Today, as we come closer and closer to the end of the year, we think, naturally, of the end of times, the end of our times.
We hope and assume we will all be with our God in eternal peace and happiness.
And each reading today describes that reality and how we arrive at that reality by the living of our lives.
The Book of Revelation gives a kind of snapshot of heaven, with the angels and all the saints standing around the throne of God.
What a heavenly site! The white baptismal robes identify us in our saintliness, for those white robes have been, “made white in the blood of the Lamb.”
The source of all holiness or saintliness clearly comes from the Christ who has graced us and blessed us in faith.
Even as it leaves us a “little in the dark,” that is, with imperfect and incomplete knowledge, but at the same time with deep and fulfilling hope, that we shall, “be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
Now that is saintliness — to be with God and be able to look at and see him as he is, to share in God’s glory for all eternity, and to be blessed forever!
+Matthew, in his famous Beatitudes, gives us the pathway to sainthood and to holiness.
Jesus looked at the crowd and reflected back to them the lives they could live in the lives they were living.
He spoke of poverty of spirit, and mourning and comfort, and meekness and inheritance. He spoke of righteousness and mercy and cleanness of heart and making peace.
And he spoke of struggles, like persecution and suffering insults.
In other words, Jesus talked about living a life with all that comes with it.
That stuff is the stuff of making holiness; somehow, God can take all of that stuff and touch and bless us in our living it.
Longing, seeking, and living, God grants us a holiness and saintliness, as we hear clearly the voice of God saying to us, “Come to me! Come to me!”
Father Perry Dean Leiker is the 13th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com.
