Visions of Heaven
All of us have different images of heaven in our heads, which help us to imagine what the glorious transcendent might be like. Some of us used very earthly parallels which evoke joyful thoughts. “Surrounded by my family and best friends.” “A perfect round of golf.” “Living in Naples only forever.” Others remembered the last days of a passing relative, often a father. “I’m ready to go.” “I sense eternal peace awaits me.” “Give my love to everyone.” A common denominator of all these shared visions was an idea of transcendence beyond our life here on earth, however good it is. Permanence of that life, forever. And perfection of it, as if we could take our happiest moment here on earth and multiply that by 10, or a 100.
Unimaginable: The Historical and Transcendent Event
Even as we struggled to describe heaven, we turned to the first Apostles and their reaction to the Resurrection. The painting by of Jaun de Flandes’ imagining how Mary might have reacted when Jesus first appeared to her (Juan de Flandes, Christ Appearing to His Mother, 1496) seemed both human and divine to us. Mary, the mother of Jesus, the leader of the Apostles, in this painting looks as surprised as any of us might have been to see Jesus, brutally crucified just three days earlier, suddenly appear to her, alive. Transcendent. To “help my unbelief” (Mk 9:24), he shows her his wounds. And then her disbelief is transformed to unrelenting joy and, at the same time, pure wonder. The resurrection accounts themselves, passed on to us from different sources and perspectives, focus on different details and experiences of the resurrected Lord. Yet one common denominator is “unimaginable.” Often the apostles, on seeing the resurrected Christ, don’t even recognize him immediately, and then seek “proof.” Yet in the end, everyone of them, except John who lived to tell the tale, died a horrible martyr’s death rather than deny the resurrection. In the end, like John, “[They] saw and believed.” (John 20:8) They came to believe the unimaginable. Can we?
Missing the ‘Big Picture
We spent some time reflecting on Veronese’s masterpiece, The Wedding at Cana. An image by the great Renaissance artist of what the joyful and somewhat chaotic scene of Christ’s first miracle might have been like, even as he uses it to foretell the mystery of the Last Supper and the sacrifice of the Lamb (seen being carved on the balcony directly above Jesus’ head.) At the same time, by inserting the Risen Jesus into a contemporary scene of some of the luminaries of Veronese’s day (the King of France, Suleyman the Magnificent, Titian, and others), Veronese is in some ways giving us an image of the mystery of heaven: all of us, luminaries and common folks alike, enjoying one big eternal party with the Jesus and Mary, somewhere in the heavens. Veronese’s painting, a spectacular 34 feet long by 22 feet high, hangs in the same room as da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Every year, millions of visitors are led by their secular guidebooks and the Louvre’s dozen or so arrow signs pointing to her. Yet, most of them somehow miss Veronese’s vision of heaven hanging directly in front of them as they leave the room. They miss the ‘Big Picture.’ The ‘Big Picture’ is heaven. That’s where we’re trying to get to. Are we seeing that? Or are we too distracted by the signs pointing us to the latest new restaurant opening in Naples. Are we getting the Big Picture?
Preparing: Ready for the Trip
The discussion led into the mission blogs from the streets of New York during Holy Week. Some of them sparked tears among us, particularly the story of the young man who’d survived abortion but spent his childhood being reminded by his father that he should have been dead. And all of them reminded us of the importance of the sacrament of confession in the spiritual life. To get to heaven, we need to be at one with Jesus. All of us are, deep down, but all of us still manage to fall down and start to feel like we’re not at one. That’s why Jesus gave us reconciliation. He knew we needed a chance to “make up”, to let him know we’re sorry for screwing up and that we need his love and mercy. And we get that from Him in this sacrament. Reconciliation is a restorative that gets us back on the fast track. It gets us ready for the trip. Are we using this sacrament as effectively as we could?
Silence leads to prayer. Prayer leads to faith. Faith leads to love. Love leads to service. Service leads to joy. Joy leads to peace.
This paraphrase from Mother Theresa somehow encapsulates the whole evening for me, which was a form of communal prayer that boosted all of us and our faith in the God and our hope in the Resurrection of his only Son. And that brought us to the vision of heaven as perfect love, perfect peace. The tie-in with our various service projects, born out of love, seemed too obvious, and we resolved to get a “build date” on the schedule out in Immokalee to cap off an amazing season of our collective work there. What joyful outings those are. And what peace we all feel afterward. A slice of heaven.
Resolutions:
1. In our morning prayers this month, we will particularly meditate on the joy of the resurrection and when we’ve experienced a slice of this joy here on earth.
2. We will make use this month of the sacrament of reconciliation to experience again the love and mercy of God, firsthand. Another slice of heaven.
3. We’ll review our Lenten program and pick one element that was particularly fruitful on a spiritual level, and will resolve to keep it going in the year ahead.
4. We will get a build date for Immokalee on the schedule for late April (probably April 27).
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