Fifth Sunday of Easter A John 14,1-12

Introduction

Many of you use public transport to get to work. When there are a lot of people at the bus stop, and you see a friend sitting in the vehicle, you will warn him to take your place. Or the children, when they go to the school canteen for lunch and see a friend at the table, shout for him to take their place. It is useful when we are sure that our friend is holding a seat next to us, and we have a place to sit down.
Why am I talking about this? To better understand today’s gospel, in which Jesus tells us: When I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to me, so that you too may be where I am.

Sermon.

The word of Jesus is significant because it clearly says that it will occupy us, its friends, with a place in heaven. However, the apostles did not understand his words well because they had weak faith. They could not settle in their heads that Jesus would leave them and return to the Father. They could not imagine Heavenly Father, nor heaven. However, we cannot be surprised at all because the idea of ​​God and happiness is challenging for us as well. Therefore, let us try to think about these facts together.
We humans can undoubtedly prove the existence of God from creating things with our reason. Everything has its creator, its originator. Whether they are individual beings or objects necessary for life, and since the number of items is infinite, we must find someone who stands outside these things, because they have a beginning but also an end. The being that stands out must be without beginning and without end. That being is God. It was He who created the first piece of matter from which the world came into being; He breathed the soul into man. He arranged the universe to have perfect harmony and order. In order for us imperfect people to be able to imagine God, we give him human qualities to the highest degree. That is why we say that he is infinite, immortal, above all loving, invisible, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc. And with this God, eternal, unlimited, omnipotent, we will live an eternity. Therefore, let us not teach children that God resembles an old grandfather with a long white beard, with long white hair, who lives somewhere “up.” This is a bad idea of ​​God! People associate concepts with the older man, such as incompetence, illness, deafness or blindness, dementia. It is not far from any of us, because we live in it, we move, and we are…
From the time we went to religion, we know that God is in heaven. What is heaven? Catholic dogmatic defines it as the state of rational creatures (angels and humans) who have attained eternal bliss. For, therefore, it is not a place, but a state in which the celestial person sees God immediately by the light of glory, and thus has a share in God’s bliss. It follows from this definition that heaven is a state of immediate vision of God. It is everywhere where the glorified soul sees God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church adds: Or is the ultimate goal and realization of man’s deepest desires, a state of supreme and final happiness. Living in heaven means “being with Christ.” The elect lives “in it,” but they keep or even find their own identity there, their name: Life – is to be with Christ; for where Christ is, there is life, there is a kingdom. Jesus Christ “opened” heaven to us by His death and resurrection. Blessed fully possesses the fruit of redemption brought by Christ; he joins to his heavenly glorification of those who believed in him and endured faithfulness to his will. For he is the blissful companion of all who has become entirely embraced by him. Heaven can also be understood quite well by those who are images of the heavenly world and in whom God dwells and is situated. That is because it is also in use when we live in union with God in sanctifying grace.
How are we feeling at the moment? Let us not shake our heads with the apostles and say: Lord, is it difficult for me? And although understanding God of heaven is difficult for us, we are very grateful to Jesus for going to prepare us for a place with our heavenly Father. The site about which St. Paul commented: Neither the eye saw nor the ear heard, nor come into the human heart, which God has prepared for those who love him.
The old priest remembered his long service and also told this story: I was standing over the bed in which the little girl had just died. Her younger brother held on tightly to my hand. The parents went to the crib, took the tank top, and carried it to a small white coffin. The boy pulled out of my hand and ran after his sister. Big tears streamed down his cheeks. He stopped at the coffin, and I grabbed his hand again. I asked him, “Where do you want to go when you die?” “To heaven,” the boy replied. That’s when I started talking to him about heaven. When I finished, the boy thought for a moment and finally said, “If I obey the Lord God on earth, I will get to heaven!” The boy did not even realize the profound truth he had said.
Let us also look forward to the beautiful heaven in which our Father awaits us, for that is how his Son promised us. May our life on earth become for us a joyful encounter with the invisible God, whom we will see face to face in eternity.