The Destination
A guest lecture on heavenly eternity, deification, and organic growth.
In October 2025, I attended Eden Invitation’s Pilgrim Longing retreat – and to begin the first full day of retreat, Dr. Ed Hogan presented a compelling (and theologically dense, but highly accessible!) lecture that I was immediately hoping I might eventually secure permission to transcribe and share more widely. Recently, that possibility became a reality – and so now, with the joint approval of Eden Invitation and Dr. Hogan, I am pleased to share this guest lecture with you today.
I would recommend taking the time to listen to the audio recording of the lecture – embedded above [update: also available on YouTube, if you prefer!] – before returning to explore the text below, which is a transcription of the same (lightly edited for readability, with the assistance of Dr. Hogan) further supplemented with links to many of the sources being mentioned or discussed.
However, as you will also note hearing in Anna Carter’s introduction, this talk was intended – within the original context of the retreat – to be followed by a deliberate period of grand silence for personal prayer and reflection. And having now revisited this lecture, while transcribing and editing it several months later, I believe that recommendation holds strong, even here. Therefore, when you listen to this lecture, I encourage you to be prepared to immediately take these ideas into your own silent prayer (whether that be for a matter of 5-10 minutes, or for an entire Holy Hour). Then return to the text below, as you desire, to re-explore more deeply.
Introduction – by Anna Carter
All right, good morning, good morning. Like I mentioned last night, today we’re going to be spending a little bit of time – if you’ve been on Eden Invitation Retreat before, you might have sensed a little bit of a rhythm, where usually on Friday our focus is a bit more vertical: us and the Lord, where are we at, what’s going on? And then Saturday, our focus is a bit more horizontal: how are we doing this as community, what does this look like in relationship with others? And so today that’s really our focus, right: What is this destination?
And you know, different people are motivated by different things, right? I know for me, I’m actually very future-oriented. I’m very motivated by the future. I love if it’s like, “Oh, there’s this vision, and in the words of Liz Lemon, ‘I want to go to there.’ Yes, let’s do it!” But I also know that for some other people, you see this destination in the future and you’re like, “Oh… wow… that is very far away. And that’s really not resonating with my experience. And so I don’t really know what to do.” And don’t worry, we have something for you today too.
But we all need to know the destination. So part of that is, we’re trying to balance that. So this morning there’s going to be a talk a little bit more on the destination – I’ll introduce that in a second – but then as the day goes on, we’re going to have some time to sit with the Lord in silence. So we’re going to have grand silence on campus, after the talk this morning. We’re going to have full silence on campus for two hours, just to be with the Lord.
So hopefully we’ll be holding both things – the destination, and the gap in between – and processing that gap in between. That’s what we’re going to be about today. But I think it’s so important for us to have a sense… I know, for me, I don’t often think of heaven. I think sometimes that’s hard to think about. “Um, eternity… so I’m never going to take a nap ever again? Like what does it even mean to be conscious for all of eternity?” Once you start thinking about it really hard, it’s like it breaks something in your brain. Or what does it mean to actually have perfect joy? And sometimes I see images of that, and it’s like: “Oh that’s a little off-putting. Nobody really wants to be wearing robes and playing harps, and never going to sleep again.” That just doesn’t seem very appealing, to me at least! I don’t know, maybe some of you are harpists, and if so, please come sign up for TalenTED. That would be great, give us a foretaste of heaven!
But there are things that we know about heaven, right? There are things that we know about what God has intended for us. And part of that is, as I mentioned last night, this perfect union with the Lord… and also a perfect identification – a perfect transformation from glory to glory, as Paul would say. And so we want to talk about that. Because we actually have a lot of really cool good theology about that, in our Church. And so I wanted to give us some of that on this retreat.
And so this morning we’re going to hear from Dr. Ed Hogan. For those of you that don’t know him, Ed was on our Rooted And Free retreat, as part of the team in… 2022? Whatever year that was. And I met Ed through a mutual friend actually… there’s an old friend of mine, who’s a supporter of Eden Invitation, and she heard Ed talk about LGBTQ stuff at a parish and was like, “You guys should connect.” And it’s just been really beautiful over the years to continue to know him, to have meals in his home when I’m in St. Louis. He is the academic dean at Kenrick–Glennon Seminary, which is a seminary down in St. Louis.
