+Desire a Better Homeland, a Heavenly One 19th Sun.C-2025
Our readings today give us a clear focus for our lives, a focus that can be easily lost in our busy world. As the letter to the Hebrews reminds us, we are “strangers and aliens on earth,” seeking our true homeland. We are in search of our true homeland, a heavenly one. As Jesus tells us, we are in search of “an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy.”
Our liturgy today would have us to be mindful of how this life is preparing us for something far greater, for an eternal one. There, we are to be satisfied in our deepest longings, attain that perfect joy and freedom for which we have been made as children of God. We have been created in God’s image and likeness so as to share in God’s very own divine life. As St Paul reminds us in his second letter to the Corinthians, God is revealing to us “what the eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1Cor. 2:9)
We have all had moments we looked forward to with longing and expectation. It may have been our entry into monastic life or when we have made solemn vows or ordained to the priesthood. It may have been when we first received Holy Communion, when we would meet the partner we would decide to marry. It may have been when our first child was born, when we found the job that enabled us to support our families, or when we knew it was time to retire though I was once warned the monks never retire. We have all had life-changing moments and Jesus is wanting us to focus on the most important of them all. It is when this mortal life comes to a close so that we may enter our eternal dwelling, our inexhaustible treasure in heaven.
Just as happened when we made important changes in our lives, Jesus would have us to never lose sight of what will last forever. Our loins are to be girded, our lamps lit as we await our master’s return from a wedding so that we can open to him immediately when he comes and knocks. If our master finds us vigilant at his arrival, we will be truly blessed. Jesus then says something that I find to be mind blowing: “Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.” What kind of Master is this, that on arriving back from a wedding and finding his servants vigilant and waiting for him, will gird himself and wait on them? Our Lord Jesus is King of the universe and so much does he appreciate watchful servants that he then becomes one of them, gathers them around a table and feasts with them.
Is this what is happening right here at the altar as we celebrate this Eucharist? Our Lord Jesus, risen from the dead, has taken his seat at our heavenly Father’s side in his everlasting reign. Or as the monks sing at Vigils each Sunday morning in the Te Deum, Christ is “now enthroned at God’s right hand, in the Father’s glory.” As we gather here, come together around this altar table, Christ girds himself and proceeds to wait on us, giving us his very own Body and Blood to strengthen our spiritual lives. Let us be ever grateful for this wonderous gift and be assured of his final coming in glory.
Wis 18:6-9; Heb 11:1-2; 8-19; Luke 12:32-48