Between Earth and Heaven

Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear
what we shall be, but we know that when He appears we
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And every
one who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

We begin with "God's children," the "children of light." Who are they? In an earthly sense, they are a Community. (Scholars call them the Johannine Community.) Its members include the Mother of God, Mary, and the Community's bishop and teacher — the Apostle, Evangelist, Prophet, and Beloved Disciple. The Anglican cathedral in New York City bears his name: Saint John the Divine. For centuries he has been known simply as The Theologian, for in the estimate of the Fathers of the Church, there was really only one.

But let us go back some years that we may picture in our mind's eye a young, sincere, and earnest boy. He was very likely the most attentive and studiously watchful among the Disciples — an innocent in the company of strangers. We see him hanging on the Lord's every word throughout the great three-year ministry. His devotion would have only been amplified and become more keen and sensitive during the luminous, mysterious forty-day teachings of the Risen Lord, unlocking the Scriptures, revealing the secrets of God, and explaining the things of Heaven as they touched the earth.

We know that all of this happened, for the fact of it is reported in the Gospels. But nowhere is it written what the Lord told them, not in the Gospel, not in the Acts of the Apostles, and not in the Catholic Letters though all of the authors of those Letters were present for His teachings. "But why us?" the Disciples asked Him. And He replied,

"To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside,
everything comes in parables; in order that
'they may indeed look, but not perceive,
and may indeed listen, but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.'"

A mystery, to be sure. The content of the Risen Lord's teachings was deemed too holy to share either orally or in written form. But foremost among those who listened was the young man, Saint John, for, for his Gospel, his Catholic Letters, and His unique Apocalypse, or Revelation, reveal, to him was given Heaven's deepest secrets.

Saint John, alone among the Disciples, stood at the foot of the Cross. He was entrusted with the care of the Blessed Virgin Mary: "'Woman behold thy son!' Then saith He to the disciple, 'Behold thy mother!'" (Jn 19:27). Moreover, both Saint John and the Blessed Virgin Mary were touched by holiness, a word which means simply "closeness to God." John the "disciple whom the Lord loved," "which also leaned on his breast at supper (Jn 21:20), actually laid down His head down upon the Risen Christ. Mary of Nazareth was the woman who bore God, who was His dwelling place and habitation for nine, sacred months. They were near to God as no other humans have ever been near to Him. And we may be sure that these two — sharing meals together, praying together, and opening their hearts night after night in blessed conversation — during the many years following the Ascension, arrived to a perfection of understanding, which represents the high point of divine knowledge in human history. Yes, the earnest, young man and the serene woman were most certainly human creatures, but they were humans whose minds and hearts were now stretched to the outer limits of human capacity in awe of the truths that now filled them and radiated out of them. To enter their household was to step nearly into Heaven. To read the Letters proceeding from this Community is to be granted a most precious window into the purest Christian life this world has ever known and shall ever know. Who are the saints? These are the saints. These are the ones who know. They are not walking through a fog of conflicting theological claims and speculations, not tripping over boundaries that separate a multitude of Christian denominations and sects, nor turning the radio dial or surfing the web looking for a preacher or a leader. These are the saints: the ones who can show us the way to Heaven. The Letters from this Community make this crystal clear from the first paragraph:

We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes,
what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life -- this Life was revealed,
and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal Life that was with the Father
and was revealed to us -- we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have
fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

The precepts set out by this Community provide Christianity in its purest form:

1. Love God for His element is Love (1 Jn 4:7).
2. How do you love God? Obey His commandments (1 Jn 5:2).
3. Love one another, for if we fail to love one another, we have no part in Him (1 Jn 4:20).
4. God is Light. God is Love. To enter into this love is to pass from death to life (1 Jn 3:14).
5. The entire world lies under the power of the Evil One (1 Jn 5:19).
6. Everyone who commits sin is a child, not of God, but of the Evil One (1 Jn 3:8).
7. Purify yourselves, for He is pure (1 Jn 3:3).

And here we come to the crux of understanding Christian life on earth. We begin with life, which is holy. What is life? It is the active, animate, breathing, growing miracle that alone proceeds from God's hand. It is the unimpeded unfolding of His plan for each thing on earth. Whatever interferes with the unfolding of God's plan is not of life, which is to say, it is of death. In her saintly simplicity, Mother Teresa saw the world as being a parting of two great things: on one side, life, which are the things of God and on the other, those things that are not of God, which she called, "the Culture of Death." The things of God are easily seen and known. They stand out for their goodness, purity, and clarity. A life that is never sullied by the things-not-of-God is always a shining life. Pope St. John Paul II, in his wisdom, proclaimed St. Therese of Lisieux to be a Doctor of the Church, a phrase that denotes deep learning and theological understanding. A Doctor? This young, relatively uneducated girl? But her deep learning was not in theology but rather in sanctity. She was called "the Little Flower" because from beginning to end her journey was an instance of life, never being sidetracked or soiled by the things-not-of-God. Her uncomplicated journey to Heaven invites all people to follow her. It is called "the Little Way" referring to its plain simplicity. In other words, "Just do it."

