August 21, 2016

August 21, 2016
21st Sunday Ordinary Time C
Isaiah 66: 18-21; Hebrews 12: 5-7, 11-13; Luke 13: 22-30
So who will I meet in heaven? Will I even get there? Is it something that I really want to think about?
Why does this subject make me uneasy? Mitch Albom wrote a fascinating book on The Five People You
Meet in Heaven. It’s lead character is an 83 years old, Eddie, who is the head maintenance man at an
Amusement Park. He is very close to death and we see the final moments of his life.We follow Eddie
into heaven where he mets five people from his past life (reminiscence of Dickens A Christmas Carol).
The difference is that each of these people is waiting for him in heaven. He then understands the great
lessons that were taught during his life and the life lessons he taught others. A good story that makes our
minds wander to a different view and understanding of heaven. How can I experience the joys of
heaven if I am turned in to the joys that I experience on earth?
So who is in heaven? Isaiah gives his spin: He has been preparing his readers for this final dramatic
ending. From the first chapters he has shown how the people have been drifting away from God but
now they are assembled in offering praise to God. They are no longer waging war with each other but
have come to God’s holy mountain. The list of peoples must have upset his readers, I’m sure they were
saying, ‘Why are they here…they’re bad people…we are the chosen ones of God.’ Today’s reading ends
with verse 21…the last three verses not in the reading says it all: “As the new heavens and the new earth
which I will make shall endure before me, says the Lord, so shall your race and your name endure. From one new
moon to another and from one sabbath to another, all mankind shall come to worship before me, says the Lord.
They shall go out and see the corpses of the men who rebelled against me; their worm shall not die, nor their fire be
extinguished and they shall be abhorrent to all mankind.” The prophet is telling us that the once rebellious
people are now part of this new heaven and new earth This is their home now on God’s holy mountain.
Jesus is on His final journey to Jerusalem where He will be murdered. He continues to use this time to
teach His followers about what it means to be a disciple and how one ‘gets into’ heaven. People want to
know ‘how many’ will be saved or get the prime places. This is a numbers game that Jesus does not
play. Numbers aren’t important, it’s HOW do I live my life to be in line with living forever with God in
heaven?
This requires faith…believing in all that Jesus has told us…it means living
His life…it means not taking the teachings that I like or are easy for me, but living each and every one.
It’s not ‘if I belonged or was in the same religion or ‘party’ of Jesus rather it’s how I lived and how I
loved. Jesus said that we should enter through the ‘narrow gate’. Sunday Homily Helps explain it in this
way: “a) There is only one way to heaven. That narrow way is through salvation won for us by Christ. No one else
could open the gates for us. He alone was God and human. He alone could pay the debt of our sins
b) Who can enter the narrow gate? —Some individuals would restrict salvation to Christians who were baptized by
immersion as adults. That would leave most of us out who were sprinkled or had water poured on us when we
were baptized as infants. — Other people would assure salvation to Christians who claim to believe in Jesus.
Jesus says that belief in Him is not enough. Our faith must be active.
c) Can non-Christians be saved? -Some folks would say that only those who confess Christ as their personal
savior can be saved. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states otherwise in article 847, quoting Lumen
Gentium: ‘Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, but who
nevertheless seeks God with sincere heart, and moved by grace, try in their actions to do His will as they know it
though the dictates of their conscience —those too may achieve eternal salvation.’ —What about those good
people who died before Jesus was born? After Jesus’ death, our Creed says He descended into hell where the
souls of the just were waiting for Him. He is talking about Abraham, Isaac, King David, and all the rest who tried to
please God but never knew Jesus. He went to bring them to heaven. —Today’s first reading from Isaiah states that
God wants all people from every nation to be brought to His holy mountain. Would our narrow perspective shut out
those whom God would welcome?”
So who is in heaven..all who lived their life and worked on being love and kindness, care and concern,
forgiving and compassionate to each person in their life. Jesus tells us that entitlement doesn’t mean a
thing…nor does ‘being a relative’..not does any position of power or prestige count as anything. In
John’s Gospel (10:9) Jesus said “Come, you who are blessed of my Father, Inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world.” And in Matthew (25: 34,40) we hear, “What you did to the least brother
of mine, you did for me.’” I have been created in love to be love. How hard can this be? Many days, it isn’t
hard…when I AM the most important person in MY world today, then it can be hard, because it is all
about ME. Heaven is not about me, it is about God. God who is love. So I have this litmus test each
day, am I love?
One of my favorite authors is Carlo Carretto who was born 4/2/1910 in Turin Italy. He received degrees
in history and philosophy and taught and was very involved the Catholic Action for Youth movement.
For ten years he was a Little Brother of Jesus, inspired by Charles de Foucauld. and wrote many books.
I quote from Love is for Living, “My life is worth living if I can learn to ransom everything that happens to me
into love, in imitation of Jesus: because love is for living.
When I meet brothers or sisters of mine who have caused me great pain in the past by viciously calumniating me, I
shall love them and in loving them I shall transform the evil done to me into good: because love is for living.
When I go into a shop to buy something for myself—clothes, food, or whatever it may be—I shall think of my
brothers and sisters who are poorer than I am, of the hungry and the naked, and I shall use this thought to govern
my purchase, trying out of love to be tight with myself and generous with them: because love is for living.
When I see time’s destructive traces in my body and the approach of old age, I shall try to love even more in order
to transform the coldest season of life into a total gift of myself in preparation for the imminent holocaust: because
love is for living.
When I see the evening of my life, or, on the tarmac in a car accident, in the agony of a fatal illness, in the ward of a
geriatric hospital, feel the end coming, I shall reach out again for love, striving to accept in joy whatever fate God
has had in store for me: because love is for living.
Yes, love is God in me, and if I am in love I am in God, that is, in life, in grace: a sharer in God’s being.”
This helps me to realize as St. Teresa, the Little Flower did, “I am to be love!”
How am I doing?
Sacred Space 2016 says,
“Jesus cautions us against being presumptuous about salvation. Let us not be late arrivals at the gates of heaven!
It can be a painful experience to realize that I am not as perfect as I might like to believe. What matters most is that
I should have a loving and forgiving heart that embraces all my fellow sinners Lord, you are not saying that many
will be lost at the End. But You are warning us to depeen our relationship with You and to accept others. Let me
play my small but essential part to ensure that all of us may be gathered safely into Your kingdom