospel, we will see God… and be with Him… and bask in His awesome presence. What an unspeakable joy! Imagine the most beautiful face, the kindest face, the most loving and adoring face that you can. That face wouldn’t hold a candle to the face of God, Who is all-beauty and all-kindness. To be with God will certainly be the greatest joy of heaven; to be separated from God the greatest pain of hell.

A place of rest, the home of God, the home of the children of God — that is heaven. Don’t you think that a place like this is worth working for?

God’s directions are beautifully simple and clear. He said, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him. Do what He says.”

That’s what Peter, James and John did. And that’s also what we must do. In the words of our opening prayer today, “Father, help us to hear your Son. Enlighten us with your word, that we may find the way to your glory.” Amen.

Today’s Readings:
Genesis 12, 1–4
Psalm 33
2 Timothy 1, 8–10
Matthew 17, 1–9