Not of this World

“Then he said,
‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’
He replied to him,
‘Amen, I say to you,
today you will be with me in Paradise.’”

Luke 23:42-43

As we quickly approach the end of our liturgical year, we are reminded that Our Lord, Jesus Christ is the King of the Universe. His Kingdom, as He told Pilate, is not of this world, but where do we stand? Have we preferred the fleeting pleasures and temporary joys of this earthly “kingdom” over the Kingdom of God?

We must constantly remind ourselves that although we may be in this world, we are not of this world. We are pilgrims making our way to a destination that is not of this world. Since we are not of this world, our hearts should not rest on the things of this world. God has given this world to us and all that it contains, but we must use them for the purpose for which they were created. All of God’s creation should point us to Him. If it does not then we are not using it properly. We must learn and retrain our hearts to see with the eyes of God. All creatures ought to reflect its creator. Do we reflect our Creator? Do our actions reflect the actions of Our Creator? Do we love? Do we forgive? Do we seek what is above?

Our society has forsaken their eternal identity and taken up permanent residence on a land that will pass away. We must resist the temptation to do this, brothers and sisters. If we choose to make this earth our residence we will pass away with it. We were created for an eternal destiny; let’s not so quickly throw it away. Let’s not settle for this world, because who we are, our truest identity, and our final destination is not of this world. We belong to God. The Lord says to us, “You will be with me in Paradise,” but the question is will we draw near to the One who promises us His Kingdom?

Rootless and Branchless

“Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven,
when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble,
and the day that is coming will set them on fire,
leaving them neither root nor branch,
says the LORD of hosts.”

Malachi 3:19

The Lord warns us that there will be those who will come into our lives portraying to be someone from Him but in reality is not. There will be instances when our senses will fail to detect that what we are experiencing is not from God. There will be times when what is evil will seem to be what is true, good, and beautiful. How will we know? How will we know what is truly from God and not just a trick of the Enemy? We need to train our bodies to seek what our souls truly need — the food that sustains us, and this training can only be done by prayer.

We cannot choose good and evil at the same time. We must make a decision to choose either good or evil and to follow either God or the Enemy. In this world those who choose good over evil and God over the Enemy will be persecuted and dismissed but that is no reason to do otherwise. We are told that evil and all that follows it will one day be eradicated, leaving neither root nor branch. But it is a battle that is continuous and dare I say, one that is increasingly fierce. Indifference is one of the major contributors to this losing battle. We have to remind ourselves that this battle is very real and that the Enemy mimics the Truth and tries to fool us constantly. But by training our ears and hearts to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd, the tactics of the Enemy will have no hold of us. With prayer evil will be rootless and branchless.

Brothers and sisters, we must listen in the silence of our hearts to the Voice who calls us His beloved. We need to train our senses to discern what is from God and what only seems to be from God because at the end of time following and believing only what “seems” to be from God will not lead us to Paradise. Rather it will lead us only to a mirage that quickly disappears when the Enemy reveals himself. As we quickly approach the end of this liturgical year, may we choose God daily and offer to Him our hearts, our bodies, our being, because when we do, it is truly God who lives in us and when He does, we can never fail.

The Life to Come

“It is my choice to die at the hands of men
with the hope God gives of being raised up by him;
but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.”

2 Maccabees 7:14

During the final weeks in Ordinary Time, as we prepare to start a new year in the Church, we are given readings that shift our focus to what is above. We must be reminded that the time we spend here on earth is only temporary and that our true home, our eternal home is in heaven. Although that may be the case, what we do here on this earth, may determine the life that is to come.

Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in things of this world — the little things — that we forget and lose sight of what is most important. We must not allow the mundane get in the way of the eternal. In the Gospel, Jesus reminds us that Our God is the God of the living. Those who have died here on earth are really alive, perhaps even more fully alive than they were while here on earth. In the first preface for the dead that is often said during a funeral mass, we are told that for those who believe “life is changed not ended, and, when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.”

That is our hope, brothers and sisters. For us who believe, when our earthly lives are finished, life will not have ended, but only changed. No longer will we be limited by the confines of this physical world and our physical bodies, but we will be fully alive, dwelling among the saints, in the house in which Our Lord promised He has prepared a room for us. The life that is to come should be what is our primary focus. We live not for this life, but for the changed life that is to come. Then, if we know what the life that is to come is — life with God in heaven — then all that we do and say here on earth ought to reflect that.

We are a people who have been called out of this world to be a people that is particularly God’s people. May we ask for the grace to always seek what is above and allow that blessed life that is to come to move us to do even better here on earth.