Ever wonder what heaven is like? Ever really spend some time thinking or praying about the experience of heaven – I mean REALLY thinking about it and not just worrying about whether you will get there or not? I have gone through certain phases of envisioning heaven in my life. I bet you have as well.
As a kid I was taught that heaven is a place where everything is perfect and the streets are lined with gold and we must do everything possible to earn the grace to get there. Another phase involved the unconditional love that God has for every one of us and that heaven is the ultimate experience of that unconditional love. Then I experienced the phase that assured me that I would have a reunion with all other people who I knew who merited heaven, and the reunion would be complete. Then I extended that concept to include all of the famous people and saints who were in heaven whom I could sit down and talk with and, because the experience was an eternal one, that I would never run out of time to connect with anyone who was in heaven. Then I went through the phase of believing in something other than heaven (the opposite if you will), but not having to believe that anyone was there. All of these phases have included a belief that we all will have a face to face encounter with God, and if we demonstrate our sincere belief in his love and accept his unconditional forgiveness and express sincere sorrow for what we have done wrong here on earth, why would we be denied heaven?
We have all been somewhat influenced by jokes about heaven with St. Peter at the gates. These provide humor, but also a certain sense of our cultural spiritual reality.
My current phase is dominated by the dramatic increase in the funerals that I have the honor to preside at. With the reverent and thorough help of our funeral ministers here at Holy Family, we work really hard to capture the story of the life of the deceased and how it is rooted in the larger stories of our country, our ethnicity, our community, our professional life, our family life, the church’s life and the scripture stories that are timeless and so expressive of what I call the divine human enterprise, or our partnership with God through life. I find myself encouraging loved ones, and myself of course, to join the deceased in heaven some day. I find this phase comforting and challenging because I believe that heaven is a promise that God gives to us, and the hope of that promise can be renewed at any time. A loved one’s death seems to stimulate both the challenge and the promise.
This weekend’s Gospel also helps in our reflection about heaven. Those questioning Jesus about marriage in heaven is based on a hypothetical situation of a woman who was married to seven brothers who all passed away. The ultimate question – being in heaven, “Whose wife will she be?” The situation and the question is confining. It constricts the expansive and eternal that heaven is. It limits heaven to human constructs. Jesus reminds the questioners and us that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; in other words, those giants of faith continue to experience the fatherly love of God even after they have died. He also reminds us that in heaven people are not given in marriage.
I take this to mean that in heaven the human constructs that we know will not be operative, and the experience will transcend human limitations. I believe that it will include pieces of all of the phases that you and I have gone through as we try to envision what it is like. Ultimately, heaven is something that we are all encouraged to deeply believe in because it will bring us even closer to God.
We are always trying to learn and grow and improve here at Holy Family. We receive feedback all of the time. We solicited your feedback with a pretty extensive survey a year and a half ago and a smaller one recently from some dedicated parishioners regarding our liturgies. This group was an outgrowth of our Parish Pastoral Council called FIRE. One thing we have learned is that people really appreciate the vibrant and relevant nature of our Masses, and that will never change as long as I am with you. However, based on some feedback, we are going to test some alterations to the 5:00pm Saturday liturgy and we REALLY want your feedback as we test them. Our hope is to create a Catholic Mass experience that is vibrant, relevant and concise.
Please take note of the changes we are making ONLY at the 5:00pm Saturday Mass and give us your feedback for the next 6 weeks. Most importantly, do these changes help you to pray in a way that connects with your everyday life, inspire you, and do so in a more concise manner?
I would like to say farewell and thank you to Fr. Richie Vaz, SVD who has helped us to pray here at Holy Family for the past 9 years. Richie has presided at the 9:00am Mass on Thursday and Friday mornings, he has helped with the Sacrament of Reconciliation, with funerals, weddings and baptisms. Richie is returning to his native India and he goes with our blessings and gratitude. Thanks, Richie!
Please stop by our Social Justice Wall on the west side of the Narthex. Many of you who go into church via that entrance notice the wall, but many of you who enter church through another door may not know that it exists. This wall highlights the Social Justice Teachings of our Church and provides information regarding the ways that Holy Family Catholic Community lives out those teachings.