Fifth Sunday of Easter
My family is going through a transition. It all centers around my mom. My brother and I are both deeply committed to her and want to offer her the happiest, healthiest, and love-filled years as she continues to age. There is only one problem. We are all in different places. My brother is with his daughter in Bangalore helping her and her husband with two kids who are merely 13 months apart. My brother’s wife in another city has three more years of employment. Mom is in deep South in Kerala. And her ‘favorite son’ is more than 9000 miles away in Dayton.
But now, my family has solution. We are all putting our resources together and buying two houses side-by-side. We are all tired of being separated from each other. We want to be with each other, take care of each other, and give each other the best that we can. My sister-in-law is applying for voluntary retirement and moving to Bangalore to be with her daughter and grandchildren. Mom is also moving to Bangalore. On my vacation, I will visit my entire family instead of just my mom. This way, my mom, my brother’s family, my niece’s family, and me (when we retire), we are hope to live together as one big happy family.
I want you to hear Jesus’ words in today gospel one more time in light of my family’s transition plan. Jesus said, “In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be” (Jn 14:2-3). Jesus was talking about eternity. He was talking about heaven.
In my three points today, drawing on Jesus' words and the experience of my family I would like to reflect on eternity and heaven, and draw some practical implications.
Heaven: A ‘Togetherness’
Jesus says, “In my Father’s house, there are many dwelling places.” Should we take words like these literally. What kind of house can hold all the people that will be in the Father’s house? When we use human language to describe supernatural or heavenly realities, we run into problems like these. Human language has limitations and most of the time eternity can only be described with analogies.
In today’s gospel Jesus is using an analogy to describe eternity. We also call it ‘heaven. The “Father’s house,” and “dwelling places” are analogies that describe eternity and heaven. But Jesus did not merely use analogies but also tried to explain the concepts. As I read his words, “I will come back again and take you to myself so that where I am you also may be,” I hear Jesus describe Heaven as ‘togetherness’. And I get ‘togetherness’ these days because that exactly is the focus of my family. Heaven is ‘togetherness’ – God, and you, and me, and all those God brings together.
Heaven: A Communion of Life and Love
Catholic theology uses another word to describe heaven – communion. When Jesus says, “I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be,” we Catholics believe that he was referring to more than togetherness. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity - this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed - is called "heaven" (CCC 1024). This means that Jesus was not only talking about togetherness but also about ‘communion.’ It is one thing to be together and but it quite another thing to be communion.
Heaven is not only about being together but finding union with God and with one another. It is a communion of life and love.
Heaven in the Here and Now
No matter how we describe or understand heaven, the limitations of our language remain an obstacle. Isn’t it true that when we talk about heaven we point above? And when talk about Hell, don’t we point below? There is yet another obstacle. When we think of eternity and heaven, we think of it somewhere in the far distant future.
But when Jesus taught us to pray, he said, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is heaven” (Mt 6:10). In his prayer Jesus is teaching us that heaven is not a pie in the sky or that we taste that pie in some distance future. Heaven is where God is. Heaven is where we are together in communion with God and with one another.
This has implications. Yes, it is true that we will only be completely together in God’s house when we pass from this world. Yes, it is true that we will only enter into full communion with God and the communion of saints when we die. But on this earth, in the here and now, we have a taste of heaven. We must strive to make our earth like heaven. Jesus taught us to pray for this and strive toward this.
When we strive to create togetherness instead of strife and division, we fulfil Jesus’ prayer. When we do everything in our power to bring about understanding, reconciliation, peace, unity, and communion we work with Jesus. We have an example of this in today’s first reading. There was a misunderstanding between the Hellenists and Hebrews. The apostle gathered the community together and resolved the problem so that that word of God could continue to spread (Acts 6:1-7). Similarly, in our families, in our workplaces, in society, in our parishes, we must be a people of togetherness, of mutual understanding, of reconciliation, and communion. This is also true of God's Creation. "Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven" means that we care for God's earth just like we care about heaven instead of exploiting and destroying it.
Not just as an analogy but as a reality, every celebration of the Eucharist is a taste of eternity and a peek into heaven. We are here together. We may not all know each other. We are from different countries. We are of various races. We speak various languages. Not only are we together but very soon we will enter into communion. As we partake of the Bread and Wine we enter into the deepest communion with God possible while we are on this earth, but in that very Bread and Wine we also enter into the deepest communion with each other. This is what Heaven is like. It is not merely an analogy. This is a foretaste of Heaven.
- Fr. Satish Joseph