It would be better all around if there were more evidence about the nearness of heaven, and who is in it. Saint You? Saint Me? It would be better all around if we were the evidence.

The barriers to Heaven in 21st century America aren’t on the outside, but on the inside. Jesus is tapping at the window, telling us not that the “times of refreshment” (3:19) are on the way, but that they have arrived, and the proof is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

The ways in (to heaven) are the witnesses who first told the story of salvation. Believing the story, and being a character in the story, therefore, is the way in. And seeing such people is what will persuade the nations to believe the story and come in, too.

We flatter ourselves sometimes, imagining that our pains, struggles and sorrows are evidence that we are dealing with the “real world,” while religious people are indulging childish fantasies about angels and friends in heaven.

Well, here is what we can know: Scripture, Prayer, and Marriage (and many others) are signs in the Christian world. That means they contain what they signify, and since they are signs of heaven, that means they all contain bits of heaven. We don’t know how the Bible is in heaven, but we can know that heaven is in the Bible, and in Prayer, and in Marriage, and in many other things, especially the Mass.

All the people who have been faithful for a really long time started receiving heaven a really long time ago. They have been receiving the very life of Christ, perhaps daily, for decades. They have spent all those years in Jesus’ friendship, and been transformed by that experience.

When arguments disappear, however, that isn’t always the end of the world. When people see that there are no arguments that hold up against the truth claims of the Gospel, that can be pretty persuasive, too – even in the presence of name-calling and threats.

That’s why the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and the Ascension of Jesus are so vitally important. They allow us to have true communion with God because God Himself took on our flesh, and united himself to every one of our human experiences – from conception, to birth, to life, to suffering and death – and then He took that same human flesh to heaven, assuring us, with the only kind of authority we can truly believe, we have a place there with Him. Someone as human as we are

29 October 2025  Luke 13:22-30 “Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” Luke 13:24   The New Testament speaks often about Jesus as a “Way,” a “Gate,” or a “Door.” “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:14). “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). “Strive to enter through the narrow door.

The devil and the tyrants of the earth, of course, are thrilled for Jesus to be just a “great moral teacher” whose demands we can meet by our good behavior. That sort of Jesus is no danger to hell because he doesn’t exist, never did.

The Bible’s promise is that all those who continue to ask questions will receive answers. Some already have. Some are still asking, and have not received answers yet, but if they keep asking they will. No one who fails to ask, or who stops asking, will receive answers.

The difference between the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46) is not the sheep were virtuous, and the goats were villains, but that the sheep paid attention to where Jesus was, and the goats didn’t. The difference between the wise and foolish maidens was not that the foolish maidens didn’t know about the bridegroom, but that they came prepared only for the short game, not the long game.

Having heaven as our aim means submitting everything to it now. It means digging deep into scripture daily to learn more about God’s presence, power and will. It means the steady labor of turning as much of ourselves as we have toward as much of God as we understand, which is what the Bible means by “pray without ceasing”.

We were never meant to keep the words and insights of the Bible to ourselves. In fact, Jesus said that keeping those insights to ourselves amounts to denying Him, and denying Him is a ticket to hell.

You don’t have to be a villain to wind up in hell. You only have to miss the point. The point is that this world is not “about” this world, and your life is not about you. It is all about heaven. It is all about Jesus.

The story of God has so formed the hours of the day, the days of the week and the weeks of the year, has so formed how to think and what to think, that all of life is a turning toward God and away from self, a turning toward God that perfects the self because the self abides, hidden in the inner life of God.

Separate what must never be separated, and chaos follows.

We never hate the perfect moments, but only the gaps between them.

Jesus put a child in their midst and said, “Make sure this one has a name; that will be the sign of your distinction"

Jesus didn’t do what they wanted. That’s how the crowds hated Him. They wanted the food and the healing, but they didn’t want God.