Today’s
readings converge at the point of family—of choosing and claiming our spiritual
family as God’s children over and against our merely biological family. In the
old covenant, God’s grace was dispensed primarily through natural ethnicity and
kinships. God chose Israel and the Jewish people, by the very fact that they
were the children of Abraham, and thus blessed in a way that other tribes were
not. Yet, the moment God became human, his covenant became literally Catholic—a
universal promise to all people that God is now present in their midst. If this
is true, our old identities must be transformed: we are no longer simply the
child of this family, no longer simply a citizen of this or that community, not
just a member of that political party, and so on. Now we realize that we have
been made for nothing other than life in heaven.
Accordingly,
we can look upon God, and the human family, in the same way no more. God is no
longer tied to a particular people but now to the entire human race. That is
how we are to interpret those places in Paul where he teaches that, “There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not
male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28; cf. Rom 10:12;
1 Cor 12:13; Col 3:11). To interpret these passages correctly is not to say
that there are no longer historical (personal, gender, social) differences, but
that God no longer distributes his grace determined by these differences. All
are now one in Christ!
This is what
makes the opening reading from Maccabees (a family name traceable,
appropriately enough, to the word “hammer”) all the more remarkable. In the
reading in 2 Maccabees, we hear the story of Judas Maccabeus who led a revolt
against Antiochus Ephiphanes IV (King of the Greek Seleucid dynasty, covering
most of modern-day Turkey and beyond) defeating his army in 161 B.C., so as to
free the Jews from foreign domination.
The lesson
here for us Christians is obviously what the Apostles themselves knew very
early on as well: it is better to follow God than to capitulate to man (cf.
Acts 5:29). It is ironic that we are a people who claim to have a unique
friendship with one we know created the world, rules all things providentially,
who became one with us in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and with one who has
pledged his own sacred body and blood to us at each moment of our lives, and
yet, we still fear to trust him completely. We are still afraid of death.
However,
this is what we proclaim as Christians: that love is infinitely stronger than
death and we have been lovingly made members of an eternal family. God is now
our true and everlasting Father, Mary is our Mother, and all the saints are our
newly-acquired siblings. This is why we hear the Apostle Paul refer to those in
the Church at Thessalonica as “brothers and sisters.” These Christians are
closer to him than any would have been to their own naturally-born siblings. It
is the Faith that thus binds, and Paul realizes that not all have such life
within them.
This might be
an opportunity to comfort those before us by reminding them that this world was
never meant to be their true home. Instead of feeling sad and despondent that
we are not closer to others (especially our members of our immediate families),
or that we find many aspects of our lives lacking, perhaps we could see these
tears and aches as the realization that we know we are not made for earth only,
and that our true destination and character is still to come. As Tolkien
realized, as opposed to the elves who could not die, death is the “great gift”
of humans because it finally transposes us from this “veil of tears” into an
everlasting community of joy.
That is
where today’s Gospel strikes. We are to live in this world as if we were
already claimed for heaven. Even the closest possible human relationship, the
sacrament of matrimony, is to be lived sub specie aeternitatis—with the
realization that your spouse on earth is not your eternal spouse but a living
icon through which you are to see your eternal love. Marriage’s ultimate
purpose is for you to hand your spouse over to Jesus each day, and to assure
that your life together is cemented by Jesus’ love and care. This is why
matrimony is a sacrament: even on those days where you feel like being selfish
and vindictive, the grace is offered you to become other than you might feel at
any unfortunate particular moment.
When Luke
says the married are like the angels in heaven, it is important to stress what
this means. The elect are like the angels in heaven, not because they leave
their bodies behind, but because there will not be marriages celebrated in
heaven. Nothing makes me more upset when I hear well-meaning (but poorly
catechized) Christians assure someone that their deceased loved one is “now an
angel.” No! Angels are spiritual substances who were created without bodies,
and who never will have bodies; we humans are incomplete without our bodies,
and will one day enjoy glorified and resurrected bodies. Angels cannot become
human, humans do not become angels. The point here is that, if lived rightly,
marriage fulfills its purpose by one’s getting one’s spouse to heaven. For
Christ must be the first and the form of all our loves, the union by which all
the cares and affections in our lives are brought together.
Toward the
end of his classic, The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis depicts a young,
grieving mother named “Pam” who is claiming that the love she has for her son,
who died at an unfortunately early age, is what should grant her heaven. The
angel of God points out that the lavish attention she showed her son, Michael,
was never, in fact, true love, but her own possessiveness: “You’re treating God
as only a means to Michael. But the whole thickening treatment consists in
learning to want God for his own sake.” “You wouldn’t talk like that if you
were a mother.” “You mean if I were only a mother. But there is no such
thing as being only a mother. You exist as Michael’s mother only because
you first exist as God’s creature. That relation is older and closer.”
Today’s
homily, then, can focus on how we Christians are currently landlocked, but are
given the grace to live as if we were already in heaven. Heaven is not a place,
but that relationship with Jesus Christ which transforms our every thought,
word, and action here on earth. Christ does not want to take away our families,
and our deepest desires, but to become the “glue” that holds them all together.
As long as our hearts remain divided between creator and creatures, we will
never be happy. Once we surrender all of our seemingly “human” loves, and
plunge them into the Heart of Christ, thus allowing him to become the love that
unites us to even the most natural of our affections, our world becomes
consecrated. For this reason Jesus asks us today to put him first in order that
we may love ourselves and others, not only rightly, but eternally.
God Bless
Nathan
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