Men and women and children lying in a bed of pain. Widows,
widowers and orphans of natural disaster. Peaceful protestors persecuted by
police. And millions and millions of modern day martyrs. These are the men and
women whom Christ calls blessed. And if we look with the eyes of faith, we may
see how they are blessed even now in their suffering. For God has redeemed
human suffering through Christ. But Christ promises more than present
blessedness. Christ promises future, glorious, eternal blessedness in heaven.
Our journey to heaven is long and dangerous. Our road may bend so far off
course that we want to give up.
A woman stopped me on the street and asked if it is
permissible for catholics to be cremated. I wondered why she was asking. She
told me that she has had back pain for years, and that she has become addicted
to her pain medication. This addiction put her in years-long depression. She
said her body betrayed her. And she wanted it to burn.
I told her this is the only reason that catholics should not
be cremated, out of anger and spite for their bodies. We are all eventually
broken. And tomorrow we will commemorate those whose bodies lie in the dust of
death. But today we celebrate that our bodies are sanctified by Christ who
chose to become incarnated in a body like ours. And our bodies are destined for
glorious resurrection. The journey is long, but we have help.
We have help in the great company of saints. This is a truly
Christian doctrine, for our God is no concept, but a person, a community of persons.
And again by the incarnation, we are all of us baptized, and the whole world we
hope, knitted together into the Body of Christ. So we become part of the
Godhead in the person of Christ! The body of Christ is a many faced and many
splendored thing.
The communion of saints is not only the love and unity that
the saints in heaven share with God and each other. It is also communion of the
saints with us, the Church on earth. And we are in communion with the suffering
souls in purgatory. Grace flows through the Church like blood through the body;
grace comes from heaven to revive the members of the body of Christ that have
been bruised or broken.
If you have a headache, you can ask St Theresa of Avila for
help. For anxiety and mental problems, look to St Dymphna. If you are a student
or a teacher, ask St Thomas Aquinas for wisdom. If you are suffering poverty,
ask St Macrina. If you are a lost cause, or you know a lost cause, go to the
Apostle Jude. And if you are caught in a storm, which is likely tonight, ask St
Scholastica for help.
Did you know that the first successful blood transfusion
wasn’t between two persons? In 1667 a british doctor took blood from a lamb and
gave it to a sick boy, and the boy lived. It is a great coincidence, or no
coincidence at all, that he should have been saved by the blood of a lamb. The
blood that flows through the Body of Christ is the blood of the lamb. We have
the life of the sacraments to help us on our way to heaven. We have help, and
so we have hope.
We hope for heaven! There is only one sacrament in heaven. We
have no need of reconciliation, for we will all be reconciled to God. Nor are
we married, in the earthly sense, because each of us will be wedded to the Lamb
of God. And each of us shares in priesthood, either the priesthood of all the
baptized, or the ministerial priesthood of the clergy. And everyone is baptized
and adopted into Christ. Nor is there need for the anointing of the sick,
because there is no more sickness, pain or death. But there is the Eucharist.
When I try to imagine heaven, this banquet of the lamb, I
immediately think of Jan van Eyck’s Lammsgot in Ghent. And I wonder, what if
this were painted not in a Flemish hillside, but here in the town of Leuven.
Leuven is a wonderful setting to imagine the heavenly Jerusalem. We already
have the altar in the center of the city, and there the slain but living lamb
would preside. But the walls of St Pieter’s would have to be expanded,
stretched out beyond the ring road. Because there is no special place set aside
for worship, the whole city is the Temple of God. You can see the cooks from
Alma dropping their serving spoons and falling on their knees in adoration. You
can see the professors opening their mouths in awe before the Lamb, and
students, no matter what subject they study, finding the fullness of truth and
wisdom in this worship!
There is no disruptive repair work, since everything is
already perfect. There is no need for police, because there is no crime. And
every room is sound proof, so we can get sleep through the students revelling
at night. Saint Lucy is there, with her eyes back in their sockets. And John
the Baptist, too, with his head re-attached. And children who suffered polio,
they are jumping and running through the streets. The depressed and the anxious
join the angels as they sing for joy for all eternity.
This liturgy is here, it happens here, around this altar, as
the heavenly liturgy joins to earth. We adore the Lamb, in communion with all
the saints.
