Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and this is Episode 37 of Season 5 for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Nov. 6, 2022. Our Gospel reading is from Luke, Chapter 20, verses 27, 34-38.
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward.
Jesus said to them, "The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called out 'Lord, ‘ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
The Gospel of the Lord
“What Awaits Us In Heaven?” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut
Very often, life can ask a lot of us, whether we find ourselves facing a very difficult and life-changing surgery, whether we find ourselves dealing with loss, especially the loss of folks close to us, parents, children, spouse, close friends, or family. Whether we are confronting our own mortality as we continue to advance in age and face all of the challenges that aging brings, whether it's dealing with disappointment in the workplace or anxiety about being able to provide for our families, life can very easily bring us to our knees. And quite frankly, life is very often not very fair.
When life becomes challenging and difficult, how do we remain faithful? How do we balance out life's challenges and disappointments, and unfairness with our relationship with God? How do we keep it in check?
Well, to begin with, that question's answer, we have to go back to some core truths about who we are, and they really involve two things, understanding without a doubt where we've come from and where we're going.
So you see, if we look at our lives, as many in the world do, and they look at this human journey, and they conclude that we're simply here because that there's no random, there's no purpose to this randomness of life, and that when we die, we simply return to the dust.
Then what happens in between becomes our sole responsibility. I either make it or break it with life. I either succeed or I fail, and it's all on my shoulders. But if we believe that we're here because of a blessed divine intention that God chose to create us and loved us into existence and that the reality of heaven awaits us at our end, then what happens in between becomes a partnership with God, and the truth of our beginning and our ending allows us to then immerse ourselves in the in-between with faith.
But our success in that endeavor is going to be whether the reality of heaven, what we anticipate waiting for us at the end, is something we really, truly desire with our whole mind, heart, and soul. Do we really want to inherit the gift of eternal life? Well, that's going to be determined by how we envision it, how we think about it, and what we think heaven is going to be.
You know, I have some fun with this question sometimes when I'm with folks and I say to them, "Well, what do you think heaven is? What is your biggest question about heaven?" And, in many of the cases, most of the time, it has to do with relationships, and they'll come back to me, and they'll say, "Well, who's gonna be there?" And this question looms very large in their minds and hearts. And while we really don't know much about the details of heaven, we begin to focus as we ponder it in the relationships. "You know, is Uncle Alfonse still gonna be a miserable old cuss when I enter into the gates of eternal life? Or is he gonna be purged of his wickedness and become angelic? What is it all going to look like?"
Well, whether that image or that picture is attractive to us is gonna then determine how hard we work now to achieve it. If it's kind of like a, "Oh, so let it be what it is, a so, so kind of a deal." Or if we think that it's simply going to be an extension of what we know now, then we may or may not want to put all of our eggs in that basket and really trust and desire with our whole heart, mind, and soul, that gift of eternal life.
Because, in truth, we're told that eternal life is really about two things: union with God and bodily resurrection. Union with God and bodily resurrection. And we really don't know too much about anything other than that. Jesus never gave us a blueprint for what to expect when we enter into life eternal. But we do know from scripture that union with God and a bodily resurrection is the deal.
The relationships and how they work that's left to mystery. The particulars of life eternal are left to mystery, and so, as we journey with our relationship with God, as we partner with him, then, really, the way you and I keep faithful when life's tables turn on us, the way we keep faithful when life becomes challenging, the way we can maintain our faith when life becomes disappointing is by keeping our eyes and hearts fixed on where we're headed. And the reality is that God is working in and through it all, and the idea is not to figure out the mystery. The idea is to live the mystery. To live in the mystery, to live in God.
Imagine if we did know all of the answers. If we knew how it was gonna all end and where we would all be. Well, in one sense it sounds kind of appealing, but in another sense, when you get right down to it, knowing all of the answers and having it all figured out takes a lot of the fun and the intrigue out of life. It takes the adventure out of being human and takes the adventure out of seeking and finding God and developing our spiritual lives.
You know, at the end of it all, we really have to trust that God knows what he's doing. God is the expert to whom we turn with life's questions and with life's struggles. As we sit here today, with all of the challenges that we're facing, with all of our disappointments, with the unfairness of life, and all of the struggles, maybe some of us are in very uncomfortable places, and we're hurting a bit, faith tells us that God knows what he's doing. That right here and now, God is taking all of that disappointment and that worry and that anxiety and that fear, and he is doing something positive with it. He's bringing us to a better place. That God's wisdom prevails and that our task is to cling to that faith, to walk with courage, and to embrace hope. Do we really think we know better than God?
Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community at www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.