The uncorrupted unfolding of God's plan for each of us is our birthright. We did nothing to deserve it. We never needed to press our claim for it. It just is. It is the natural unfolding of each of our lives devoid of worldly taint. Because each life naturally leads to Heaven, it has deep within it the power of Heaven, which the New Testament expresses in the Greek word, δυναμισ (dunamis) We read this word just yesterday on All Hallow's E'en as we proclaimed the Gospel according to Saint Luke:

And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples,
and a great multitude of people out of all Judæa and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast
of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases; and they
that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed. And the whole multitude
sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all. (Lk 6:17-19)

Just being near to Him, they were healed. They were healed because of the virtue or δυναμισ that poured out of Him. We see depicted in the Hollywood movie, King of Kings, His shadow falling on a withered man laying in the dust making him whole. Was there some kind of healing "ray" that He shone on people? No. The truth is far simpler than that. He is the Lord of Life. Being near to Him is to be near to His force (which, by the way, is another English word translators use to render the Greek δυναμισ). The Lord of Life stands in a field with people rushing toward Him, for He has for them the pure and unspoiled life with which each of them was born. They run toward this life as to a long, lost family member — familiar, good, and filled with pleasant memories. In this sense, the Lord is, in some mysterious sense, the life of Eden, which is the youth of all humankind, the childhood of the world.

What is a saint? A saint is one who is sanctified, purified, ... one who is ready to reclaim his or her first life, which is why Saint John calls the Community members children. They might have stayed right there from the beginning and unfolded like the "Little Flower." Or they might have ventured into the world of deadly compromise and now are sick to death of this diseased place and yearn for the touch of God, to be restored to their purity. But whoever they are, we know from the example of the Apostles that those who have sanctity share in that same δυναμισ, in that same force that proceeded out of Jesus. As we read in the Acts of the Apostles, "they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them" (Acts 5:15).

This helps us to understand why the Roman Church requires two miracles before someone is recognized as being a saint. For these miracles verify that they indeed have arrived to Heaven and share in the force and life and sanctity of that most holy state of being. It is a shame that so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ distance themselves from the saints at the advice of Protestant pastors and preachers, yet those same people ask for the prayers of their pastors and especially their most sanctified friends. Part of this has to do with a misunderstanding of the word "pray," which also appears in the plays of Shakespeare, to take one example, in the word, "prithee" — meaning "I ask you." When Christians pray to the saints, they are not worshiping them. They are petitioning them. They are asking for their prayers, the prayers of the saints. Why? Well, for the same reason we seek the prayers of the most blessed people we know, perhaps a saintly grandmother or aunt ... because we believe in our gut that their prayers will avail more powerfully. And what prayers could possibly avail more powerfully than those of the most virtuous among us in the history of humankind, the saints who are now in Heaven? What prayers could possibly avail more greatly than those offered on our behalf by the Mother of God, who was born without sin and who entered Heaven without tasting death, for death and disease are the vestiges of our fallen world and nature.

Saints are not lesser gods. They are our fellows. They have walked the same path that we now tread. They have arrived to the place where we wish to go. And they have become completely united with the Life with which we long to unite. They know the way. In a mysterious sense they have become united with the Way, which is Our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask them for our prayers. And by long tradition, a tradition of these same saints, we know to a certainty that our petitions to them are heard and that their prayers for us matter greatly. Let us unite our hearts with them today, their Day, giving thanks for their love, which they poured out so freely enduring the world, which hated them and persecuted them, yet never discouraging them in the simplicity and purity and goodness of God's love.

The Community of Saint Mary and Saint John — that high point of human life lived on earth — bids us to purify ourselves and to remain pure. To many this may seem odd or unnatural. And by the world's standard it is. Why, the Evil One will quickly argue the other side of the debate. Get in touch with your inner animal, he will tell you. You only go around once! In the end, what you decide to do depends upon where you wish to go and who you want to be. The blessed members of the Community already live in middle air — half way between Earth and Heaven. They see clearly the polluted state of the world below. Their eyes now are only on Heaven. They invite you to join them, for their destination is good and its kingdom is everlasting. They are the saints, our fellows, our guides, and, by the grace of God, our own identity and home.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.