Staying on the Vine

Fifth Sunday of Easter

While I know that we have two families who grows grapes in our parish, I’m not sure that we have many more.  So when Jesus says that He is the vine and we are the branches, it might not strike us as much as it struck the apostles who were listening to Him in the upper room.  They were, undoubtedly, familiar with how we go from grapes in the field to the wine at their table.  We, like with much of our food, are more often than not removed from the process, and just go to Meijer, Country Market, or Wal-Mart to get the finished product, whatever it is.

But even though we’re not as familiar with grapes and grape vines, we are probably familiar with Maple trees.  Now that it’s Spring it’s beautiful to see the Maple trees starting to have leaves once again.  And in the Fall I was in awe at the beauty of the yellows, oranges, and reds of the leaves.  Of course, I didn’t have to rake them up after they fell.  But we know what happens if you cut a branch off a Maple tree: the branch dies (just like the branch from the grape vine).  Sometimes you can see even when a branch has died but remains on the tree: there are no more leaves, no more beauty, and you have to be careful for when the rotting wood finally collapses under its own weight and falls to the ground.

We need Jesus to live.  That’s true not only in the absolute sense (without Jesus willing us to exist at every moment, we would simply cease to be and would disappear), but also in the sense that Jesus makes our daily life better.  Being in a relationship with Jesus is meant to change who we are and give us more life, more vitality, more beauty.  When we are cut off from Jesus, we start to die spiritually, and if the rot continues for too long, we are good for nothing else than the fire (and we know what place is associated with eternal fire!).

We probably have heard this Gospel and this message hundreds, if not thousands of times, but many Catholics don’t live as if this was true.  This weekend we’re celebrating first communions for our second grade children.  I am so proud of them and their catechists and rejoice with them at this special privilege of receiving Jesus into themselves in the Eucharist.  Our parish policy is that they have to be involved in Faith First before second grade, that it’s not just showing up for a year to get the sacrament.  The same goes for those who wish to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation.  And yet, how often do families feel that, once they have passed this milestone, they can check out of church until the next sacrament comes around?!?  I’m sure that’s not true of our families here, but it’s true in so many parishes all around the world.  Pope Francis even decried this sad situation when he said that, for all effects and purposes, the Sacrament of Confirmation is called more accurately the Sacrament of Farewell based upon the lived reality.  Pope Francis must’ve heard the joke that if you have a bat problem in your church, just confirm them and you’ll never see them again.  

The sacraments, like the Eucharist and Confirmation, are meant to be the beginning of a stronger, deeper friendship with God, not the end of the road.  It’s like reaching a new section of Candy Crush: it’s not the end of the game, it’s the beginning of a new set of levels.  

But this problem is true not only of those who have received sacraments, but also of Catholics of all ages.  Today Adrian College and Siena Heights are celebrating their graduation ceremonies.  We so often take as the norm that college students will not go to church and will not live their faith.  Why do we accept that as the norm?  Why does this not cause us great sadness?  Or, as the warm weather comes, and we come closer to the end of school, families start to travel on the weekends and take vacations.  Vacations are great.  Pure Michigan has so much to offer.  But, as it turns out, there are Catholic churches all throughout Michigan.  Yes, it may take a little effort to figure out when Mass times are, and work our schedules around that, but too often our vacation from work and school becomes a vacation from God.  We, in effect, feel it’s no big deal to cut ourselves off from the vine or the trunk, as if we can have divine life without Jesus.  

Of course, people have free will.  That is a gift from God, and we can’t force people to go to church.  But do we make that choice for ourselves to keep up our relationship with God, to stay connected to our source of life?  Or do we figure it’s no big deal?  So many people I speak with who have fallen away from the church say that for a while they just skipped once a month; then twice a month; then they just started going a few times per year; then they didn’t really go at all.  Cutting ourselves off from God is a slippery slope which can snowball more quickly than we imagine, in the same way that a branch starts to lose life the moment it begins to be separated from the vine or the trunk.

Of course, it’s not only about going to Mass; it’s also about daily prayer.  Do we talk and listen to God daily?  Do we work to keep ourselves connected to God?  St. John tells us in our second reading to love “not in word or speech but in deed and truth.”  Do we only say, “Yes, of course I love God!” without our actions proving that?  By the way we live our life can others tell that we are in a relationship with God?  Put another way, if God gave us the same amount of time that we give Him, how would our life look?  The Good News is that God has already done everything to try and keep us connected to the vine, to give us new life, and to have the fulness of life.  All we have to do is respond to that love.  Will we work at staying connected to Jesus, the grapevine?

