Eyes Set on Heaven | 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time | Sunday Reflection

We have the gift in Ordinary Time of focusing on the teachings of Jesus and having the opportunity to really dive into and take in all of what He wants to teach us. As we come to the end of our liturgical year and the conclusion of the season of Ordinary Time, we come to see the ultimate direction of Jesus’s teaching. Why does He teach what He teaches?

One of the core characteristics of Jesus’s teaching is that He is teaching us so that we live not merely for this world, but that we live for the world to come - that we live for heaven. That is what makes the Christian life of discipleship different from anything else. Jesus is not some life coach or guru or self-help expert or anything of the sort. What Jesus offers is not a program to live a pleasant life here on this earth. Instead, Jesus offers us an invitation to follow Him all the way to heaven. Yes, following Him does involve some aspects of living well in this life, and He certainly gives us the help to do so, but the ultimate direction of our lives will not be in an earthly sense of fulfillment or accomplishment. Rather, the ultimate direction of our lives will be in something that we cannot see, but that Jesus has promised for us.

Both our first reading and our Gospel reading today allude to the fact that the things of this earth will fade away. They are only temporary. The dream job will eventually come to an end. The luxury house or car will eventually decay. The great accomplishment will be lost to time. While we can enjoy all of these things, they remain temporary elements of our life. If we stake our entire happiness on acquiring these things, then we might be happy for a time, but when the thing is gone, so too will our happiness. Jesus wants us to think differently and to see where we can better place our happiness.

We inherently know that we want to be happy. It is the entire motivation for anything that we do. Even if there are intermediary goals, the ultimate goal behind any action is to be happy. I go to school to get a job so that I can earn money in order to have the security of living, all of this so that eventually I can be happy. This is all good and true. Jesus wants to draw our attention to something even greater. Jesus shows us that this desire for happiness can and will be fulfilled, but not in a merely temporary way. We can find an eternal and everlasting happiness, which can never be taken away, because the thing that will make us happy is eternal and everlasting - God Himself. When we set our eyes on heaven, we are setting our eyes on eternal happiness because we will be in union with the one who is the source of all happiness itself. God has made us in His image. This means that the ultimate fulfillment of our heart will only come in union with Him. So, that desire for happiness that we have? God wants to fulfill it and give us not just a fleeting happiness, but true joy - a pervasive and abiding sense of well-being that will be eternal because God is eternal.

In order to live in eternal happiness with God, we must allow Him to guide us. God is the author of our hearts and He knows best what will bring us happiness on this earth that He created and how these things will lead us to that eternal happiness with Him in heaven. This means that we must say “yes” to some things and “no” to others. If we say “yes” to God, then we will find true and lasting happiness. This means that following God’s commandments and his invitation to faithful discipleship rooted in the Church will actually make us happy. Saying “yes” to God also means saying “no” to sin. Sin might give us a very fleeting sense of pleasure, but it can never bring us true happiness because it is not what our hearts are made for. By saying “no” to sin, it actually makes me free to say “yes” to God and experience His joy.

Jesus is upfront when He says that following Him and living for heaven is not going to be popular. Oftentimes it means going against the crowd and doing things that are different. It means making Sunday about God instead of football. It means making prayer my top priority instead of efficiency. It means not doing what everyone else is doing just because it is the trend. There will certainly be those who oppose this kind of life of discipleship. But, Jesus also assures us that our lives will be secured by perseverance. When we stay the course, the true course, we know that the course leads us to true happiness and joy.

In an early text, simply known as the Letter to Diognetus, the author mentions how Christians live differently. He says, “there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through…They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven.” This has been the characteristic of Christian life since the very beginning. It looks different. We live for something different. We live for Jesus Christ, who is the source of all goodness and the very desire of our hearts. This week, Jesus invites us to not be afraid to live differently. Perhaps as people ask us what we did this weekend, we can respond with the fact that we went to Mass and maybe even share some of what stood out from the homily or some other grace that God has offered this week. This will all help us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and on heaven.