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I am jealous of the innocent faith of my friends. I wish I could just believe that if I do things in a certain way, in a certain order, then my salvation could be guaranteed. I've always seen the entry into heaven as a friendly one: Jesus or God or St Peter will stand there and say with exasperation "Well, do you want to come in or not?!" Because I still stand there, even then wondering if I am good enough to get in. ow

I can't dismiss all my reservations with, "I went to Mass everyday, I helped out at church, I proclaimed the word, I held the hands of the sick, I cleaned the dirty, I fed the poor, I gave them my cloak, I listened, I was just there for everyone you asked me to see. I loved the ones you told me to love. So I should get it, right?"

But the hardest thing I had to do, was one of the first things, and I didn't do it. I couldn't love myself. I could still see and feel all my mistakes, my sins against God and neighbor and self. I knew my heart was not perfect, I kn...

And I suddenly hear a knock at the door to my bedroom...littlest grandson, Jordan, is there.
"Hi, Na na!" he says distinctly.
"You want to crawl in bed with Nana?"
"Yes," with an emphasis on the "s."
I give him a pillow and he covers himself up. I put my hand on his tummy and he grabs it.

I think that's how you get into heaven.

Last Sunday's reading was about the 'narrow gate.' I don't recall what Fr. Kelly spoke about it a month or so ago, but I remember what I thought of when he said it. I thought about the camel passing through the eye of a needle. I thought about what that meant in Jesus' time.

A camel came through a narrow gate to get into the city. It was a beast of burden. It carried many things for its travelers. All their stuff. To get into the city, all that stuff had to be taken off the camel's back.

To get into heaven, we've got to discard all the stuff, all the crap (I'm thinking here George Carlin's "A Place for my Stuff" routine---he says we always think: Your stuff is crap and my crap is stuff," only he used a stronger expletive. I'm trying to be polite without being too vulgar.

The point is that we can see all the garbage other people are carrying but we cannot see our own. Yet all of us cannot get into heaven without letting all of it, and I do mean ALL of it go. Every single attachment. Every one. Even the love between mother and son, or grandmother and grandson.

We hear Jesus harshly proclaim, when he hears the woman, "Blessed be the mother who raised you!" "Blessed more is the one who is fed by the Word of God." and later "Who is my mother?" Jesus loves completely and fully, yet understands detachment. He knows what John of the Cross learned after much suffering: to have everything one must desire nothing. Not my will but Yours Almighty Father.

The narrow gate sounds harsh and cruel. God made us creatures that need to connect to things and each other and yet He did not. The curse for Adam was the desire of possessions, he must til the land, and work FOR HIS FOOD. The harder he works, the more food and things he will acquire. The woman suffers for her husband and her children. She suffers in her relationship...there is a price always for love...and often what we think is love is not really love at all. It is the desire to possess someone or something. That looks like love, but it is not love. Real love is always engaged, but never attached. It can't leave you because it is not a person, place or thing. Real love is not baggage we carry around. It is not a possession. It is a way of being...

So I guess we take love through the narrow gate. But we can't take anything else.
Imagine a place where only love exists. Imagine what is might be like to feel 'in love' all the time and yet never compare it to another, never desire another, never feel abandoned by another, and whatever your personal fear might be...to have the fear completely gone from your spirit...For fear casts out love as quickly as love casts out fear.

Maybe that's why it is so easy to love our grandchildren. They are ours to love, but they have parents of their own. Our children carry the burden of that kind of love, they are closer, more attached, more responsible to these beautiful little beings of light. We as grandparents, get to love them unconditionally and yet, they are not really ours...and so it is so much easier to love.

As simple as that. Now if I could just do that with all the parts of my life. So that when the time comes, and it will probably be sooner than later, and Jesus asks me at the Gate of Heaven, "Well, do you want to come in or not?" I can just smile at Him a great big hug, and walk on through.


Love, Cindy