And we’ve got to work together, he brought me down and we did a workshop together for all the seminarians in St. Louis... in January? Well it doesn’t really matter what month it was – it happened, it was glorious, it was wonderful.
And so I’m just so excited, because I think Ed is just this fantastic combination… obviously, I gave you a lot of his like intellectual credentials, but I have always been so impressed with his heart, his just deep, deep heart for… really for everybody, but I think really particularly for us here, right? And his pastoral sensitivity just continues to just blow me away. So I’m just so grateful that people are going to have an opportunity to hear from you this morning. And let’s just say a quick little prayer for Ed, before he begins.
Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Good and gracious God, I thank you for my brother Ed. I thank you for the way that you have made him beloved and unrepeatable, with gifts he’s going to share with us this morning. I pray that you would send your Holy Spirit to inspire his words, and also to open our hearts to receive, just the precise message that you have for us, the invitation you have for each person in this room, from his words today. Amen.
The Destination
by Dr. Edward Hogan – October 10, 2025
Well, I’ve always said that I have more to receive from this community, than I have to give to it… but I also always followed that up by saying that I was willing to give all that I have. So, here we go.
Part 1 – Imagining Heaven (In Helpful and Unhelpful Ways)
Paragraph 260 of the Catechism contains the beautiful prayer of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity. But one of the things it says before that, is this: “The ultimate end of the whole divine economy” – everything that God says and does for all of history – “is the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity.” But here are three of my favorite words in the catechism, they follow this: But even now. “But even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity.”
The end of the entire divine economy is that we would enter into the Trinity.
But even now, that’s supposed to begin happening.
And I still can’t forget the question that my 15-year-old student Becca asked me about 20 years ago. She just raised her hand and said, “Dr. Hogan, what is heaven like?” And that was the moment: I needed to speak into that longing, a longing for a helpful image of Heaven.
Well, fast forward to two years ago when a seminarian walked into my office and said, “The concept of eternity causes me anxiety. How should I write my human formation goals?”
So, on one level, he wanted me to help him get rid of his anxiety, and I said, “I don’t know, what is your concept of eternity?” And it was something like what Anna was talking about in her introduction. And I said: “Yeah, dude, that’s boring. That would give me anxiety, too… because I wouldn’t want that, and I wouldn’t want to spend my whole life, and give my whole life, to invite people into something that was boring. You should be anxious about that concept.”
What it reminded me of is what Pope Benedict XVI said in Spe Salvi, paragraph 10: “Perhaps many people reject the faith today simply because they do not find the prospect of eternal life attractive. To continue living for ever [—] to live always, without end — this, all things considered, can only be monotonous and ultimately unbearable.” No wonder he was anxious. Because his image of heaven was boring.
First, I tried to help him come up with a new concept of eternity. It didn’t work. So I just fixed him with one of my famous stares, and I said: “Has time ever flown by for you?” And he said: “Oh yeah.” I said: “When did that happen?” And he described it for me, and I said: “Tell me about that.”
And then he started describing it, and I just let him go on and on… he was like a fish, and I was letting him play out the line. And for about three or four minutes, he described this occasion when time had flown by.
And after a while I said: “Now stop. Tell me, as you describe that, what happens to your anxiety about eternity?” And he goes, “Oh. It’s gone. I know how to write my formation goals!” And he ran out of my office.
See, Benedict XVI also said this in Spe Salvi, paragraph 12. What is heaven like? He said: “To imagine ourselves outside the temporality that imprisons us, and in some way to sense that eternity is not an unending succession of days in the calendar, but something more like the supreme moment of satisfaction […] a moment in which time—the before and after—no longer exists.” That’s what he proposes.
And if you could just go read Spe Salvi, and think about the philosophy of time that’s underneath it, your concept of eternity would be transformed. Or maybe you want to read a book like Fr. Wilfrid Stinnisen’s Eternity in the Midst of Time.
