Lesson from Fr. Paulus | Earth Is Not Heaven; It’s the Road to Heaven

This is Jesus' first big sermon in the Gospel of Luke. His inaugural address. And it's shocking. The topic is happiness (being blessed), and in a total reversal of ordinary standards, Jesus links true happiness with struggle, hardship, suffering and opposition, not with the prosperity, popularity, and pleasure that we normally associate with happiness.

What does he mean by this? Jesus isn't saying that the good things of life are evil - not at all. They are God's gifts and we are meant to enjoy them. But he is saying that they cannot satisfy our desire for happiness. And so, if we put our trust in them, as Jeremiah says in the first reading, our lives will wither and harden, like tumbleweeds in the desert. No roots, and no fruits.

Rather, Jesus is teaching us that the true path to happiness in this fallen world is paved with life's challenges and hardships.

These remind us that this world is passing and imperfect, that the only dependable thing in life is our friendship with God. Hardships and challenges teach us to root our lives in the rich soil of knowing, loving, and serving him; then our lives will be like a flourishing tree, with strong roots and luscious fruits.

This lesson has to be re-learned continually. Because of our fallen nature, we always tend to think we can find heaven on earth by putting together just the right combination of possessions, praise, and power. But we can't, as our Lord makes perfectly clear.

We are members of the Church militant for as long as we journey here on earth, and that means we need to keep our armor on and our supply lines protected, lest we fall into the enemy's traps.

St Teresa of Avila Falls in the Mud (humorous)

St Luke tells us that a great crowd had gathered from all over Palestine. It must have been like the World Youth Day gatherings with the Pope: a whole stadium full of people: rich and poor, the suffering, the curious, the young, the old - all looking hopefully up at Jesus.

And Jesus "fixes his eyes on them", St Luke tells us. The eyes of God looking into the eyes of regular people just like you and me. What was in Jesus' heart? How glad he must have been that they were there to hear him!

And what is his message? Blessed are you who are poor, who are hungry, who weep... For to you belongs the Kingdom of heaven. He tells them that he is at work in the midst of their sufferings. That he knows about them, and that they have a purpose.

Every saint learns this lesson. St Theresa of Avila was the great reformer of Carmelite Order. She spent the last years of her life traveling extensively, as she laid the foundation for seventeen discalced Carmelite convents throughout sixteenth century Spain. On one of these trips, as she was getting out of a carriage after a long, tiring journey in the rain, she slipped and fell in a large mud puddle. Her nice clean habit was soaked and dripping with mire. Exasperated, she prayed, "Lord, why do you do these things to me when I'm only trying to help you?" Jesus answered her prayer, saying, "This is how I treat all my close friends." Teresa retorted, "Then it's no wonder you have so few!"

But it's true. Jesus loves us too much to let us deceive ourselves into thinking that we can have heaven on earth. He is always trying to remind us of our true destination.

Exercising Our Faith

It takes faith to accept this teaching of Christ. Faith is for our Christian lives what natural intelligence is for our natural lives.

We received natural intelligence when we were given life. It enables us to know, understand, and learn things about the world around us. It enables us to write poems and read books, unlike animals and plants, which don't have this kind of intelligence.

When we were baptized, God gave a new kind of intelligence - faith. This enables us to see things from God's perspective. Faith allows us to perceive God's love behind the beauty of a sunset, God's presence in the Eucharist, God's wisdom at work in suffering.

And just as we need to exercise our natural intelligence if we want it to grow and mature, we have to exercise this gift of faith too.

The hardships of every day are the best opportunities to exercise our faith. When things go our way, we don't have to exercise faith to accept them - natural intelligence is enough. When they don't go our way, then natural intelligence is not enough. We have to say: I don't know where you're taking me, Lord, but I know you're still in charge. [Here you can make reference to the illustration you used...]

Sickness, betrayal, accidents, money problems, rejection, being made fun of because of our Christian standards - these things make us blessed, because in them we can exercise our faith in Christ. They make us more like Christ, who saved us by suffering all these things himself.

Let's remind ourselves that earth is not heaven. Let's ask Jesus to teach us to live by this supernatural intelligence, so that it can be a sturdy lighthouse guiding us along this earthly road heaven. Lord, increase our faith!