Ready for the end, ready for the beginning
As the Church nears the end of another liturgical year — there are only two more Sundays before Advent begins — the readings at Mass take on an apocalyptic character. We begin thinking about the end; our Lord tells us to be watchful, to stand ready, and to change our ways. November, with the Masses for the dead and Remembrance events calling to mind those who died in war and conflict, can make us think a lot about what we miss — about those we miss. Such things can make us think about the end times in a more serious way than we usually might. But, of course, in the Christian life the end is just the beginning. If we are ready for one we must be ready for the other.
In all those apocalyptic readings there is a sense of the “now” and the “not yet” in terms of the end times. This is true also of heaven. We are all acutely aware of the ways in which we are not in heaven at the moment, but it is also true that heaven is right here with us, egging us on to glory.
In a letter to one of his friends, a great French abbot who died in 1937, Dom Paul Delatte, wrote:
I don’t think that there is a single [suffering] that submerged in him, does not turn into joy. He is faithful. We are his; he is ours. Our eternity has begun. On the surface it appears that the years change, that they succeed one another; but we are already carrying our portion of eternity in the treasury of of our faith and our charity… We are travelling toward eternal love. A Dieu (to God).
Letter to Emilie Butruille, 1898
It is the sort of thing one can only write with the most profound and saintliest of hearts — totally trusting and full of faith. But he is on to something: we carry our portion of eternity in our faith and in our charity. If we want to know how to respond to the changing times, painful memories, the fear of difficulties ahead, we must give ourselves over more to acts of faith, live in faith, and look at things through the eyes of faith to understand them from the point of view of heaven. We must give ourselves over in charity to others more and more, strive to see the good in them, try to do little acts of love for others, and pray hard for those in our life. These are heaven’s actions, and the more we do those, the closer we are to bringing heaven about in our life now. Dress for the job you want, not the job you have (so the saying goes) and the same is true of our life. Live for heaven now and we will be well suited to it when our turn comes.
It is not, however, just about getting ready for the future, but being happy now. “We are his; he is ours,” Dom Delatte wrote, and on account of this fact, “I don’t think that there is a single [suffering] that submerged in him, does not turn into joy.” What we have the assurance of is the greatest and most lasting friendship of all time. He is ours. The more we submerge ourselves in him, the more our burdens become light and with that lightness comes the joy of knowing he is carrying them with us. Such a new start begins with the simplest and smallest of acts, and it can begin today.