Mark Twain, an American humorist of the 19th century, once said, “I can’t understand how come some people are so anxious to get to heaven when they can barely stand to sit in church for an hour on Sunday morning.” There is a truth in his observation: we all want to get to heaven, but what is our understanding of Eternal Life?
Jesus has some interesting information about Eternal Life in today’s Gospel reading. He says, “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”
What does it mean to “know you, the only true God?” Can we “know God” on earth, or must we wait for after death?
Our catechism says, “Those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live forever with Christ. They are like God for ever, for they ‘see him as he is,’ face to face.” (CCC 1023) The catechism goes on to say “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)
So we can know God after death. To fully know God is to be in heaven.
The catechism continues: “By his death and Resurrection, Jesus Christ has ‘opened’ heaven to us. The life of the blessed consists in the full and perfect possession of the fruits of the redemption accomplished by Christ. He makes partners in his heavenly glorification those who have believed in him and remained faithful to his will. Heaven is the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ.” (CCC 1026)
In heaven we will not only know God, we will be in the company of all who also know God—and we will be “perfectly incorporated into Christ.”
It takes me some thinking and paraphrasing to appreciate what this is saying: We enter the fullness of eternal life through the gate of death. Once purified, eternal life is the “Beatific vision,” seeing God face to face. Heaven is also a community where we live with others “to continue joyfully to fulfill God’s will in relation to other men and to all creation.” (CCC 1029)
That’s a far richer picture than white clouds and angel wings or old home week with our friends.
St. Paul was considering his own death and resurrection in today’s first reading. Speaking to the leaders of the church at Ephesus, he tells them that the Holy Spirit “has been warning me that imprisonment and hardships await me.” Yet he is compelled by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. He says, “I consider life of no importance to me, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s grace.”
It is a matter for serious pondering when a doctor’s visit, intuition, or troublesome circumstance brings to mind that we may die soon, and that death is the door to eternal life. Most everyone considers that with attention and concern. It is no small thing.
Jesus was working through his own acceptance of death in the Gospel. This reading from John 17 is right before he says, “Let us go” and goes out to Gethsemane to do what he must do. He recognizes that for him, too, death is a prelude to “glory.”
In death, God calls man to himself. So a Christian can transform his own death into an act of obedience—like Christ, like St. Paul, obedience which says, “Here I am, Lord. I come to know you as you truly and fully are.”
But what if good health, youth, and safety make death seem a long way off. Must we wait for death to know God?
We can know God partially through the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit IS God, just as Jesus is God and the Father is God. They are ALL consubstantial, made of the same substance.
In our parish we are saying a novena to the Holy Spirit as Pentecost approaches. This novena focuses on the gifts of the Spirit: Holy Fear, Piety, Fortitude, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, and Wisdom. As I am praying this novena each day I am struck by the thought that IF I could live each day filled with Holy Fear, Piety, Fortitude, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, and Wisdom, I would be thinking, choosing, and doing what Christ would do. I would be in conformity with the Love, Mercy, Truth, and Fidelity of God. In a very real sense I would have a measure of eternal life now because I would know God within myself and my life now.
That is a wondrous, marvelous thought. It leads me to want the Gifts of the Holy Spirit very, very much.
This leads me to observe that people who are filled with the Holy Spirit also bear the Fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, self-control, modesty, chastity, and generosity.
Living in those fruits of the Spirit creates good relationships, integrity, and core goodness within myself–and spilling over to others, because others “catch” such goodness when they encounter it. The Fruits create a taste of heaven, of eternal life, here on earth. Now.
So today the Scriptures create a patchwork square for me—all from the sentence that jumped out: “Eternal life is this, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”
There is first the awareness that Eternal Life is first and foremost life with God. If I want Eternal Life, it is God whom I must seek. I should be happy to be in church on Sunday morning and many other times, to seek Him in prayer, to notice His working in my life. Second, Eternal Life is in community. It is not something I experience alone. Third, there is the logic that if I seek Eternal Life now, the way to do it is to seek God, especially through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, for that is how God can come into my life NOW as He is, and connect me with others who will be attracted by the Fruits of the Spirit.
Right at the beginning of the catechism we find, “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.” (CCC 27)
Lord, let me keep searching until you totally claim me for yourself and I can see your face in heaven!
The prayer today is part of the Novena to the Holy Spirit. It asks for the Seven Gifts:
O Lord Jesus Christ Who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Your work in the souls of Your Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me that He may perfect in my soul, the work of Your grace and Your love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Your divine truth, the Spirit on Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with You and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, and the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord with the sign of Your true disciples, and animate me in all things with Your Spirit. Amen.
The Novena to the Holy Spirit is a traditional prayer of the Church. It traditionally starts on the Friday after Ascension Thursday. We are half way through. But it is better to start it now than to wait until next year. The Holy Spirit can and does come to us any days.
Here is one place to access the novena: https://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/pentecost/seven_tx.htm
Link to today’s readings: Acts 20: 17-27; from Psalm 68; John 17: 1-11a
