Accessing Heaven Right Now

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. // Philippians 3:20

I stood in my friend’s kitchen, hot tears welling up in my eyes. The feast of the Ascension was back, and with it, my sense of bewildered abandonment. Why did Jesus have to leave us here? Why did my husband have to die? Why is there this massive chasm between Heaven and earth?

And my dear, wise friend looked me in the eye and said without a hint of either sympathy or malice, “Are you a citizen of Heaven?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“And do you know that you have access to Heaven now?”

I eyed him skeptically. He asked if I wanted to visit the heavenly city, and then he led me in a beautiful imaginative prayer:

“I see Jesus is standing in front of you, His Sacred Heart open,” he said. “Either He grows very large or you grow very small so that you can climb inside His Heart and be held. As you are cradled in His Heart, you rise up together, through the clouds, up into the Heavenly City. You approach the gates, and you see the golden, shining city. Jesus holds your hand and leads you in. There’s someone He wants you to see.”

At that point my imagination took over, and I wept openly as I saw the sweet face of my late husband, my best friend. He was standing next to a fountain, and as I walked toward him, he reached out for me, and I was caught in his embrace.

Every time we pray the Our Father, we ask God to make His kingdom come on earth, “as it is in Heaven.” As His hands and feet, we are responsible for this. We are responsible for looking beyond the humdrum details of our everyday lives and seeing the supernatural everywhere. In the changing of the seasons, in the complexities of family life, and especially, particularly, in the Mass. When we perceive that mystery, the ultimate reality of what is hidden in plain sight, we are responsible for showing it to those who cannot yet see.

“All the way to Heaven is Heaven,” said Saint Catherine of Siena. “For Jesus said, ‘I am the Way.’” Fix your eyes on Him, immerse yourself in His love, and keep planting one foot in front of the other. Where will you find Heaven today? How will you show it to others?

We are responsible for showing those who cannot yet see. // Elizabeth BlankeClick to tweet

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