Second of a seven-part series
ARE you striving for holiness and heaven?
Most people, including Catholics, are not. In a 2017 survey done in 23 countries by the Ipsos global marketing firm, just 19 percent of 18,829 adult respondents believed in heaven and hell, although half expected life after death.
A full 23 percent saw an afterlife “not specifically in a heaven or hell.” For Christians pondering the second of Jesus’ Seven Last Words on the Cross, those statistics match what the two robbers crucified with him believed. The one traditionally called Hestas taunted Jesus to show his power by saving all of them from death, not after.
The other half of the thieving pair, named Dimas by the early Church, rebuked Hestas and declared not just Jesus’ innocence, but his kingship beyond their impending end: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Our Lord then promised: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Thus, Dimas became the first saint declared by the Church, indeed by Christ himself. It was also the first plenary indulgence, removing all temporal punishment for sin after the sinner acknowledged guilt, showed mercy toward Jesus himself and sought his mercy.
Of course, sainthood matters only if we seek eternity with God, and that’s simply not a hot item for billions of people today. Most parents, for instance, say education, comfort, health and wealth are the greatest gifts they can give their offspring — although all those earthly bounties vanish at death. What about teaching children to seek the eternity with God?
Heaven here and now
That afterlife imperative imbues the March 1 Mass verses for the Second Sunday of Lent. In the first reading from the Book of Genesis (Gen 12:1–4), God told Abram, later called Abraham: “All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you.” That promise found fulfillment millennia later in Abraham’s descendant Jesus, gifting all humanity with eternal life after death through repentance for sin and faith in Christ and his Gospel.
Echoing that sanctifying pledge is the second Mass reading from Saint Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy (2 Tim 1:8–10). The apostle wrote:
“Beloved: Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God. He saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works, but according to his own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began, but now made manifest through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus, who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
The Epistle calls us to holiness here and now, not by our own flawed striving, but with God’s will and grace from His divine Son and Second Person. Jesus brought us not just life immortal after death, but his divine life and holiness even now when he promised to be with us “until the end of the age” and send his Spirit to us.
Showing what holy life is, the Mass Gospel passage from Saint Matthew (Mt 17:1–9) recounts the Transfiguration of Jesus, the astounding spectacle of his godly glory, with the greatest prophets Moses and Elijah, representing, respectively, God’s moral law and His prophetic word, paying homage to Christ as the fulfillment of both divine commandment and divine covenant.
And just to be crystal clear what the Transfiguration is and is not, two things happened. First, when the Apostle Peter, thinking Jesus was set to fulfill Israel’s hope of return to earthly power, proposed to pitch tents for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, God the Father Himself broke into the mountaintop epiphany, commanding: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
Nope, Christ was never about lording it over the earth like countless potentates across centuries, including Israel’s King David, whose reign was thought to be what the Messiah would restore. Jesus refused that very temptation of earthly rule in the third temptation in the desert recounted in the Feb. 22 Mass Gospel reading. Rather, we are admonished to listen to him, to heed the spoken word from the Eternal Word, bearing the Spirit of salvation.
And when the Apostles Peter, James and John shuddered in fear when the Father spoke, “Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Rise, and do not be afraid.’” God gives peace, provision and protection amid our creaturely fears, as the Responsorial Psalm 33 (Ps 33:4–5, 18–20, 22) extols.
Indeed, the Transfiguration affirms Christ’s eventual triumph against the seemingly invincible debacle of death. Not only did Jesus speak of “the Son of Man ... raised from the dead.” His very crucifixion would be his crowning as everlasting king dethroning sin and Satan ruling our world, as Dimas’ plea unwittingly mouthed.
Not just bread and breath
Ready to switch to something sensational? In our worldly world, things spiritual get ignored, even though the everlasting afterlife they point to cannot possibly matter less than the decades we live on earth.
Those setting aside gems of heaven for the fool’s gold of earth may ponder the first of three desert temptations recounted last Sunday: the devil urging Jesus, famished after 40 days of fasting, to turn stones into bread.
That’s inviting enough, but surely immensely more tempting than miraculous bread to break the 40-day fast is breaking free of nails and tormentors on Calvary, as Hestas harangued Jesus to do. Staying alive and slaying adversaries certainly wield much greater sway than satisfying hunger.
Against all earthly imperatives, however, Jesus heeded heaven’s call to holiness: “Man does not live by bread alone” — or breath, for that matter — “but from every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Most especially the Word we hear and partake of at Mass, the most powerful prayer and path for holiness. Indeed, it begins heaven on earth lasting beyond death to eternity.
But what if you don’t seek and serve the Holy? You don’t want to meet the alternative.
Seek first the Kingdom of God. Amen.
