The Hope of Eternal Glory

What do you hope for?

When I started learning English, I hoped. I hoped one day I would speak English well enough to give a homily in English. However, when I started speakingEnglish, my friends would cut me off because I talked too much, but they did not understand me. And when I gave reflections in parishes or in seminary, people advised me to please make it shorter because a lot of people have not had enough sleep before they come to Church. So, I hope my first homily will not go more than 1 hour.

I think everyone hopes for something: to be happy, to be healthy, to be successful, and the like.

Jesus also hoped for something because he was fully human. In today’s Gospel, Jesus hopes to be glorified and give glory the Father.“Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you.” (Jn 17:1) Jesus’ hope is for “glory.”

But what is glory? The dictionary tells us that it means “praise, honor, renown,” all of which are granted by the judgments of others. Sadly, we are living in a world where others judge us by what we have, such as wealth, political influence, or power. St. Thomas Aquinas said that these are human glories, and that they cannot lead to eternal happiness.

In the Gospel, Jesus seeks a different glory, the glory of eternal life. Jesus does not hope to have earthlypower or honor but rather eternalglory, which leads to eternal life.

But we may ask what is eternal glory?

St. Irenaeus said that: “The glory of God is man fully alive.” God’s glory is nothing else but that which gives us eternal life, that is, the fullness of life. Jesus gives glory to God the Father by bringing eternal life to those who believe in and follow him.

Jesus glorified the Father by becoming a lowly human to bring us humans the hope of eternal glory. As St. Paul said, “Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9) In other words, he came to share our lowliness and brokenness so that we might share what is transcendent, beyond our imagining. As St. Athanasius states even more strongly: "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."

Jesus hoped that we might be like him by becoming one of us. That hope was fulfilled by accepting death on the cross to open the way for us. His highest hope for humanity is to be glorified with us in heaven.

If Christ had not become man and had not died on the cross, we would not be able to share God’s glory. Through Jesus Christ, God and humanity came together. Through the very person of Jesus Christ, God’s life and human life become one. In his entire ministry, Jesus hoped to bring eternal life from heaven to us. And he did it. Heaven is at hand for you and me now by the grace and unconditional love of God through Jesus Christ.

That is the hope of Jesus made real..

So, what is our hope: earthly glory or eternalglory?

I heard a story from St. Philip Neri who had a young man approach him for advice. He shared with the saint his plan to study law and become a lawyer.

St. Philip asked him for more information. “And then?” he asked. “And then,” the young man replied, “I hope to be a successful lawyer.”

“And then?” the saint asked again. “And then people will speak well of me, and I’ll have a good reputation. “And then?” came the question once again. “And then I hope to have an easy life and be happy.”

St. Philip asked a final time: “And then?”

As he considered the end of his life, it dawned upon the young man that in all of his life’s plans and hopes, he gave no thought to eternal glory with God at all.

The man paused for a while and said “I do not know. I do not know what I hope for after death.”

Don’t we sometimes hope in the same way? We make our plans without hoping for the most important thing, to be with God at the end.

This story reminds us that we need to always keep our eyes on our final “and then,” eternal glory, since it’s our greatest hope one day to look upon God face-to-face.

Our hope in Christ must be eternal glory, not human glory, as St. Paul reminds us, “If our hope in Christ is for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone else in the world.” (1 Cor 15:19)

We need to hope as Jesus hopes: that we might give glory to the Father by embracing and living fully the gift of eternal glory. The salvation of our souls is God’s glory. But how do we make this more than a hope, however fervent?

Our eternal glory begins right now: by fully opening our hearts to show mercy and love to others, by becoming Christ’s heart in reaching the vulnerable, the poor, and the voiceless, by making God’s life become our life and God’s love our love. Everything we do, every thought we think, and every word we speak must be carried out with love. Then the glory of God will become ours because God is glorified by our loving actions. As St. John states, “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.”

I know it is hard to do everything with love, for I myself fail almost every day. But that is what our Christian life is all about. We try and try again every day. And the good news is that we do not have to try alone, we have the Holy Spirit, who is always helping us by his grace because we cannot do anything good without God’s grace: “By the grace of God, I am what I am.” (1 Cor 15,10)

Be not afraid, “for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon us.”

Let us pray in hope. God, our Father, we are here to give you glory. You know we are weak, sinful, and broken. Please help us to do everything every day according to your will so that we may give glory to you. May we always hope for eternal life which is your glory. Father, may we follow the example of Christ, who lived a life of self-humbling, self-denying, and self-giving for others. May we glorify you by accepting the gift of eternal life brought to us by the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son, on the Cross, which we are about to celebrate at the Eucharist today.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen