28 July 2021
Wednesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Do you want Heaven? Do you desire God’s fullness according to your capacity to experience Him? Begin now to empty yourself, to let go of whatever it might be that you cling to. Often when we think about our inevitable deaths, we either hope for Heaven or assume it, yet we rarely pause to consider if we, truly, desire it. For in Heaven God offers the wholeness of His Being to us in full, unrestrained communion according to our capacity to receive Him: have we begun preparing for an eternity of such intimacy with God, or is He still somewhat of a stranger to us? If the latter, what worldly things stand in our way, such that we are focused on obtaining or keeping them, rather than seeking detachment regarding such things?
The two little parables in our Gospel tell us of people who are searching for something precious and find far more than they imagined they would. What they find is so precious that they forfeit everything they have in order to lay hold of something worth everything. Is Heaven, is an eternity with God worth that much to you, such that you would radically alter your life just to have the chance at obtaining Heaven yourself? It may seem ridiculous to some, impossible to others, but we have a Church in which, for thousands of years, men and women have forfeited wealth, marriage, and autonomy in order to begin their Heaven with God in this life, hoping to enjoy it even more in the next. We remember the tales of martyrs who found death preferable to giving up their pearl, their secret treasure, for in the next life they knew that was when the true value would be known, and its true beauty fully revealed.
What treasure do you seek; have you found it? If not, what would you trade in order not merely to find it, but to have it forever?