Yes, we’re called to heaven – but Pope Benedict invites us to re-imagine heaven: not as an unending succession of days, but more like a supreme moment of satisfaction, in which time disappears.
Have you ever experienced that? What is that like?
There is where you should go for your image of heaven.
So when Becca asked me “what is heaven like”, I knew that for me… my image of heaven is most influenced by this book by Peter Kreeft, I Surf, Therefore I Am – because for me, the moment when I’m body surfing, and I’ve set up the wave, and I’ve gotten into it, and the tube is about to curl over me, and when the tube closes on top of me… then for me, time ceases. There is no before and after. And just for a moment, I taste what eternity might be like, because it’s the supreme moment of satisfaction.
But I knew that wasn’t going to work for Becca, when she asked me what heaven was like – because we were in Nebraska, and it’s about as landlocked as you could get. So I said to her: “Becca, is there anything you love doing?”
And she got a little smile on her face, and just nodded. And I knew she was with me, and I knew from class that if I just concentrated on her, everyone else would follow. I said: “Tell me, what is it that you love to do, where time just flies by, or time stands still?” And she started to describe it.
And I said: “Well here’s the deal, Becca. I want you now to imagine the room we’re in.” And the room we were in was a little bit like this, but it had tremendous, big windows. And I said: “Imagine this room is completely dark. Close your eyes. Can you imagine that?” And she imagined the room completely dark.
And I said: “Now I’m going to bring into this room one candle, and I’m going to place it in the middle of the room. And can you see by that candle?” And she said: “Yes.”
“And can you read by that candle?” And she said: “Yes.”
And I said: “Does that candle give you much warmth?” And she said: “No.”
And I said: “Now that candle – by which you can see and read – that’s your experience, in this thing that you love doing. Now I want you to imagine that we leave the candle lit – and we open up the window shades, and the room is completely flooded by sunlight. Becca, do you need that candle to read anymore?” – “No.”
“Do you need that candle to see anymore?” – “No.”
I said: “The distinction between that candle in this room, and the sunlight, is the relationship between the thing you love doing, and heaven. It’s not any less than the thing you love. And you can begin with the thing you love. But the thing you love is meant to help you see – and whatever heaven is, it has to be more than that. So anything that you ever imagine that’s less than that love: set it aside, because it’s not a good image of heaven.”
So I want to pause here and allow you to imagine heaven based on something you really love. What is something that really draws you? What is a place, for you, that time flies, or time stands still? Go there for the next sixty seconds:
Lord Jesus, this is the people that longs to see your face. Move us beyond our boring images of heaven. Draw us to the places where for us time flies, and the places where for us time stands still. Help us, through our imagination, to long for you more deeply.
Part 2 – Deification: Scriptural and Theological Foundations (aka: I am not making this up!)
All right, that’s the first thing. Here’s the second thing.
Anna asked me to talk about theosis or divinization or deiformity or Christ-likeness. And I just said: “I actually think about that all the time.” Which I do! It’s one of the wonders of my job, I get to just sit and think about it all the time.
Well, I gave you some quotations from the tradition there on your handout, and they come right out of the Catechism, in paragraph 460: “The Word became flesh to make us partakers of the divine nature.” No kidding, I am not making this up, neither is the tradition. Saint Irenaeus: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” Saint Athanasius is probably the most famous quote: “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” He means it. Well that’s all the Eastern tradition, not the Western tradition, right? Oh, here’s Saint Thomas Aquinas: “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.” Thomas believed it, and there’s a very sophisticated version of that argument that he makes – I won’t go into it, but it pertains to questions 12 and 13 of the first part of the Summa.
Well, that’s a high theological concept, but it’s got nothing to do with our prayer life, right? “By the mingling of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled Himself to share in our humanity.” There it is at the heart of the liturgy. And yes, we really mean that. What He is by nature, we become by grace. That, very precisely, is the key to the commonality and the difference between us and Hinduism. What He is by nature, we become by grace.