Is Heaven a Place on Earth?

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

            In this month of November, when we remember the dead in a special way, our minds easily turn towards heaven.  We began the month by praying for All Saints: all those who are in heaven, not just the ones the Church knows about and has canonized, but even those who are known only to God.  As we write the names of our family members and friends who have died in the Book of the Dead, we pray and we hope that they are in heaven. 

            Secular music has thought about heaven a fair amount, too.  As I thought about songs with heaven in them, three came right to mind: Belinda Carlisle singing, “Oh, heaven is a place on earth”; Eric Clapton singing, “Would you know my name, if I saw you in heaven?”; and, a little more recently, Los Lonely Boys singing, “how far is heaven?”  You can probably think of more (but do it after Mass so you’re not distracted). 

            Heaven is our goal.  It is the hope we have.  I’ve never known a person who didn’t want to go to heaven.  It was the hope for the seven brothers and their mother as they were offered the choice to eat pork, that is, to break the Mosaic Law, or to die.  We get a few of their stories today, and their perseverance in the face of physical torture is inspiring.  Why do they remain faithful to God rather than make a small concession?  Because they believe that God will reward them for their fidelity.  We have countless martyrs, many from the last century in the Spanish Civil War, during World War II, and in from Communist countries, who died rather than deny their faith.  From the very beginning with St. Stephen, the first martyr, the hope of heaven has been what has consoled the multitude of men and women as they underwent excruciating pain for Jesus.

            Heaven is our hope amid the sighs, mournings, and weepings in this vale of tears, as we pray in the Hail, Holy Queen prayer.  And we intuitively want heaven to be worth the price of what we go through on earth: all the little sacrifices we make, all the big sacrifices we make.  We want to know that heaven is worth it.  In a way, we’re weighing the cost of discipleship against the cost of the world.  For this reason, it’s no surprise that when I visit our parish school classroom, or when I visit our parish high school, Lansing Catholic, I frequently get asked what heaven will be like.

            The students often want to know: will heaven have a TV?  If not, how can I be happy if I can’t make sure I’ve seen all the episodes of my favorite shows?  Will heaven have an X-box?  If not, how can I truly be happy if I’m not killing zombies?  Will heaven have my iPhone?  If not, how am I ever going to finish all the levels of Candy Crush?  Perhaps we adults like to think that we’re a little bit more sophisticated: will my favorite food and drink (maybe adult beverage) be there?  Will it be the perfect temperature?  Will the Lions finally win the Super Bowl?  Our view of heaven is very much based upon what we know, and that is what is earthly, and then making it a perfected earthly existence.

            But it strikes me that in our Gospel today, Jesus challenges the Sadducees, and us, to not get caught up in making heaven simply a better version of earth.  The Sadducees are trying to trap Jesus into making the resurrection seem silly if the Law of Moses is true, because all seven men will claim to be this woman’s husband in heaven.  But Jesus sidesteps the trap by teaching them that heaven is not simply earth perfected.  Heaven involves a change of mind, a change of attitude because it’s not happiness from our fallen point of view, but is happiness from God’s point of view.  God, who made us, and who knows what will make us perfectly happy, gives us true happiness, not just what our minds can conceive as true happiness.  Even our bodies, which we know we will receive back at the end of time in the resurrection of the body, are different, and we see that in Jesus.  It’s still His body; He still has the marks from the nails and the spear, but it’s different; it’s glorified.  And it’s different enough that Mary Magdalene at the tomb does not at first recognize Him; the disciples on the road to Emmaus don’t even recognize Him.  But it’s similar enough that the apostles in the Upper Room do know it’s Jesus. 

            What we know by Scripture and the teaching of the Church is that heaven is perfect happiness, and it involves the worship of God in a time of Sabbath rest.  It is being with God, who made us to be with Himself, and the fulfillment of what it means to be human.  Maybe some of our creature comforts will be there; maybe not.  Maybe the Lions will actually win a Super Bowl; maybe not.  But we do have faith and confidence that whatever heaven is like, we will be perfectly happy because we will be with God and lack for nothing that we truly need.  May we all be found worthy, by the way we live our lives, to accept that gift of eternal blessedness that God wants to give us, so we can experience for ourselves, with all the saints, canonized and known only to God, the joy of entering into the eternal rest of our Lord.