When I owned
a software company for many years, I often read business books to help in
running my business. One of my favorite books
was Stephen Covey's Seven Principles of Highly Effective People. His last principle in that book is
"Begin with the end in mind."
This refers to having a
vision of how you want something to end up in the long term. It’s about starting things with a clear idea
of your destination, so that you make progress towards that goal.
This principle applies to many areas of our lives:
including leadership, project management, and sports. If you’re sure about how to complete a
project, you’ll be able to plan it efficiently, better communicate its purpose
to the people involved, accurately measure its success upon completion and,
above all, have the proper motivation to tackle it.
In today's readings, this principle is applied to our
spiritual lives. The first reading from
the book of the prophet Isaiah gives us a view of heaven. Isaiah says that the Lord of hosts will
provide a feast of rich food and choice wines.
The Lord will remove the veil that veils all people and will destroy
death forever. Finally, the Lord tells
us to rejoice and be glad that he has saved us.
Certainly, this view of heaven should provide an end or a goal for our
lives.
In the Gospel, Jesus gives us a parable of a wedding feast
which again gives us a vision of heaven.
Then, it focuses on our possible responses to being called to the feast
and the judgment that we all must experience before reaching our ultimate destination
of eternal bliss or eternal damnation.
In the parable, the king summons his invited guests to the
feast as he has all of us. But, many refused to come. Then, the king sent his servants out a second
time to invite guests to the feast. Again, some of the guests ignored the
invitation and went to the farm to work and to their business. They were busy doing things that seemed more
important at the time. Others reacted to
the invitation by killing the servants who invited them.
The king is enraged and sends his troops to destroy the
murderers and burn their cities. Then he
sends his servants out another time to gather all they can find, good and bad,
to attend the wedding feast. But, one of
those gathered didn't have the proper wedding garment. This guest was cast out into the darkness
outside. Finally, the parable ends with
the ominous statement: "Many are
invited but few are chosen."
This parable should be a wake-up call for all of us. Jesus is telling us about the judgment that
all of us must face. When Jesus tells us
that few are chosen, it should strike fear into our hearts. We certainly don't want to spend our eternal
destiny in darkness where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. This should cause us to take a good look at
our lives and to consider whether or not we are striving to be holy.
At baptism, we become members of God's family and are given a
spotless wedding garment. At the end
of our lives, to enter heaven, our wedding garment must again be spotless. That is, we must be free of serious sin. If we have turned away from God and knowingly
committed a serious sin, it is critical that we go to confession and receive
absolution so that our wedding garment is once again spotless.
Of course, many in the world today tell us that a loving God
wouldn't condemn anyone to eternal damnation. They tell us that virtually everyone will go
to heaven. This is a lie and it is the
work of the devil. The devil wants us to
believe this so that we won't get our lives in order and will continue to turn
away from God.
God has given each of us a free will. We are free to accept him or to reject
him. If we reject him, he will accept
and honor our decision. In effect, we
condemn ourselves to hell when we reject him by knowingly committing a serious
sin.
For each of us, our ultimate destiny will be either heaven or
hell, eternal bliss with God or eternal damnation. As I
get older, I find myself thinking about my judgment more seriously. I wonder if I will clear the bar to at least
be sent to Purgatory for some purgation before eventually reaching heaven. Like many, I face this judgment with
trepidation. Today, let each of us begin
with the end in mind. Let us visualize
ourselves and our family in heaven seeing God face to face. And, let us begin to make whatever changes are
needed in our lives to assure that our wedding garment will be unstained when our
earthly journey ends.