Now, if you want to read a very good book about that, I recommend Deification and Grace by Daniel Keating. I told you, I thought a lot about this, I teach out of this book. But if you want something a little more in the Eastern tradition, The Wellspring Of Worship by Jean Corbon is based on this – and Corbon backwrote the fourth section of the Catechism. And all he’s talking about is: when the Holy Spirit comes to inhabit us, and we join our energy to the energy of God, what is that like? He describes it.
But enough of the books. To really understand this, what you really need is what I call “the Acts sequence”. And I’m not going to go through the whole thing, but I invite you to study these pairs of passages, and pray with them at some point in your life. Saint Luke has done something fabulous here.
What happens in these? I’ll just describe them very briefly: Acts 2:14-41, that’s Peter’s speech at Pentecost; and Luke 24:13-35, Luke very deliberately keyed Peter’s speech at Pentecost to the road to Emmaus. And in the road to Emmaus, what happens is the disciples don’t understand how the Scriptures are fulfilled in Jesus’ life. So he walks alongside them, and he breaks open the Scriptures for them: “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory? And then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures.” And their hearts were burning within them as he did it.
Before Pentecost, only Jesus understood the Scriptures, and could explain to other people how the Scriptures were fulfilled in him. And when he did it, it pierced them to the heart, and turned them around. That is exactly what happens when the Holy Spirit comes upon Peter at Pentecost: he clicks through Scripture quotes to show how the scriptures are fulfilled in Jesus, and when that’s done, it says, the people were struck to the heart and asked what they should do. And Peter said: Repent, turn around, and be baptized (Acts 2:38). You see, what before only Jesus could do – and he could do it because he was God – now Peter can do, too. And Peter can’t do it because he’s God – he isn’t! – Peter can do it because the Holy Spirit has come upon him. The life of Jesus has become the deepest truth of his own life.
And having seen it in words, Luke follows up with deeds: Acts 3:1-10 and John 9:1-7. Acts 3 is the cure of the cripple… but not quite! Don’t miss the detail: the cure of the man lame from birth. And it’s paired with what John recounts in John 9:1-7, the curing of the man born blind. And the key to both of those passages is: in order to cure someone who had become blind, all you had to do was restore him to his original factory condition. And any healer could do that. But in order to heal someone who was born blind, the understanding was you had to recreate him. And when Jesus heals the man born blind, how does he do it? He scoops up the clay of the earth, breathes on it, and refashions Adam from the dust of the ground. And everybody knew what it meant – except us, because we don’t read with a biblical imagination. And it says at the end of the passage: never was it heard of that anyone healed someone born blind. See, what Jesus did – when he did it – it showed that he was divine. He didn’t say the words “I’m God”, he did the thing. And that’s exactly the next thing that Peter and John do, in the Acts of the Apostles: they heal the man who was born lame. What before only Jesus could do, now the Apostles can do. But they can do it because the Holy Spirit has fallen upon them, and conformed them to the life of Christ.
Acts 5:12-16, and Matthew 9:18-26: Acts 5 is where Peter is healing people… do you know how? His shadow is falling on them. People are putting the lame out in the streets, so that Peter’s shadow would fall on them. And the passage concludes by saying, “and they were all healed.” Who does that? Well if you go back to Matthew 9:18-26, you see: Jesus does that. He doesn’t even have to think about it, it just happens. What before only Jesus could do, now the Apostles can do. And they can’t do it by their own power – we know these guys – they can do it because the Holy Spirit has fallen upon them.
And lastly, John 20:19-23 and Mark 2:1-12: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them.” Whoa, whoa, whoa, go back to Mark 2. And they bring him the paralytic, and he says, “Courage, child, your sins are forgiven” – and I won’t walk you through all the Rabbinic interpretation of that, it’s excellent. And the Pharisees say: “This man is blaspheming. Only God can forgive sins.”
They’re saying to him, basically: “Jesus, we have a syllogism for you, because we’ve studied logic. Premise #1: Only God can forgive sins. Picking up what I’m laying down, Jesus? Premise #2: You are not God. Therefore… fill in the blank. Conclusion: You’re blaspheming.”
