Hermily for 7.30.26
It's like this...
A teenager many years ago told me that at Catholic school they were taught that heaven would be this: everyone gazing at God for eternity. He thought that sounded really boring. In his mind he pictured it like the staring contests we did as kids, willing each other to blink first.
What I think he was talking about was something the Church calls the “beatific vision;” that is, the ability, in heaven (and for brief moments in our lives here), to see God’s face fully, truly, intimately, directly. The idea is that there is no joy more complete than being able to see God in this way. It’s a state of being fully united with God with nothing to mediate that relationship.
Anyway, this kid really had me thinking about heaven. What might it really be like?
Jesus has been offering ideas all week long about what heaven, or the kingdom of God, might be like.
Today’s Gospel presents the last parable in a whole string of parables, with Jesus telling his disciples and the crowds around him that the kingdom of heaven is like seeds being sown in different conditions, and weeds growing among wheat; like a mustard seed, or yeast in bread… he’s told them that the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, and like a fine pearl of great value, and now, like a net, thrown into the sea that catches fish of all kinds.
He could have just told everyone what the kingdom of heaven is, right? But instead he chose to tell us what it is like. How annoying!! I have to smile at the point in this reading where Jesus asks his disciples “do you understand all these things?” and they say “yes!” Because, I bet they don’t. I think these parables make the whole thing even more confusing. And maybe that’s really what Jesus intended.
Maybe we’re not supposed to understand, but to wonder. Maybe God is inviting us not into a clear answer but a conversation, inviting us to dream and to hope.
So, without any clear answers available to us, what do you think the kingdom of heaven is like?
I want to share this little video, a minute long… it’s a little baby, hearing their father’s voice for the first time, with the help of new hearing aids. (click here or on the image)
Maybe that’s what heaven is like?
What I notice about this interaction, this face-to-face moment between child and parent:
The first thing this child hears is the voice of their loving parent telling them how good they are, how safe they are, how everything will be okay, and how much they are LOVED. This baby and his father are face to face and the joy shared between them is beautiful Beatific. Heavenly.
I don’t know if this is even close to the truth of what God offers us in the afterlife, but it feels like a happy glimpse.
The good news is that the beatific vision isn’t reserved for eternity, for after-life. We can catch a glimpse of the joy of heaven, whatever that does look like, here and now.
All my life I’ve done this thing where I think “oh this moment is so beautiful, I’m going to memorize this moment. I’m going to remember this forever.” What ends up happening is that I remember saying that, but forget what was happening that I wanted to hold on to. even so, what remains is the truth that I did have those perfect moments, that they did happen for me.
This baby won’t remember this moment (even if he sees the video years later), but that doesn’t make it less graced.
Through parables and through moments we’re invited to imagine what the kingdom of heaven will be like. And we’re invited to notice signs of it here and now, to share moments of grace and beauty and un-mediated love with our heavenly parent.
So as we are invited once again to the heavenly banquet, let us take a moment to imagine, to wonder, to ask God to show us glimpses, so that we can hold on to hope that what God has in store for us and our loved ones is eternal joy.
