A teacher was testing the children in her CCD class to see if they understood the concept of getting to Heaven. She asked them, "If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale, and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?"
"NO!" the children answered.
She then asked, "If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into Heaven?"
Again, the answer from the whole class was, "NO!"
So she asked, "Well, then, if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children, and loved my husband, would that get me into Heaven?
Again, they all answered, "NO!"
She said, "Well then, how can I get into Heaven?" A six-year-old boy shouted out, “You have to be dead!”
We have a lot of jokes about Heaven, I suspect because somewhere in our heads is the constant question about what happens after we die. Every religion has to have answers to this ultimate question. Not so much why do we have to die but, what happens after death? Today’s feast is about what happens after death. It is also a key to what is happening in our life.
If you look at Mary's life as recorded in the Gospels there is nothing special about it. It is a life of faith, not vision. It is only Divine Revelation that lets us look at the hidden glory of her life. Revelation tells us that at her death she was assumed body and soul into heaven, the first person to share in the resurrection of Jesus.
Because of Christ's resurrection and Mary's assumption we have hope that our death is a beginning, but also that in our life we can look back from that vantage point and find the infinite in the finite. There is so much more going on in our life than we can see or understand or even imagine. When Mary conceived Jesus in her womb she had a life within her life. Every woman who has conceived must have experienced this—a life within her life. This seems to me to be a model of the Christian life: We have a life within our life. We have the life of God within our life. We have to be attentive to the life we bear, nurture it, and bring forth its fruit. Nothing is as it seems. Death is life, suffering is redemptive, mortality becomes immortality.+
Homily for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Homily for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Homily for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Homily for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Homily for the 15th Week in Ordinary Time
Homily for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Homily for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Homily for the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Homily for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost
Homily for the 7th Sunday of Easter
Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter
Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter
Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter
Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Easter
Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Easter
Homily for Monday in the Octave of Easter
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