On Heaven

I attended a funeral today, and during the excellent homily, the priest dropped this gem of a simile:

'If you're not Italian, and you don't like three hour meals, you won't like Heaven, because that's what it's like.'

Note: If I ever make it there, I'm going to LOVE Heaven.

He then compared Heaven to a family Thanksgiving dinner, where everyone is brought together to one meal. Family members from diverse backgrounds, circumstances, and situations. That got me thinking.

Here's a tax collector, a few fishermen, a traitor, and the Son of God at the same table. Can't get much more variety than that! 

Down here on earth' we're ALL potentially part of Christ's mystical body, the Church. You, me, Mr. sketchy-neighbor-down-the-street...as I learned in Theology 101 fall semester, everyone has a chance to end up at the dinner table up in Heaven.

Think what that means. At Thanksgiving dinner, we sometimes run into that relative we just. can't. stand. and end up next to them for an entire endless three hour banquet. Fortunately, we won't have to see them for another year...or at least we'll avoid them at Christmas.

In Heaven, on the other hand, we can't pick who else makes it there. That person we gossiped about until we found out none of it was true, but we pretended we didn't know...That classmate who got on our nerves and became our arch-nemesis, that old droning teacher who didn't notice if we texted in class...

What if we're sitting next to them at Heaven's banquet? Conversation material will be a little scarce...'So, what was your class actually about, Professor? I never listened!' It's a fact: all these people are our brothers and sisters, partakers in the big family feast waiting up within the Pearly Gates. Judging them irrationally and uncharitably won't make them less likely to reach Heaven; on the contrary it lessens our own chance by miring us in sin. When we ignore our own faults and concentrate on the faults of others, we make ourselves very vulnerable to temptation.

Something to keep in mind next time you (and I--this is a big problem for me) face the temptation to make a snide remark or act disrespectful or do anything that isn't in the spirit of fraternal Christian charity. That person, that fellow member of the Mystical Body of Christ, could end up next to you at the dinner of ultimate Thanksgiving.

(Sidenote: Eucharist means Thanksgiving. Judging people around us at Mass is, ironically, a very common fault of good, practicing Catholics. Or it could be a typology, a preparation, a hint...)

Better to show love and help all parties involved along the straight and narrow rather than fall into the rut of easy criticism, slander or unkindness. The New Evangelization starts (or continues, strictly speaking) with YOU!

Enjoy the banquet ;)

Blessings,

Tullia