5th Sunday of Easter - Bucket List

 

The readings give us a glimpse into heaven and how Jesus’ commandment to love-- is necessary to obtain heaven.

The second reading from the book of Revelation provides a glimpse of the state of eternal glory that will be enjoyed in heaven. “Behold God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be His people and God Himself will always be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing of pain, for the old order has passed away.”

In order for us to be happy and hopeful in this life, we must constantly think of heaven, because heaven is our final end and is our homeland. Whereas on earth, we are a pilgrim on a constant journey to our final destination.
In this life, there will always be heartache, pain, suffering, trials, temptations. But not so in heaven. On earth we are called the Church militant, but heaven is the Church triumphant because all those in heaven triumphed over the struggles on earth.

Jesus is our bridge between heaven and earth. Jesus is the only way to get to heaven. Without Jesus, we cannot go there, because only Jesus can save us. He is our savior. Our Lord Himself said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.”

In today’s Gospel Jesus gave His apostles and us a new commandment, called the “Commandment of love.” He said, “I give you a new commandment, love one another. As I have loved you, so you should love one another. This is how all will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

How did Jesus love us? By laying down His life for us. And we are called to do the same, to lay down one’s life for another.

A few years ago, Brian Bergkamp a seminarian, was canoeing with some friends down the Arkansas River in Wichita. It had recently rained and the water was flowing very quickly. His canoe tipped over and one of the girls in his canoe lost her life jacket. Brian selflessly took off his jacket and tossed it to her. She grabbed on to it and was able to swim to shore, but Brian drowned. Jesus said, “There is no greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.” He gave his life for a friend. He loved as Jesus told His disciples to love. It was very apparent, Brian was a disciple of Jesus.

As we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus for 40 days until He ascended into heaven, we are reminded that by Our Lord’s death and resurrection, we can go to heaven.

His resurrection gives us hope for heaven. And we have hope that at the end of the world, we too will have a resurrected body just like Jesus.

We have hope if we lived a life of love and virtue, we will enter the joys of heaven, “where every tear is wiped away”. Just think about heaven for a moment. There is no old age, no suffering, no pain, no tears, no heartaches, no cancer, no mourning, or wailing, no war, no disagreements, no disunity, no physical ailments, no arthritis and no death.

Rather there is joy, peace, love, unity and happiness. Our imperfect relationships on earth, become perfect in heaven. We get to know each other and love each other in a way beyond our imagining. Every question we wanted answered on earth-- will be answered in heaven. Everything we wanted to do in this life, we will be fulfilled and not just fulfilled, but in the most profound and incomprehensible way. As the Lord, said, “My ways are not your ways.” St. Paul said, we have “an everlasting home in heaven”. On earth, we suffer, we go through difficulties, and by doing so we learn to love, to forgive and to grow in virtue.

On earth, we experience heaven every time we come to Mass. At Mass heaven is opened and angels come down and surround the altar. At Mass we join the angels and saints in worshiping God. We sing with the angels and saints, “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of Hosts, heaven and earth are filled with your glory”. We experience a foretaste of heaven when we receive Jesus in Holy Communion, we are one with Him and we posses Him, just as we will be one with God and posses God in heaven.

We also experience that oneness with God through baptism because God dwells in our heart through baptism. Through baptism God is not just with us, He is in us. That is unless we commit a mortal sin, then He force Him to leave. But He will return if we go to Confession and allow Him to wash away our sins.

On earth, we learn to become like God, by imitating Jesus and by praying to God. In heaven, we worship, adore and praise God in a perfect and harmonious way. The God, whose friend we became on earth, will be our greatest joy in heaven. The God we adored during Eucharistic adoration and received in the Eucharist, we will adore and be one with in heaven.

Just as a helpful hint. When you come to adore Jesus in adoration, spiritual reading is good, but even more important is to talk to Jesus from your heart. Telling Him about your needs, your struggles, your desires and thanking Him and loving Him is so pleasing to Jesus in the Sacred Host.

When you get to heaven you will meet your guardian angel for the first time and get to know him and learn how he loved you and protected you and helped you on your journey to the Father’s house. We will be together with all the angels and saints, whom we prayed to, whom we learned about, and who helped us by their intercession. And we will see the beauty and glory of the Virgin Mary and understand more fully Her motherly care and concern for us. And we will get to know our great grandparents and their parents, their grandparents and we will learn about their life, their struggles, and how they made it to heaven.

What’s on your bucket list? What do you want to do before you die? I would like to say, its good to have desires and dreams and want to accomplish things in this life, but if our life is cut shorter than anticipated, we should in no way be disappointed if we were unable to fulfill our “bucket list”. Why? Because every dream, every desire, every thing we wanted to accomplish in this life will be fulfilled in heaven and greater than we ever could have imagined.

Once we depart from this life, we are no longer able to do any good deeds. Nor make acts of faith, hope and love. We can no longer ask God for forgiveness. The good deeds we do, the love we shared and the sufferings we endured, our prayers, the times we went to church and received Jesus in Holy Communion, the hours we prayed in Eucharistic Adoration all of these and more-- we will take with us to our judgment for as the book of Wisdom says, “Our good deeds go with us.”

St. John of the Cross helps us to know what our judgment will be like. He said, “In the end, we will be judged on love.” In another words, how much we fulfilled Our Lord’s commandment of love, loving our neighbor--- will either be our glory and reward or our eternal loss.

When we share with others God’s gifts He has given to us--- we are practicing stewardship. For example, mowing yards for those who cannot do it themselves, stitching and sewing for others, to use our voice in singing, to smile at someone who we know could use cheering up. There is a lady I know who makes her own greeting cards by her artistic talent. She draws beautiful flowers, birds and animals and writes little notes inside. Her Christmas, Easter and birthday cards are always my favorite. She uses her ability to make people happy. We can give a compliment to a co-worker when they did a good job. To financially help a single mother who is struggling to make ends meet. To bake cookies or a meal to give to a neighbor. To help our neighbor move cattle. To donate vegetables from your garden. To send a sympathy card to someone who lost a relative. A few kind words of encouragement for someone who is discouraged. All of these things are acts of love. Stewardship is recognizing God’s gifts He has given to us and sharing them with others out of love for God and neighbor.

Finally, I would like to suggest, that we create a new and different kind of “Bucket”. Let’s get the biggest bucket we can find and fill it with acts of love and mercy and place our good deeds and kind words in it, so that when we go to our judgment, when Jesus said, “How much did you love?” We can hand him a giant bucket filled of love and overflowing with all the good things we did in our life and He will then say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Today, let us entrust our good deeds, our merits and everything we have to the Blessed Virgin Mary, for She will be sure nothing we did in this life will be lost, but rather will be our reward and our glory.