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Somewhere
in the many books and documents I consulted in preparation for the
building of the new chapel I came across the definition of an altar as the
place “from which earth looks up to heaven.” As the interior of the
chapel receives its finishing touches I am pleased to note that the high
space directly above where the altar will be located does indeed draw the
gaze upward. Our
ascending Lord left his disciples looking upward, “gazing into
heaven,” and this beautiful attitude of heart and mind, if not always of
bodily posture, has a permanent significance in the life of the Church.
St. Paul will later instruct the Christians at Colosai, “seek the things
that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your
minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” In
the Te Deum Laudamus, sung at the end of Vigils on Sundays and feast days,
there is the graphic phrase, “You…opened the kingdom of heaven to all
believers.” This is not a truth of interest only in the future at the
time of death, as if the Lord were merely leaving the key under the door
mat. It means rather that believers here on earth are now living under an
opened heaven. One might reverse the sentence and say that the earth is
now opened to the kingdom of heaven. There is commerce again between
heaven and earth, which the Easter Exultet attributes to the moment of
Christ’s resurrection: “O night truly blessed in which heaven and
earth are joined—things human and things divine.” The realities of
heaven are not just for the dead; the earthly Church, too, in her liturgy
and discipleship shares the life of heaven. “You will see heaven opened,
and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
This promise to Nathanael is a vision Christians ought to always keep
before their eyes. To
look up to heaven is not to look away from the earth; it is rather to look
more deeply and to see more clearly the things of the earth. The opened
heaven provides a new light by which the earth may now be seen. When
Christians look to heaven they are not daydreaming. They are not being
distracted from the “real world;” rather with the courageous martyr
St. Stephen they are seeing “the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the
right hand of God.” They are remembering who is the Lord of heaven and
therefore Lord of the earth as well. This explains why it is those
Christians who most resolutely set their minds on the things above who are
the ones most effectively engaged in the crucial struggles of contemporary
life, who oppose the crimes of abortion and euthanasia, stand up for
sexual morality and the traditional family, and stubbornly resist the mind
control of the entertainment industry. And they do this without
bitterness, hatred, or despair. To
look up to heaven is to have, in a phrase I borrow from Fr. Arthur, an
“unconquerable joy.” Joy is usually thought of in emotional terms and
as such is erratic and undependable. If joy is only a feeling it is
certainly one of the insecure earthly treasures, constantly gnawed on by
the moths of anxiety and worry and stolen completely away by the thieves
of suffering or affliction. But joy is not the delicate feeling of
pleasure we get when circumstances happen to be just right. Joy is one of
the treasures and gifts of heaven and as such is solid, durable, powerful.
It is a one of the tools given to Christians, along with constant prayer
and patient endurance, to enable them to confront the circumstances of
earthly life, especially persecution, but life’s other hardships as
well. “Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all
circumstances,” St. Paul exhorts the Thessalonians . Joy is what we
bring to life’s varied circumstances, not what we get from them. To
look up to heaven is to abide in love on earth. The Savior just before his
Paschal departure to the Father bids his disciples to love one another as
he has loved them, and he prays his Father “that the love with which
thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” To love is to live
the life of heaven here on earth. This love is more than its fuzzy, ill
defined popular charicature; it has a real shape and form and gladly
acknowledges the concrete demands of revelation and finds in them a true
guide and test of authenticity. “If you keep my commandments, you will
abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide
in his love.” Yet the love of heaven can be and is also passionate and
emotional. It can freely and deeply “rejoice with those who rejoice,
weep with those who weep.” The joys of earth are fuller and more
complete because their eternal source is known. The sorrows of earth can
be washed with uninhibited and healing tears because they are embraced
with hope. To
look up to heaven is to know the future. Not certainly to tell the future
in the way a fortuneteller purports to do, but rather to know what is the
defining event of the future by which things present and things to come
are to be judged. “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven
will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Christians do
not know what is in the future but they know Who is in the future, and
they are filled with hope and courage as they gaze steadfastly toward
heaven, that is, to the place whence “He will come again to judge the
living and the dead.” I
now anticipate that day, not so far off, when we can gather about the
altar under the roof of the new chapel and experience it as that place
“from which earth looks up to heaven.” The ancient words of the Sursum
Corda at the beginning of the Eucharistic Anaphora will take on fresh and
revitalized meaning: “Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord.” Sincerely, Fr. Richard G. Herbel |
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