Chocolate, Puppies, and Belinda Carlisle

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

What is heaven like?  People have many different ideas.  Some people believe heaven is an unending chocolate fountain of goodness, but the chocolate has no calories.  Some people think heaven is a world full of puppies, except you never have to clean up after them and they obey your every command.  Some people consider heaven to be a tropical island with bottomless piña coladas and cuba libres.  In 1987, Belinda Carlisle told us heaven is a place on earth.

In all of these situations, heaven is simply a better version of earth.  The Sadducees in our Gospel today also took that approach.  They felt that heaven was merely a continuation of earth.  So, they plan to trick Jesus, by showing how problematic even believing in heaven truly is.  They set a trap where a woman in heaven would have seven different husbands, and try to see how Jesus would squirm out of this problem.  But rather than granting their premise that heaven is merely a continuation of earth, maybe with a little less pain, Jesus tells them that they have missed the point entirely.  Heaven is not a better continuation of earth, but is radically different.  In heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage, because marriage is for earth.  Marriage, at least between two baptized Christians, is a visible symbol of the invisible reality of Christ for His Church, which not only reminds us of Jesus, but communicates His grace.  In heaven, we don’t need physical realities that communicate God’s grace to us, because we have the direct vision of God.  

Heaven is the place where God’s reign comes in its fulness, as compared to what we have today.  We hear about that in our first reading.  This passage tells us of when Jewish brothers and their mother were remaining faithful to God’s law, even though the government, run by pagan Greeks, tried to get them to abandon God’s law.  The brothers knew that God would accept their sacrifice, and would right the wrongs that had been inflicted upon them by giving them new life.  

Heaven is not just earth 2.0.  Heaven is not just earth without any more elections, without any more war, without suffering and pain.  Heaven is as different from our current way of life as our life is different from an ant’s.  The Book of Revelation reminds us that heaven is the place where there are no more wrongs to be righted, and where we see God face to face.  Heaven is the place where there are no more tears or suffering or sorrow, for the old order has passed away.  Heaven is perfect happiness, not to our fallen human nature, but to our human nature perfected by Christ.  And to get there, we have to cooperate with God’s perfection of our nature in this life.  If we work against God’s will by our actions in this life, then we won’t be going to heaven in the life to come.  

The Book of Revelation also describes heaven as an eternal liturgy, an eternal Mass.  Now, before you think to yourself: ‘Heaven is like a never-ending Mass?  I don’t wanna go there!’, there won’t be boring homilies in heaven.  We won’t have to wait for bread and wine to be transubstantiated into the Eucharist in heaven, because we won’t need a sacrament of Jesus’ Body and Blood; Jesus’ Body and Blood will be present for us immediately. 

But if you have ever read the Book of Revelation, and not just the snippets about weird animals and the number 666, then you will recognize that it describes what goes on as worship of God, which is what we do at Mass.  The elders (in Greek, 𝛑𝛒𝛆𝛔𝛃𝛖𝛕𝛆𝛒𝛐𝛓, from which we get the word presbyter or priest) are around the throne of the Lamb, Jesus, throwing down their crowns (I don’t get any crowns) as they worship God.  They are also surrounded by the four living creatures, the Ox, Man, Lion, and Eagle, representing the four evangelists or Gospels, with the Cherubim singing “‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God.’”  The scroll with the Word of God is digested (like we’re supposed to do in the homily), and the elders and the angels and all those who are in heaven sing hymns to the Lord, praising God for what He has done.  And all of this is done over the place where the martyrs are, which is why, since the earliest days of Christianity, altars have been built over the site of martyrdom, or relics have been placed in altars.  If you want to read a good book on this, Scott Hahn’s book “The Lamb’s Supper,” is a great read.  

The Mass is supposed to give us a foretaste of what heaven is like.  It’s not meant to be the same as every day life.  It’s not supposed to be earthly.  It is patterned upon the worship of God in Scripture, and as the Church has developed the Mass throughout the centuries to emphasize what we believe.  While using earthly things, everything about our Mass is supposed to transport our senses, minds, and hearts to the heavenly Jerusalem through the symbols that make that reality present, and the signs that remind us of that reality.  

