Every day, we are reminded that death claims the lives of many due to the corona virus. With death, come thoughts of heaven, purgatory and hell. Years ago, I recall reading a reflection by CS Lewis on heaven. He wrote that if we were to go to heaven, we would experience three surprises. First, we would be surprised at the number of people in heaven and shocked to see some people that we never thought would be there. Second, we would be surprised to realize that people we thought we would see are not there. Third, we would be astonished that we are there.
The judgment that Jesus speaks of isn’t between believers and non-believers, or Christians and non-Christians, or churchgoers and non-Church goers. Nor is our verdict dependent on confessing that Jesus is Lord. Everyone’s verdict is contingent on whether one has responded humanely, lovingly and compassionately to the needs of the marginalized, the homeless, the imprisoned, the sick, the poor and the lonely, to those in need of mercy. Simply put, the sheep are people who cared.
There will be many who have been saved by Christ who did not know Him by that name but who reached out to Him by helping others. Thus, there will be many in heaven we never expected to find there. Faith is not solely adherence to a set of beliefs but an active response to serve, seek justice and to advocate for the marginalized.
Lewis’ second theory is that there will be people missing from heaven that we expected to find there. In our American denial of death, we try to ease our grief by canonizing our Loved Ones who have died. No matter who they may be, we judge that they are in heaven after their death. For example, when a loved one dies, children are told that God has taken that person. (Don’t do that–God knows when we will die but God doesn’t decide the manner or hour of our death.) Hopefully our loved ones are all with God in heaven but their presence will be determined not by our wish for them to be there, but by how well they reached out to Christ in others throughout their lives. People may be absent from heaven not for their sins of commission but for their sins of omission. The sin of not caring reflects our failure to love. Jesus is warning us that those who ignore the message of this gospel about reaching out to others in charity will find themselves numbered among the goats.
It is a good thing to pray for the dead. Still, their presence in heaven is in God’s hands, not ours. Our motive for praying for the dead comes from our belief in purgatory, where the last of our self-centeredness is cleansed from us. In the second book of the Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, Dante provides a fascinating thought. Those who are not in heaven have not yet developed a tolerance for God’s immense love. They are not yet ready for the full fire of God’s enormous love. How is this tolerance developed? Only by exposing ourselves to Christ. “But when have we seen you hungry or thirsty, naked, or ill or imprisoned, Lord?” the souls who did not expect to be in heaven will ask. “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
Alas, some have excluded God from their lives to such a degree that they will not be capable of tolerating his love because, being self-centered, they have not developed the slightest place for His love within them. Those in hell sent themselves there. They condemn themselves to hell, not God. To avoid that fate, let us put ourselves in God’s hands, endeavoring to carry out works of mercy.
In his wit, C. S. Lewis says that the third surprise we would have will be seeing that we are there. When we are honest with ourselves, we are mindful of the many times that we have turned away from God. Our sins are very clear to us. What we are not so aware of is the extent of God’s divine mercy. God sees that which we, though his grace, have developed as our life style. This continual grace in our lives pointing us to his presence in others is a great mercy. Mercifully, Christ enables us to replace with love that which we have destroyed with selfishness and sin.
During the past year we have followed the life of Jesus from the prophesies of last Advent, through his birth, mission, death and resurrection. We have prayed over the message of His life as well as His teachings, applying his many lessons to our daily lives. Someday we will find ourselves before Christ the King seated in his glory on the royal throne. How will we feel? As we end this liturgical year we again seek the mercy of His continual grace drawing us out of our self-centeredness into His presence that is found in the needy of his Kingdom.
Christ is our King. May we always be true members of his Kingdom, shedding whatever obstacles we cling to that prevent us from loving others as Christ loves us. As we heard in the psalm moments ago, “Lord, make us turn to you, let us see your face and we shall be saved.”