And Jesus says: “Good, good, I like this, you’ve studied. I have a syllogism for you. Premise #1: Only God can forgive sins. Premise #2: I just forgave this man’s sins. Conclusion: You fill in the blank.”
That’s the capacity that Jesus hands on to the Apostles. What before only Jesus could do – and when he did it, it showed his divinity – now the Apostles can do. And they can’t do it by their own power. They do it because the Holy Spirit has fallen upon them, and conformed them to his life.
Theosis – divinization, deification – synthesizes a pattern that’s in Scripture. It’s not a word that’s in Scripture, and it’s not just a couple of fancy quotes that theologians came up with. And it’s not just these four passages. These four passages are examples of a pattern that’s written across the entire New Testament, that is written into the liturgy, and that is meant to be the fundamental pattern of our spiritual life.
Now you may say: “Well, that’s the Apostles. I’m just me.” No, no, but read the Gospel of Mark, please, because it’s lovely on this point. It’s the best example because it’s rooted in Peter’s preaching, right? Mark is transcribing Peter’s preaching.
The Apostles don’t understand, they are afraid, they get in the way, and they run away. And when I read the Gospel of Mark about the Apostles, I think: “Gosh, that sounds a lot like me.” And this is Mark’s point: If they started out just like you, you can end up just like them. But you have to go through the same process they did. You have to die with Christ, as they did, and you need to receive the Holy Spirit, as they did.
So when we get to All Saints Day, and the first letter of John says: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” You see, if he’s a three-dimensional being and we’re two-dimensional creatures, we can’t see him as he is unless we’re elevated to three dimensions. If he’s God, and we’re not, we can’t see him as he is unless we’re elevated into his dimension. And that’s what the Holy Spirit does. Divinization is exactly what is offered to us. So I just want to pause for silence and pray into the magnitude of that offer:
Lord Jesus, this is the people that longs to see your face. You desire to live in us. And by the gift of the Holy Spirit, you make that possible. Move us to desire that your life would become the deepest truth of our lives.
Part 3 – Seeds, Organic Growth, and Idols
Okay, the third, brief unit – on seeds.
Saint Thomas Aquinas says this, about the gift of the Holy Spirit, and he says it in his treatise on grace: “The grace of the Holy Spirit, which we have at present, although unequal to glory in act” – and by glory he means the beatific vision, he means the deification – “is equal to it virtually” (What?) “as the seed of a tree, wherein the whole tree is virtually.” And he goes on to say this: “a tree is not above the virtuality of the seed, although it is above its quantity.”
And that’s an image written into the Pilgrim Longing blog post – the seed.
We should just think about a pumpkin seed – because in October it’s a good time to be thinking about pumpkin seeds. You know what a pumpkin seed does not look like? A pumpkin. So the pumpkin, the whole vine is virtually contained in the seed. But the quantity is not contained in the seed.
Think about an apple seed. You know what it doesn’t look like? An apple tree. Now it is contained virtually in the seed, but not in quantity, right? And so on and so forth, with whatever your favorite seed is.
But see, that’s what we have in us, in the Holy Spirit – in some way, in fact, that’s what we are, is that seed. And it’s very helpful to think of heaven in terms of the growth of that seed. Now, there are two things that need to be said about that.
First, yes – perfection is required. I can’t skirt around that in any way, shape, or form. It’s not where we start. It is where we’re going.
And I’ve given you some paragraph quotations about that from the Catechism. If you look at paragraphs 1023, 1024, and 1030, they say: “All who die in God’s grace and friendship and perfectly purified live forever with Christ.” “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified” – you know what it says next? because your temptation is to say “they have some work to do”, but the Catechism says next – “are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death, they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.”
And the Catechism is not just making that up. There it is in Leviticus 19:1-2, where God says to the Israelites: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” Excuse me, did you just make your holiness the standard of our holiness? Matthew 5:48, when Jesus says “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”, he’s riffing on Leviticus 19:1-2. In 1 John: 2-3, after it says “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”, says therefore “everyone who has this hope makes himself pure, as he is pure”. And Revelation 21:27 says “nothing unclean shall enter heaven”. There’s no way around that, for us. Yes, that’s really part of divinization or theosis or Christ-likeness. We need to be fully configured to Christ, so we can say with Paul in Galatians 2:20: “I live now, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.”
