On looking to the Next Life

 

This is another blog post that comes from my Lectio Divina. This is once again taken from the Prologue from Ohrid for today's date (14 January) and comes specifically from the Homily. This will have a large portion of paraphrasing of the Homily before finally getting to my thoughts and reflections.

We see and live in the material and transient world, but we look to the spiritual and immortal world. The joy we see in on this earth is often interrupted by tears and sadness, and ends in death, but we look to the uninterrupted joy of the saints and angels in heaven. 

There are sufferings and failures in this world - but awaiting us in the next world is glory and celebration. We should not dwell on the success, glory, and honor of the unrighteous in this life; in the next life we will see their defeat and condemnation for eternity. 

The Church is often humiliated and persecuted, but we await that final victory of the Church over all of her adversaries - both visible and invisible.

Tyrants and abductors often become our rulers and are wealthy, but the saints are often poor, dejected, and forgotten. But in the Kingdom of God which is eternal, sinless, and immortal, the saints will reign without fear of tyrants and abductors.

This world can be depressing if all we do is look at the bad. There is a lot of bad. There are wars with which our leaders pad their wallets, there are politicians who would rather push their views and policies on us than to listen to their constituents, and there are the rich who scheme to get richer through the blood, sweat, and tears of others.

To focus on all of these can seem daunting, and that all hope is lost.

In the Army, I had to take resiliency training - and later became a Resiliency Trainer Assistant. We were taught to every day hunt the good stuff - to find that which we considered good in order to show that our lives were not as bad as they seem.

I can think of nothing better than to realize that this world and all of its troubles are only temporary, and that Christ and His Church shall reign supreme for eternity. Every evil person shall fail, and the Good Shepherd shall be victorious. He has already defeated Death, so I will put my trust in Him in this life while looking towards the next life.

This doesn't mean that we should completely ignore this world, and the evil that resides in it. We are told numerous times to fight evil and injustice, we are called to do missionary work and to help the poor and the suffering. But we should keep our ultimate focus on the coming victory of Christ and the eternal joy in the next world.

That's it. Please let me know your thoughts. Also, I promise that not every Lectio Divina that I put up will be from the Prologue - some of what I write either comes from the daily Bible reading, readings of the saints' lives, the Rule of Saint Benedict, or even more recently added to my daily reading list - the Early Church Fathers. 

And again, Lectio Divina is usually meant only for private thoughts and reflections (at least from my understanding), not really to be shared with the public. Please do not think that I am attempting to teach or preach any kind of theology or dogma. I just have thoughts, and some times I like to share those thoughts with others to get their thoughts and better my understanding. So if you have any thoughts on what I wrote, or you have corrections to make on my thoughts, please let me know.