Not Yet Home

This is not how it's supposed to be, I thought to myself as I processed the latest unfortunate news, still shaking sleep from my eyes as I plodded down the hallway from my bedroom. 

This is not how it's supposed to be.
Pain.
Worry.
Fear.
Loss.
Evil.
All of these were not meant for us. Man was not made for destruction. Man was made for life. 

We all know the unfortunate story: Adam and Eve, our first parents, disobeyed God. Sin entered the world. 

The devil brought death into our world, a world unstained by sin and in which man lived as he was meant to live--in perfect communion with God. Death is not of the Lord; it is of the devil. Satan cannot create life, and therefore, in his jealousy, he seeks to attack it. From The Catholic Gentleman: 

Only God can truly create. Satan cannot. And Satan hates this fact. He is sterile in every sense of the word. He hates the Trinity because he envies its life giving and creative power...

We were not meant to experience death or any of its terrible consequences. We await the day when we will be united with God in Heaven, free from the chains of earthly exile. This is not how it's supposed to be. God longs for us to dwell with Him in Heaven just as we long for His presence. We suffer because Earth is not our home. 

Man was not made for death, but life. We have died because of sin. There is good news, however. THE Good News. Christ has died so that we may live. Consequently, the only way we can truly live is through Christ. As St. Paul writes,

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. 

The Christian life is paradoxical. We live only by dying to ourselves--sacrificing ourselves completely to the Lord, joyfully accepting His Divine Will. Our hope lies in Him. 

Still, suffering is inevitable. Good, I say. Suffering makes saints. Jesus affectionately told Saint Faustina, "You will save more souls through prayer and suffering than will a missionary through his teachings and sermons alone." Although our ultimate goal is Heaven, God gives us the opportunity to dedicate a short lifetime to the salvation of souls. 

[L]ife on earth is not an "ultimate" but a "penultimate" reality; even so, it remains a sacred reality entrusted to us, to be preserved with a sense of responsibility and brought to perfection in love and in the gift of ourselves to God and to our brothers and sisters. -Saint John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae

We still have work to do. We're not yet home.

Source: 25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3il06VWOm1r0kx5qo1_500.jpg

We find ourselves on this earth as in a tempestuous sea, in a desert, in a vale of tears. 
Now then, Mary is the Star of the Sea, the solace of our desert, the light that guides us towards Heaven. 
-St. John Bosco

May the Divine Assistance remain always with us, and may the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.