But we need this clarification on perfection, because we mistake what perfection means. C. S. Lewis, on more than one occasion, spoke of the variety among the saints. (For instance, in his essay on Membership he describes their “almost fantastic variety” compared to the monotony of those who belong to the world; and again at the end of Mere Christianity he emphasizes how the saints as “gloriously different” from one another.) Following his line of reasoning, I like to say that the saints are like fruits, in this sense: the more perfect they become, the more different from each other they become. Think of a perfect strawberry, and a perfect apple, and a perfect orange, or pumpkin, or so on and so forth. The more perfect a fruit becomes, the more different from other fruits it becomes. The same holds for human beings. The more perfect a Franciscan becomes, the more different she is from a Dominican. The more perfect a Dominican becomes, the more different he is from a Jesuit. The more perfect a Benedictine is, the more different from a Franciscan he is. That applies to each of us as well. There’s no cookie-cutter version of holiness and perfection.
And you know whose teaching that is? That’s not just C. S. Lewis’s teaching. That’s the teaching of Saint Francis de Sales in An Introduction to the Devout Life – true devotion is according to the stage, and station, and qualities of each person. And you know who else’s teaching it is? That’s the teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas in his theology on creation: Why there are not only many creatures, but many different kinds of creatures? Because we’re all made to represent and communicate God’s goodness. But what is lacking in one, might be made up in another. And you know that the distribution of natural gifts in creation is the same as his understanding of the distribution of supernatural gifts in the Church: that what is wanting in one, might be made up in another. And you know whose teaching that is? Saint Paul’s teaching on the body of Christ.
This is Jesus with the rich young man. This is not Alanis Morissette’s version of perfect, right? When you’re perfect, then I’ll love you. No, this is Jesus with the rich young man, where Jesus says: “You want to be perfect? Great. Here’s what I have in mind for you... and actually, I think it’s what you have in mind for yourself, though in the moment you might be afraid of it.”
You know why Mark doesn’t tell us the end of that story in Mark 10? Because Mark is great on reader response. Because each of us is the rich young man, and the question is not what happened to him – the question is what will I do when Jesus proposes to go all-in to me? And when I walk away sad, will I turn back?
C. S. Lewis says this beautiful thing about purgatory – and I mean he says this as a non-Catholic, he says: “Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they?” And he goes on to say beautiful things about it, but we want the transformation, we want to live Christ’s life. In fact, we’ve tasted it from time to time.
It’s the old Michelob principle. Some days are better than others, and you experience the grace, and you’re like: “This is awesome, I’ve got this.” And that’s the exact moment you fall flat on your face. And then you say: “What was that? And where did it go? And how do I get it back? Because I just want to live there. Because when I live there, everything falls into place.”
But how does a seed grow?
I mean – perfection, that’s the requirement, and perfection will look different for each of us, and that’s okay. But a seed’s growth is organic, not linear. A pumpkin seed doesn’t become a bigger pumpkin seed until it’s the biggest pumpkin seed ever. It has to die as a seed, to give birth to a vine, to let a flower come forth. And the flower grows into a little bud, and the bud grows into a little green thing, which grows into a little orange thing, which grows into a bigger and bigger and bigger orange thing. And where’s the seed at that point? You can’t find the seed anymore. This is a continuous line of growth, but it’s organic growth, not linear growth.
And you know what works that way?
One, the natural world works that way.
Two, the history of salvation works that way.
And three, the spiritual life works that way for each of us.
