The sense of heaven and eternity

We need to see to it that even as we immerse ourselves in our earthly affairs, we do not lose our sense of heaven and eternity. The ideal is that as we go deeper in our temporal affairs, our sense of heaven and eternity should also become sharper.

This is possible as long as we are guided by our faith rather than by our feelings and human estimation of things. It is our Christian faith that gives the whole picture of our life —where we come from, where we are supposed to go, the purpose of our life here on earth, the true value of our mundane concerns, etc.

Let’s be theological in our thinking and reaction to worldly things. For that, we need training. It should consist of always referring things to God, whatever they may be —good or bad, success or failure, victory or defeat, etc.

We have to keep our spiritual and supernatural bearing which should involve detachment from worldly things. For this detachment to be lived, we should assume a spirit of sportsmanship, since the effectiveness of our earthly affairs is not so much in whether we win or succeed as in whether we manage to refer them to God.

We do our best to win in whatever endeavor, but whether we win or lose we remain happy and assured that we are all children of God.

The detachment involved here can be of the heroic type as illustrated in the gospel. “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble,” Christ said, “cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.” (Mt 18,8-9)

Though this should not be taken too literally, we have to be ready to take extraordinary means to stay the course.

We cannot deny we are ranged against formidable enemies that tend to bind us only to time and space, as if our whole life has nothing beyond those dimensions.

We have to train our mind, heart, feelings, and senses to conform themselves to this truth of our faith. In our personal prayers and meditations, let us consider the reality of heaven and reinforce that primitive yearning we have in our heart for a life without end, for happiness without limits, which can only take place in heaven.

Let us remind ourselves frequently that our faith tells us we actually come from God, and not just from our parents, and we are meant to be with God forever in heaven after our earthly sojourn which is meant to test us if we want to be with God or just with ourselves.