The Hope of Eternal Glory (2)

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. However, when I started speakingEnglish, / my friends would cut me off/ because I talked a lot, but they still did not understand me. / And when I gave reflections/, people advised me to please make it shorter. / So, I hope /my first homily will not go more than 1 hour. If it is please stop me.

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. / He said “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, and renown,” Sadly, we are living in a world/ where others judge us/ by what we have, /such as wealth, /political influence, /or power. St. 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 eternalglory?

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, “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: earthlyglory /or eternal glory?

I heard a story about/ 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?” St. Philip asked, “And then,” the young man replied, / “and then, 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 the young man considered the end of his life,/ it dawned upon him 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.

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.”

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