What do you mean “the history of salvation works that way”? Well, just think about this. When Moses built the tabernacle in the desert in the Old Testament, you know what happened, when God became present there? God came down in thunder and lightning! And no one could be in the tent of presence! And that was awesome, God was dwelling with them in a way that was unprecedented in their history. (Exodus 40)
And you know what happened when Solomon then built the temple? God came down in thunder and lightning, to dwell in the temple and no one could be in it! And it was awesome. (1 Kings 8)
You know what happened when the second temple was built after the Babylonian exile? Nothing, actually. (Ezra 6) Nothing special happened. And for 500 years, the people of Israel wondered: “When will God come back and dwell in the temple?”
And that’s what the mystery of the Presentation is about. When we pray with the mystery of the Presentation in the Temple, it’s God coming into his Temple again… in a completely unprecedented way. That’s organic growth. He didn’t make bigger thunder and lightning, he came in a way that no one could have anticipated.
And if you read the readings for the Feast of the Assumption, the major theme of the readings is the Ark of the Covenant. And at first, the Ark is a thing – a particular thing in Israel – and that’s beautiful, God had never dwelt in the world in that way before. But then the Ark becomes Mary: not a particular thing, but a particular person, who holds God’s presence. And that was deeper. That was organic growth.
And then the readings conclude with: Each of us can become the Ark, where we hold the presence of God in ourselves. And that’s one continuous line of growth – but it’s organic, not linear.
And if you read the readings for the dedication of the Lateran Basilica on November 9, ask yourself: How does the Temple function as the unifying pattern? In the Old Testament, the Temple is a particular place. And that is powerful. And in the Gospel, the Temple is the body of Jesus. In the letter from Paul, he says you are the Temple of the Holy Spirit. So it’s one continuous line of growth – but it’s organic growth, not linear growth. That’s how we grow.
I have about a hundred more things to say, and maybe two more minutes to say them. I could walk you through a lot of things at this point – but I’m just going to name one particular experience that I had, recently, that helped me with this.
You know, John Henry Newman, who’s about to be declared a Doctor of the Church, says this in The Dream of Gerontius. Gerontius is an old man, and he’s just died, and he’s traveling to the judgment seat of God in heaven. And he says to his guardian angel: “Are we there yet? How much longer?” Just kidding! No, what he says to his guardian angel is: “I thought when I died, I left behind space and time and I would immediately be brought into the presence of God. So why is there this distance between me and God?” And the angel says to him: “It is thy very energy of thought which keeps thee from thy God.” That is to say: “Gerontius, what you’re experiencing as space and time, is actually the distance between your heart and God’s will. And you have no way to experience that except through space and time.” It is the very energy of thy thought which keeps thee from thy God.
How do we measure the distance of the heart? Here’s the way I measure the distance of the heart. You know what could stop John Paul II’s motorcade? A baby! And any bishop knows this. “Give me a baby, we’ll draw him right over here!” And John Paul was like a beeline to the baby. It was awesome.
Now, you know what could stop the motorcade of Benedict XVI? Nothing. Nothing! The dude was a German professor, he was on his way to the court. I kid you not. And you could see this, when he was giving a speech and the room would erupt in applause, because he gave great speeches and he’d look up: with a shy and puzzled look, surprised that people were electrified by his words, and asking – silently – if they would quiet down, so he could return to his text. It was awesome.
You know what could stop the motorcade of Pope Francis? A person with an obvious physical deformity. Boom, like a beeline, he went there. There’s a person who needs to know they’re loved. There’s a person who needs mercy. His reaction when he saw that was a spontaneous movement toward it. Right? Just like an emergency room doctor or nurse – they see a wound or a trauma, and they move toward it, not away from it.
You know what my reaction is to a person with an obvious physical deformity? It takes me two or three seconds… and then I can go there. I know what the right thing to do is. I’m startled, and then I move into it. That’s the distance between my heart and Pope Francis’ heart. And I think Pope Francis’s heart was more conformed to the heart of Jesus on that, than mine. Those two or three seconds, that’s the measure. “Edward, it is the very energy of thy thought which keeps thee from thy God.”
And last Lent I had the best Lent ever. Because I didn’t know what I should do for Lent… and the Lord gave me a case of sciatica, which began on Ash Wednesday and ended on Easter Sunday. And some people were like: “Wow, weird!” And I said: “No, not if you believe in spiritual things!” What the Lord said to me for Lent was: “I’m giving you these three penances. One, you will hurt. Two, you will have to ask for help – and that was harder than the first. And three, you will look silly.”
