What happens
to us when we die? I remember thinking in the last parish that
it was amazing the number of people I had known who had died over the
four years I was there and that was just in one parish alone.
Where are they now? Are they anywhere? We usually say
they are in heaven and hopefully that is true. That is what God
has created us for. I know that today most people are probably
very sceptical about the idea of hell. That seems to be a
medieval idea that is dead and gone. However, the reality is
that if heaven is real and if we have free will, which we do, then it
must also be possible to lose what God wants us to reach. God
has created us for life with him, which we call heaven. I guess
you could say it is the greatest happiness we could imagine,
something wonderful beyond our wildest dreams. Every so often
God allows a saint or mystic to experience something of what awaits
us, no doubt to reassure us that it is real. Think of someone
like Padre Pio (St. Pius of Pietrelcina), or indeed different places where Our Lady has
appeared.
If being with
God means light, happiness, joy, love, no suffering, no injustice and
being with the people we love, then the opposite of that is darkness,
isolation, pain, loneliness, etc. Since we have free will it
means that we can lose what God wants us to reach. I think it’s
important not to forget that. God offers us something wonderful
but we have the freedom to accept or reject it.
The
next thing that comes to most people’s minds is the fear of not
being good enough, or perhaps the fear of what we have done wrong.
I remember a priest friend of mine who died a few years ago.
When he was dying he kept saying ‘I’ll never get into heaven.
I’m not good enough.’ I was sorry for him and he was a holy
man, but it seems to be a natural fear that many of us have.
I’ve heard so many people express this fear.
Then we come
to the parable of the prodigal son which we have today. I think
it is one of the most wonderful stories in the Bible for several
reasons. What it says more than anything is that God does not
act the way we do. In spite of the way we can behave the Father
in heaven has compassion for us in a way that we do not understand
because we never experience that kind of compassion from other human
beings. What it says more than anything is that God doesn’t
care how badly we mess things up or whether we are the model child.
The only thing God is interested in is that we reach the happiness
that He has created us for. And God will do everything
possible—apart from forcing us—to make sure we reach this
happiness which we call heaven. However, because God completely
respects the freedom He has given us He will never force us.
The death and resurrection of Jesus is all about making sure that our
sins can be forgiven and that we can reach this happiness that God
wants for us. That’s also what the mass is.
In this story
of the Prodigal son, the younger son was a disaster, but it says that
‘while he was still a long way off, the father saw him and was
moved with pity.’ The older son appeared to be the loyal
child who ‘turned out fine.’ Yet he was seething with
resentment, but the father also showed him compassion.
God is not
interested in how good or bad, successful or unsuccessful we are,
rather that we will keep coming back to him. If we remain open
to him, we have nothing to worry about. Think of the younger
son, the one who basically said he wanted nothing more to do with his
father or his family and took off. I’m sure there are many of
you worrying about children who have said they want nothing more to
do with the Church or religion. Well remember this parable.
The Lord still loves them just as much as any of us and God will go
on reaching out to them until the end of their lives, perhaps through
ways that we never see or even think of. But that is where we
also have a duty to pray for them. That’s what the first
reading is about. Moses intercedes for the people and God has
mercy on them.
To sum up:
God has created us to experience the fullness of life and to reach a
happiness that is more than our wildest dreams could imagine.
God will do everything possible apart from forcing us, to make sure
we and our loved ones get there. So let us have great
confidence in this and never be afraid of our mistakes or of how our
lives have turned out. All that matters is that we try and stay
open to God. The rest is in God’s mercy.
‘While
he was still a long way off, the Father saw him and took pity on
him.’
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