When Colton s parents decided to write a book about his experiences, they were looking for a title. Colton gave it to them: Heaven is for Real.

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1 St. John the Baptist Recently a couple in the parish gave me a book called Heaven is for Real. It is about a four-year old boy named Colton who almost died because doctors missed the fact that his appendix had ruptured. He was five days in agony before he was correctly diagnosed and surgery was performed. Colton later recalled that during his agony he had gone to heaven where he had seen Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit and met his grandfather and his sister who had died before being born. His parents were astonished when Colton would tell them about his experiences. His father, a minister, at first tended to dismiss his son s accounts, but with time they became more and more believable. For instance, when Colton told him that he had seen his grandfather, he showed Colton a picture of his father taken when he was sixty-one. Colton told him that was not the person he had met. But when he was shown a picture of the grandfather at 29, he recognized the man he had seen. A comforting thought: we will all be young in heaven! And when Colton s parents would show him pictures of Jesus, he would always say that they were not right. But finally, when he was shown a picture of Jesus drawn by a girl who had also had heavenly experiences, he said: That s right.

2 2 When Colton s parents decided to write a book about his experiences, they were looking for a title. Colton gave it to them: Heaven is for Real. Maybe you are skeptical about all this, but maybe you aren t. After all, God always seem to use little ones to make Himself known. Look at Bernadette. Look at the three children at Fatima. Look at the Blessed Mother, a little girl from a small town. The powerful and the wealthy are not usually God s means of making Himself known to us. So maybe this four-year old is credible. What is clear that this boy s experiences echo and therefore confirm all the things that we learned about our faith in catechism. We were taught that God is a person who lives in a trinitarian unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We were also taught that all of us are going to live in another world after our deaths, either a world of peace and love or a world of hate and suffering. We were therefore also taught that in this world we will be reunited with our loves ones. If we believe our faith and Colton, then we have to say that our lives here are precious precisely because they lead on to an eternal life with God. When we go to a play, we know that the curtain has

3 3 to be drawn at times so that there can be a change of scene. But usually the characters of the previous scene will appear again in the next scene. Otherwise there would not be a continuity, and without continuity there would be no story, and without a story we would be wondering what we are seeing on the stage. It wouldn t be a play which has a beginning, middle and an end, and we would leave the theater confused and a little mad. That is not what we had hoped to see. The same is true of our individual lives. There are different scenes in our lives, and maybe many of the characters in the earlier scenes are no longer part of the later scenes. But we are present in all of them, although we too are changing. But when we die, is it all over? That is the question. And the answer our faith gives is no. It is not over. It is just beginning, but in a new and better and bigger and more permanent way. It takes a lot of faith to believe in this bigger and better and more permanent life, but God gives us the grace to believe in it: and I look forward to the resurrection f the dead and the life of the world to come, we pray in our creed. The birth of a baby is a great event in human life. The nine months of waiting are a time of joy but also of worry lest something go

4 4 wrong. Then the baby is born. And then there are the years of care and concern for the child s growth. You who are parents know all about this. And finally the child is adult and your work as parents is done, at least in part, because you will still follow your child with love and concern all the days of his or her life. If that is true of human parents, must we not say that it is also true of God who is our parent? God love us from the moment of our conception, and his love follows us even beyond this life and death because God has made us to be happy with him forever. The play of our lives, the play which is our life, has no ending but goes on in God s life forever. What a stupendous thought. Oh the pain of parents who have brought children into the world and cared for them only to experience failures and destruction, even death, in the lives of their adult children. We see that in today s feast. John the Baptist s birth is a miracle in itself. His parents were old and barren. His naming was also miraculous. And then his career was outstanding. But look what then happens to him. He is arrested and a little girl who has pleased King Herod by her dance, at the prompting of her mother, asks for his head, and the king yields to her wish because of his oath to her to give her whatever she asks for. What a silly end for so great a life! What an

5 5 awful termination after so much preparation and promise! But it is not over. God will give this life a happy ending. Today, as we reflect on the life of John Baptist, we can also reflect on our own lives and the lives of those whom we love. The beautiful words of the First Reading from Isaiah and from Psalm 139 are meant for us too. The Lord called me from birth, from my mother s womb he gave me my name. O Lord, you know when I sit and when I stand; you understand my thoughts from afar. My journeys and my rest you scrutinize, with all my ways you are familiar. Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother s womb. I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made; wonderful are your works.