I actually had piriformis syndrome, and the piriformis muscle had wrapped itself around my sciatic nerve and the blood vessel supplying all the blood to my left leg, and it seized. And every time I stood up, all the blood flow to my leg was cut off. And I could sleep for maybe two hours at night. And there were three things that were happening there. The first was: I have a badly degraded L5 disc, and it needed medical treatment. And that was true, and I needed to address that, and I did, with a good Catholic chiropractor and a good Catholic physical therapist.
And the second was I was carrying my work the wrong way. It was crushing me. Because it’s a lot… whatever we do, you know, it’s a lot. Okay, I’m the academic dean at a seminary, lots of things blow up every day, and many of them end up on my doorstep. And that’s fine, that’s the work I do for the team. But in addition to being academic dean, a full-time teaching load is a 2-2 in graduate school. And I was also teaching three classes, I was on major overload. And my body was keeping the score.
But the third thing was, I had an idol in my heart. And I had gotten that idol when I was 15 years old, and I was an ocean lifeguard. And as a 15-year-old lifeguard, I was about the same size as I am right now, kind of small. And you know what most lifeguards are like on the ocean? Big, strong. And I thought, from the time I was 15 on, I need to be big and strong like that. And so I need to exercise. I need to be bigger and stronger. And that had become an idol in my heart. And it was the reason I exercised. I mean, look at me, I’m not going to be big and strong, I’m tiny. And that was not an idol that someone else had put on my heart. That was an idol that I had adopted. And Jesus was saying to me: “Can I just knock over this house of cards? Can you just be yourself, and not try to be what you think someone else needs you to be? Edward, it is the very energy of thy thought which keeps thee from thy God.” And in Lent, he shook that to its core, and said: “I just want you to be yourself. Stop trying to be someone else. Be the version of perfect that I made you to be.”
What are the idols in your heart? What are the houses of cards that need to be knocked down? What is the place where your guardian angel would say to you: “It is the very energy of thy thought which measures the distance between thee and thy God”? Saint John Henry Newman, soon to be a doctor of the church – there’s a good read for you.
The last thing is this, paragraph 521 of the Catechism, which quotes from Saint John Eudes: “Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us. […] We are called only to become one with him, for he enables us as the members of his Body to share in what he lived for us in his flesh as our model: ‘We must continue to accomplish in ourselves the stages of Jesus’ life and his mysteries, and often to beg him to perfect and realize them in us and in his whole Church…’”
You see, this is what Christ’s likeness entails. You want to be divinized? Great. Live the mysteries of the life of Christ. So when you’re praying the rosary, you’re actually entering into the life of Jesus. The Annunciation, his first humbling. The Presentation, coming into his temple in an unprecedented way. His crucifixion, his Ascension… all of those are the mysteries of Christ’s life, and he’s just trying to live them in us again.
What stages of his life is Jesus trying to live in you right now? Whatever that is, you don’t need to be concerned with “yeah but Jesus, what is this going to look like when it’s perfect? What kind of pumpkin am I going to be?” No, no, no. “You just, you just put out a little leaf right now, okay? Just slow down and stay there. And I’m responsible,” Jesus says, “for getting there in the end.”
You know how long he waited with his people? Thousands of years he walked with them. Does it feel like thousands? Does it feel like it’s going to take thousands of years to be perfect? Yeah, it sure does. The older I get, the farther away I seem to be. But I just stay with Jesus, and trust that the next thing He placed in my path would be sufficient, in his eyes, in my growth. And if it’s enough for him, it’s going to be enough for me, because it’s on the way. So let’s just pause there, and I’ll end with this:
Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face. Jesus, you desire to live in us more deeply. You have shown patience and determination with your people that extends across thousands of years. Help us to take just the next step with you, trusting that your patience and determination will bring us pilgrims all the way home, to the place where time stands still with you.
So many gems. Thanks for sharing!