A good friend of mine always says that our number one job in life is to get to Heaven. It is a very simple way to define what God has prepared for us. But how do we do this?
We often hear that to get to Heaven we have to follow the commandments, follow church teachings, live the sacraments, feed the poor, etc… but is this enough?
The rich man in the Bible had the same question for Jesus. After hearing the answer, he went away sad because Jesus told him to give everything he owned to the poor and follow Him (Luke 18:22).Immediately after, Jesus told the disciples that it was easier for a “camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God”(Luke 18:25). WHAT? A discussion erupted…Then who? Who can be saved? Jesus answered, “what is impossible for human beings is possible for God.”
Our job is not to get “ourselves” to Heaven, that would be impossible. It would be like getting inside a bucket and lifting ourselves up by pulling the handle.
To follow the commandments, or do works of mercy is not enough…it is necessary but not enough. We need to follow Jesus. And, moreover, we need to surrender our complete being to Jesus. In order to make such submission, prayer has to be the constant in our lives.
With prayer anything is possible, because we are allowing God into our hearts and we are able to discover God’s will for us. Through prayer, we allow Him to govern our lives, we recognize Him as our Creator, as our God, our Lord. Constant prayer makes the Holy Spirit the conductor of our lives.
To get to heaven, our own “self” must disappear to give way to Jesus. St Paul says: “it is not I that lives, but Christ that lives in me” (Gal 2:20) and when this happens, our hearts crumble in His awesome presence. Then an ardent desire to be with Him in eternity starts burning in our hearts and getting to heaven becomes our number one job and constant goal.
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