What makes us happy? Each of us probably has a different answer to that. If we were asked what a perfect day looked like, there would be many answers around the room. Some would want to spend time eating with family or talking to loved ones around a campfire. Others might just want to spend it in nature alone, listening to the sounds of the forest. Some might even want to play video games or spend time with their pets. It’s because we often think of happiness with respect to who we are and what we enjoy at that moment. A perfect day for me doesn’t look anything like it would have ten years ago, or 20 or 30. As we age, as we mature, as new discoveries and inventions come out, life changes, and our idea of happiness changes.
While teaching confirmation students or RCIA catechumens, one of the most frequent questions I get asked is, “Will our pets be in heaven?” or “What is heaven like?” Again, we think of heaven as a place of happiness, and each of us has our own idea of what happiness looks like. I often respond with this story:
Two cows were in a basement for their entire lives. They just stood there eating hay all day long. One day the farmer threw a party in the room above them. They heard the sounds of enjoyment. Laughter, giggling, broken dishes. As the evening went longer they heard music and dancing, stories being told, and just a great deal of joy. The kind you find at a good party or wedding reception. One of the cows looks to the other and says, “What do you suppose is going on up there?” The other shrugged and said, “I dunno, but that must be some good hay up there.”
With all the sounds of joy in the room above, all they could compare it to was what they knew. We, too often, do that with God and heaven. We look at what joy and happiness look like here, and we go, “Well, that’s what heaven is like.” But today’s readings remind us of a simple truth: Our minds cannot conceive of what God has planned for us because we are still thinking thoughts of this world. It says: “And scarce do we guess the things on earth, and what is within our grasp we find with difficulty; but when things are in heaven, who can search them out?” Just taking a quick look at the world around us shows us how true this is. The world is confused, depressed, and anxious. People don’t know who they are, and they don’t know what to think or do about it. The world tells them the answer is in this or that, but God reminds us that the answer lies in Him. It lies in a solid foundation of objective, immutable truth. The kind of truth we find revealed through the Catholic Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
That’s what Jesus means in the Gospel. He isn’t telling you to hate people, literally. He’s using hyperbole. He’s telling us that our love for God has to be the first thing in our lives, not the least but the greatest. When compared to the human love we have for each other, God’s love is so far beyond what we humans can even begin to imagine that it looks like hate in comparison. Jesus challenges us today to “renounce all of our possessions.” Some people have taken that literally over the ages, giving up everything and becoming beggars for God. Not all of us are called to that, but what we are called to is to give up our attachments to things here. To stop thinking in terms of human enjoyment, worldly entertainment, and secular venues; and instead, begin to look toward Heaven. Because when eternity gets here, if we run hard and through the grace of God win the race, when we receive our crown in heaven, our joy will be complete. It will be beyond anything we have ever experienced.
We don’t have to wait till then to glimpse it, though. That’s what the teachings of the church are all about. These aren’t rules and regulations that are meant to hinder us and keep us from having happiness; they are supposed to make us look up from the hay of this world and gaze into the feast of the banquet upstairs. They let us see what a life of true happiness looks like and begin to live it right here and right now. That’s what a life of a disciple is, a life lived in emulation of our master, our Lord, our brother, who took up His cross and marched to calvary for our sins. So that we too might, in our own lives, pick up our own crosses and walk with Him toward the gates of Heaven.
A homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C: September 4th, 2022