3rd Sunday after Easter 3.5.20 Preparing for eternity
Our Lord prepares His disciples (including us) for a long
wait. In a little while you will see Me again. We would protest it has been a
very long while in our case, but any period of time dissolves into nothing when
compared with eternity.
Our Lord wants us to get the right perspective on how He is
working with us and through us.
He knows we will find many things difficult so He wants to
fortify us against those difficulties. We, for our part, will gratefully take all
the help He wants to give us.
The committed disciple is someone who is not distracted by circumstances;
who can project into the future and still say: I believe in God, who is beyond all
this, created all this, and keeps it in being, and will wrap it all up in His
time and His way.
I set my hopes on Him and His promises. I do not limit
myself simply to just what I have seen or experienced so far.
We start our eternal journey with this earthly life – it is all
we have known so far. This makes it challenging to believe in a life which is so
much better than this one.
Many cannot cross this gap and abandon hope because they let
the difficulties overpower them.
We could become accustomed to the chaos around us, and say,
well, this must be normal, as there is so much of it.
Our Lord is saying in today’s Gospel that we are actually
called to a much higher destiny, a much happier state, than anything we have seen
so far. ‘You now have sorrow: but I will see you again and your heart shall
rejoice, and your joy no man shall take from you.’ (Jn 16,22).
We strive for the fulfilment of these promises. We long to
be in our heavenly home. We long to see this earthly home made as good as it
can be.
To have our eyes fixed on the heights will fortify us with hope,
courage, wisdom – all the qualities needed to live this life well; and at least
partially repair some of the disorder around us.
The next life is coming closer, in two senses.
One, simply with the passing of time as our lives, and this
earth, head towards completion.
Two, it is coming closer in the sense that we are more fully
grasping what is required.
This is where Our Lord is steering us.
He wants us to have a spiritual interpretation of reality.
Not many want to do that. Politics, economics, social and cultural
aspects of problems will all be addressed, but rarely the spiritual. This means
most people are missing the point, most of the time.
To understand things spiritually is to discover the key to
everything – like solving a puzzle; we have discovered the central idea and all
else falls into place. ‘Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things
shall be added unto you.’ (Mt 6,33)
When we are in communion with God all becomes clear.
This earthly life is still difficult. We still live in a
jungle, but we start to cultivate it a little, so it looks more like a garden
The future can seem frightening but we take it one day at a
time; and we discern the hand of God taking control of our affairs.
We turn everything over to prayer – the long-term problems
and the daily ones, large and small. We will survive, and flourish.
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