Made for Heaven

Dear Friend,

In this week’s Gospel Jesus continues his “Sermon on the Plain,” that sometimes-disorienting map to the place where God fully reigns in our lives. It is the path of our daily challenges – including crises great and small. We bring them to God in our personal prayer and to God and to one another in our communal worship each week. Saint Francis spent long periods in contemplation in the caves above Assisi. His way of enacting this Sermon was through humility and solidarity, that is, an embrace of poverty that bound him to others in love.   

Alice Camille presents her own picture of this process through her memory of an English professor who was able to guess where she was from, within twenty miles, based solely on how she pronounced her vowels. She writes:

“As people of earth, we wear our origins as clearly as the tags on our clothes, spelling out where we come from and of what materials we’re made. Though we may think of ourselves as 100% clay – that is, fully Adam – we’re really a blend of mortal and eternal materials. We may be ‘Made in USA’ or China, Mexico, Indonesia, or Canada, but we’re made FOR the reign of God. The clay part will wear thin, but the eternal part has a warranty that’s hard to believe. We give evidence to the heavenly part of ourselves when we seek forgiveness instead of revenge, generosity instead of possessiveness. People can tell we are ‘Made for Heaven’ when our Christian dialect is showing.”

Alice’s practical suggestion: “Choose an enemy in your life (hint: an intolerable relative, a grating coworker, maybe even yourself (!) and consider taking three steps to peace. Ask Jesus to help you, since this was his idea.” * 

Gratefully,

Father Dan OFM, Pastor 

* “This Transforming Word, Cycle C”, pp. 136, 137