Fr. Michael Williams

Eternal life is probably not be seen as something of a priority for many people today. Our consumerist society tries to persuade people that they should ‘eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die’. Everything seems to be focused on the here and now, rather than the hereafter. Satisfaction in this life, with no thought to the next life, is the priority of our present age. This kind of thinking is one of the most serious errors of our modern age.

For Jesus it is the opposite. Today’s gospel began with the phrase, “Jesus raised his eyes to heaven”. In his life on earth Jesus is constantly communicating with the Father in Heaven. The Lord begins his prayer with, “Our Father, who art in Heaven”. Heaven is never far away from Jesus’ vision of sight. This is because Jesus sees the big picture. How could the One who came down from Heaven, and then returned to Heaven, not think about Heaven? It was always in his mindset.

To think about Heaven is to think about eternal life. Jesus “raised his eyes to Heaven” and prays that “eternal life” will be given to those entrusted to Him. This is the greatest gift God can offer to any one. Although, the reason God made us was to share eternal life with him. The Catechism says, “God made me to know Him, love Him and serve Him, and to be happy with Him in this world, and for ever in the next”. Unfortunately, not everyone believes in eternal life these days. Some people say, ‘once you’re dead that’s it’. In some sense people who think like this have lost sight of the dignity of what it is to be human. Pope Benedict said in his inauguration homily, “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary”.

As Heaven and eternal life were always in the mindset of Our Lord, so they should be always in our mindset too. This does not mean that if we “raise our eyes to Heaven”, we neglect God’s work on earth. When Jesus was on the earth He went about doing good to those He met. All the great saints of the Church constantly thought of Heaven, but they never forgot about their poor brothers and sisters. Think of Francis of Assisi or Teresa of Calcutta. It seems that those who raise their eyes to Heaven know how to be loving whilst on earth: “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him”.

As we approach the Feast of Pentecost, we see that the Apostles and the women, “join in continuous prayer [together with] Mary the mother of Jesus”. Their hearts and minds were raised to Heaven. They were following the example of their Master. Raising one’s heart and mind to God will not only lead us to mission in this life, as it did for those first disciples, but it will also lead us to eternal life in the next. This is the goal of our human existence.