The older I get, the more I appreciate the importance of
the great Truths I am still learning about life. Sometimes I wonder how I could have gone
through so much of my life unaware of the significance of these Truths. As a child, educated in Catholic schools, I
learned the basics of faith and continued the rubrics of my faith throughout
adulthood, thinking all the while that it was enough to believe in God, follow
the Ten Commandments most of the time, beg forgiveness for my sins on occasion,
and devote an hour or so each week to devotion.
But for the most part, my life has been consumed by the busy-ness of
life. Earning a living, raising a
family, maintaining homes, trying to find a little time to relax, time seems to
have flown by.
Now that I’ve been retired 5 years, I’ve begun to
understand that the Truths I’ve accepted on faith are far more important than I
had imagined. I am beginning to realize
that God’s laws and the guidance of my Church are not restrictions on my
freedom, nor do they constrain my selfish appetites. Instead, they are the keys to peace of mind,
and the gateway to true freedom, freedom from obsessions that, if unchecked,
lead to anxiety, disappointment, and unhappiness. Having concerned myself for so many years
with the pursuit of happiness, I thought that success in this life would ensure
that my wife and family would enjoy the fruits of our combined labor. But as I look back, the happiest, most joyful
moments in life were not the result of success, but rather the shared
experiences of intimacy with those I love most in this life: my wife, our
children, grandchildren, and extended family.
Indeed, moments of love and relationship are the greatest source of joy,
far surpassing any other temporal pleasures.
I am just now beginning to understand that in those moments of
transcendent joy, I was participating in, and enjoying the Kingdom of God. In those
moments, nothing else compared to the love I was experiencing, and nothing else
mattered.
In Sunday’s scripture readings, God commissions Amos to
become a prophet and the people do not want to hear what he as to say because
they are otherwise occupied. Jesus sends
the Apostles out to spread the good news that “the kingdom of God is at hand.” Those who accepted the message received
healing and peace, while others rejected it, perhaps because they were too busy
with the activities of daily life. No
one can possibly know what constitutes the Kingdom
of God in its fullness, but God has revealed that “it is at hand,” and that
it is a Kingdom of Love, mercy, and forgiveness. When Jesus proclaimed the beatitudes, He was
describing that kingdom where peace, love, and mercy prevail.
This is not, as so many skeptics claim, ‘pie in the sky.’ I am just now coming to realize that we are
surrounded by the kingdom of God, by His Love and Mercy, if only we open our
eyes and ears and hearts to the Truth God has revealed. That Truth is summed up by the twofold
command of loving God above all else, and loving others as we love ourselves. Jesus is the perfect example of this love, in
that He obeyed His Father explicitly, and loves all of us sacrificially, even
to the point of death. In doing so He
wrought our salvation. Embracing Him and
His loving sacrifice opens us up to His saving grace, His Presence in our
lives, and in effect we have the opportunity to enter into the Kingdom of God,
right here, right now. His is a kingdom
unbounded by spacetime, meaning it is not a specific or distant place nor in a
separate time. The kingdom of God encompasses all space and all time. The fact that we cannot perceive it in the
here and now, makes no difference to its existence. As Jesus Himself said, many ‘have eyes but do
not see, ears, but do not hear’. We are
too often preoccupied by our selfish pursuits to see what is right before us
and around us all the time: the Love of
God.
What got me thinking about all this, is that my mother is
nearing the end of her life. She’s 91
years old and in failing health, getting weaker by the day, literally fading
away. It is hard to witness, but at the
same time inspirational, because of her strong faith and courage in the face of
death. She has long been a powerful
witness to the Presence of God, not only in how gracefully she has accepted her
gradual descent into frailty, but in her unfailing commitment to the Holy
Spirit. For as long as I can remember,
she has told me that the Holy Spirit gave her the strength to raise eight children,
to care for Dad during his long bout with Alzheimer’s disease, and more
recently with her many physical infirmities.
Having retained all her mental and spiritual faculties,
mom is fully aware of her declining health, but seldom complains about the many
indignities she has endured, as the result of illness, accidents, and the
ravages of old age. She has kept her
sense of humor, her grace, and her dignity, not by dint of personal effort she
says, but because of the Presence of the Holy Spirit in her life. Until recently, she has attended daily mass
and Communion. Now she can only watch on
closed circuit TV. She prays the rosary,
usually twice a day, not for herself, but for her children, grandchildren,
great grandchildren, and one great-great grandson. Until just a few weeks ago, she prepared over
100 birthday and anniversary cards every year, wanting her progeny to know they
were loved and prayed for continuously.
The great Truth I’ve learned from mom’s life, is that
loving God is the source of true peace and happiness. If there’s one word that mom would use to
describe her attitude, even now, it is “grateful.” She has told me over and over again, “how
lucky” she has been to be so loved, and to have such a wonderful family. She is living in the love of God, here, now,
in the midst of her daily struggles with oxygen, weakness, and illness. Despite her failing eyesight and hearing, she
“sees and hears” the Truth of God’s love, present throughout her life, and
especially now in the twilight of her earthly life. Her greatest joy is knowing that soon she
will leave all her infirmities behind when she is released from the constraints
of spacetime to enjoy the fullness of the Kingdom of God.
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