There were some cows that were being kept in the basement of a rich man’s home. One night the rich man threw a great party, inviting over all of his family and friends. The music drifted down from the dance floor to the basement where the cows stood chewing their cud. They heard the banging of feet, the occasional breaking of glass or dish, and laughter throughout the night. Flecks of dust would fall from time to time catching their eye, drawing their vision back to the roof above. One cow turned to the other and said: “Man, what do you suppose goes on up there?” The other cow said, “I dunno, but that surely must be some good hay.”
Our vision of what Heaven is like is often limited by our own experiences, our own preferences. To some they describe heaven as a buffet with all the steak they can eat, to another it’s a perfect day of golf for all of eternity. While the book of Revelation gives us a glimpse into Heaven from our own earthly limitations, and the Mass gives us the fullest vision of how we join in with the angels in worship, heaven is still so far beyond our imagination that we are like the cows in the basement. We can only begin to grasp Heaven by looking at the beautiful things of life, the moments that bring us joy, contentment, and love. That is what eternity with God will be like, but our minds can’t wrap around it fully. Anything we can see as “perfect” is still only a reflection of the perfection that is an eternity in the presence of God.
There were two main theological groups at the time of Jesus. The Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection after death and the Sadducees did not. That’s why they were sad, you see? (My dad joke for the day, plus you’ll never forget the difference between the two or how to say Sadducee now.) The Sadducees weren’t trying to understand Heaven, they were trying to trip up Jesus. They believed that once you were dead… you were dead. Jesus turns his answer around and using their own scriptures shows them that people who are with God aren’t dead, but fully alive.
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.
God is being, He is life itself. To be in His presence means to be alive, more alive than we are right now. Our Psalm response for today speaks of that as well when it says: “I in justice shall behold your face; on waking I shall be content in your presence. Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.” Why then is there no marriage in Heaven? Marriage is a joining of two people in the image of God, expressing the fullest way possible here on this earth who God is. A trinity. A family. Relationship. A parent, a child, and a love between them so strong that it creates a third person, the Holy Spirit. God creates life. A single person cannot love only himself, that is not loving. God is a trinity of persons, love is expressed in its fullest sense for all of eternity.
Marriage here expresses that image fully because in marriage you have two people, committed to one another to give each other fully and freely to each other. That love then has the potential to generate life. Family. A husband and wife love each other so fully that no one or nothing gets between them. That’s why we Catholics believe in fidelity, chastity to our station, and do not believe in using contraception. That’s sacrificial love. I give my wife all of me, every part. She gives me all of her.
Now for a moment imagine in Heaven, that when we are exposed to the beatific vision of God when we are exposed to Relationship, to Love, Himself… we begin to see each and every person with the same eyes that God sees them with. Then we have no need for marriage because we will love every person who has ever existed as completely and fully as God loves them, even if we can’t quite grasp the mystery of how that works. The beauty of that is that we don’t have to wait for life after death to experience God and His love right here, right now. We pray at Mass every day “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.” If we let God mold our hearts through the Sacraments, let God teach us to be fully who we are created to be, then we too can begin to see people right here, right now, the way God sees them.
We must choose: are we the children of this world? Or are we the children of the Kingdom of God? If we are the children of God, are we living like it? I don’t know about you… but I wanna find out what kinda hay they got up there. I also can’t wait to be able to love my wife the way she truly deserves, the way that God Himself loves her.
A reflection on the readings for November 10th, 2019: The 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.