Photograph detail by GaborfromHungary
Death and Heaven
Sunday, 30 November 2014
In last week’s Daily Meditations, I shared the following; I want to say it again because it’s so important: “Love is where we came from. And love is where we are going. When we live in love, we will not be afraid to die. We have built a bridge between worlds. As Paul says ‘Love does not come to an end’ and ‘Love never fails’ (1 Corinthians 13:8, 13).”
You must die into your one and only life, the life that you must learn to love. It will show itself to be one continuous movement—first learning to love your life and then allowing yourself to fully die into it—and never to die away from it.
Once you practice dying, you find that on the other side is a new empowerment, a new freedom, a new greatness, a new identity in God. Then you are not so afraid of the final handing-over; you can see death as the final gift: “God, I give myself to you one more time. You are not taking away my life. I am giving you mine.”
Once death is joyfully incorporated into life, you are already in heaven, and there is no possibility or fear of hell. That is the Franciscan way. The Gospel is not a fire insurance policy for the next world, but a life assurance policy for this world. Francis, Clare, and many of the mystics somehow came to see through the common disguises of heaven and hell. My hope and desire is that you can know heaven too, and now!
Adapted from Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, p. xxii; and A New Way of Seeing, a New Way of Being: Jesus and Paul, disc 1
(CD, MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence: Falling forever into the deathless depths of God.
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