Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - February 3, 2022
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
A dear friend Pat, around 65 years of age, writes: "I value your daily message which bolsters my faith especially at times when I find myself apprehensive about what lies in store after our earthly run." Coincidentally a colleague tells me his six-year-old son Frankie asked: "What happens when people die? What is heaven? What do they do in heaven?" Ten-year-old Ellen chimed in: “Is there purgatory?” To the last Dad wisely shrugged a “Who knows?” with his shoulders.
Words from St. Paul in First Corinthians (2:9) put it briefly: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into human hearts what God has prepared for those who love Him.” In a way that says it all. Elsewhere Scripture dares compare it to the carefree joy and love that characterize a wedding reception: the tinkle of glasses, music, dancing, laughing voices, smiles all around.
Or, try this: heaven is the condition where we live in the loving presence of God and of all who preceded us in a way which satisfies all our deepest longings and hopes. Whatever we do in heaven, it’s all part of the joy of life with God and with all who love God. Our best authority, Jesus, elaborates on the "all who love God" by saying that loving God is “the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:37-40
To 'love God' seems a pretty airy idea, not something we ordinary mortals experience as we do loving a spouse, a parent, children, friends and many others. Just as we know, even feel, God's love for us through the affection others show us, so don't we normally display our love for God in the love and service we give to other human beings? E.g., loving the person or persons we commit ourselves to, in rearing children, nursing the sick, comforting the suffering, tending the disabled, etc. (See Matthew 25)
"Apprehensive about what lies in store after our earthly run." Probably our greatest fear is the fear of death. Henri Nouwen says that getting past that fear clears my way to live the present generously and freely. We can do that when we look at death as a return “to the One who loves us with a love that was there before we were born and will be there after we die.”
Once we realize and trust "that we are born from love and will die into love" then evil, illness and death lose their power over us (Our Greatest Gift, p 17.) Yes, that sounds good but not easy. My best answer to that and my most frequent prayer is: Deepen my trust in your love, dear Jesus. [Dad, maybe you can put this in simpler terms for Frankie and Ellen?]
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