Heaven is not a mere continuation of our earthly existence.  It’s not earth without mosquitos.  Heaven is not a place on earth, with all due respect to Belinda Carlisle.  Heaven is the place of perfect fulfillment, where we will be who God created us to be.  May we all receive the many graces God gives us, especially through the Mass and confession, so that we will be found worthy of dwelling with God in that place of perfect light, happiness, and peace.

Fruit, Not Chocolate, Please

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Many people are surprised to hear that I’m not the biggest fan of chocolate.  I’ll eat the occasional Snickers bar, but for the most part I stay away from almost anything chocolate.  It all stems from a time in 3rd grade where I ate way too much chocolate in one sitting and almost got sick.  My last pastor. Fr. Mark Inglot, who said Mass here in November, would tell me from time to time that he would tell people that I loved to receive chocolate for Christmas and Easter, just so he could eat whatever the parishioners would give me.  Instead, I love fruit.  Berries and cherries are my favorite, but I’ll eat almost any kind of fruit, with the exception of papaya: yuck!!

What we eat effects us in many different ways.  Runners tend to eat a lot of carbs before they run long distances.  Apparently it helps give the body what it needs before a run.  Cross country teams often have pasta parties the night before a meet.  Some people don’t eat meat, others only certain kinds of meat for health reasons or other reasons.  But food changes us in one way or another. 

In our first reading, the angel tells Elijah that he has to eat the bread, “‘else the journey will be too long for you!’”  Elijah needs the energy that the bread is going to give him to continue his prophetic mission from God.  That bread gave him the strength to walk forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb, also know as Mt. Sinai.  

Whenever we hear bread in the Old Testament, we, as Catholics, should be reminded of the Eucharist, the bread that is not bread.  And Jesus speaks about that today in the Gospel.  He teaches the Jews that He is the bread of life, and that while the Jews in the desert ate manna and died, whoever eats the bread of life, that is, whoever eats Jesus’ Flesh, will not die, but will live forever.   

That is why the Church teaches, in fidelity to what Jesus taught, that the Eucharist is not merely a symbol of the Body and Blood of Christ, but truly is the Body and Blood of Christ.  We are not merely reminded about Jesus when we celebrate the Eucharist, but Jesus’ glorified Body and Blood becomes present in our midst under the appearance of bread and wine.  But substantially, what makes a thing what it is, we are not eating bread and drinking wine; we are eating the Body of Jesus and drinking the Blood of Jesus.  And this is the way that we can have eternal life.

The Body and Blood of Jesus, as supernatural food, is supposed to change us and change the way we live our lives because it conforms us to Christ.  St. Paul reminds us in the second reading that, for us who have received Jesus into our very bodies, there should be no more “bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling,” and that we are to be “kind to one another, compassionate, [and] forgiving one another as God has forgiven [us] in Christ.”  The Body and Blood of Jesus are meant to change us to become more like Him.  

We fast for 1 hour before Holy Communion from all food and drink except medicine and water because we don’t want to confuse the earthly food–which becomes part of us–with the heavenly food, which makes us part of Jesus.  We are called by St. Paul to discern the Body of Christ and whether we are in a state of grace–that is to say, unaware of any grave or mortal sins–so that we are not joining our grave or mortal sins, where we radically say no to God, with the Body and Blood of Jesus, which is always about making us more like God.  We need to go to confession first if we have grave or mortal sins before receiving the Eucharist so we don’t join our “no” to God with Jesus’ “yes” to God.  If we do receive the Eucharist in an unworthy state, not only do we not become more like Jesus, but we add the sin of sacrilege to whatever other grave or mortal sins we have committed by receiving Jesus unworthily.

That might not seem very welcoming to tell people they can’t come to Holy Communion.  And Pope Francis has reminded us how we are to welcome others.  Yet, we welcoming others is always at the service of giving people the opportunity to encounter Jesus.  To encounter Jesus means that we change for Him, not that He changes for us.  

So when we come to Mass, we should ask ourselves if we are aware of any major ways in which we need to change to conform our life with Jesus’ life and teachings, both in Scripture and through the Church’s teaching office.  If there are major gaps, then we should go to confession, or set up an appointment with me to discuss the situation and what we can do to remedy it, before receiving Jesus in the Eucharist.  I can promise you that I’ll do all that I can to provide God’s healing for whatever ways that are lives are not following Jesus.  That way, having dealt with those obstacles, when we receive the Eucharist, it will truly make us more like Jesus and give us the strength that we need to live as disciples of our Lord.