Heaven on earth

A scenic view from Tigar Pond, Guyana

St. Therese of Lisieux is called as ‘little flower Jesus’. She is one of my inspirational saints ever. Her simplicity and pragmatic approach to life has made me realize that, ‘what matters in life is not great deeds but great love’ (story of a soul). She lived a simple and spiritual life that is worthy of God’s love. She showed to everyone around her that God loves us.

I would like to reflect on two important ideas that I gathered from this great little saint, namely, God’s love affair with us (human person) and spending heaven doing good on earth.

People in love would clearly know what is it to be in love with a woman or man; a person gives completely to the other without any condition. Has that been your experience? Most often we give several attributes to God, like Father, mother, creator, almighty, king of kings etc. I would like to think that God is in love with the humanity, in other words God has an affair with us. This affair is consolidated whenever we stand before our God completely naked, naked from our own faults, inhibitions, limitations, and unworthiness. We can go before our God like a child going towards their mother; completely dependent. St. Therese saw the seasons as reflecting the seasons of God’s love affair with us. She loved flowers and saw herself as the little flower of Jesus. She was one little flower in the garden of Jesus who gave glory for its creation and beauty. As Therese says, seasons show that God is in love with us. God expects us to respond to this love. God will wait for our response when we delay. God’s love affair comes to a completion only when we respond to his love, if not, it still remains incomplete.

Most often we tend to think that heaven is somewhere out there and it is a reward for our good deeds on earth. We think it’s a place where we are destined to go after life according to our deeds. I would like to think that heaven is here and now. It is a situation or an atmosphere where God’s values prevail. It’s an ambience of Kingdom values. Therefore it is not so much a place rather it is a situation or ambience. Most often values of the kingdom and values of the world don’t match; they conflict with each other, hence we have evil in the world. Evil values dominate as opposed to the kingdom values. As St. Therese says, we have spend heaven here on earth, in other words don’t wait until one dies rather live heaven now. She spent her heaven doing good on earth. It is a tedious task to fight against the evil (worldly) values in our current times. At times it seems that invariably evil values dominate. A Challenge would be to stand against the temptation of being carried away by the mass that adheres to the values of the earth. We have swim against the current to proclaim the kingdom values. Therefore, we will have our heaven now on earth where peace and harmony will flow like a river.