Passport to Paradise

Seeing the Beatitudes as our passport to paradise

11/01/2019

Matthew 5:1-12A When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven."

One of the most valuable pieces of identification you and I possess is our U.S. passport. It is even more valuable than your cell phone because a passport is a lot harder to replace if it gets lost. But do you know when your passport goes from being valuable to being invaluable, that is, when it becomes priceless, worth more than gold? That happens every time when you leave the United States to travel abroad. Occasionally, I’ll take out my passport and thumb through its pages and reminisce and remember the many exotic foreign lands I’ve visited. My passport has been stamped in Honduras, in Frankfurt, Germany, in Rome, Italy, and in New Delhi, India.

The best part of every trip, however, is returning home to this beloved and blessed country. As I stand in line to go through customs and immigration, I see everyone else also holds their passports in their hands. I love to spy at people’s passports and see what countries they come from: some hail from Europe, others from Asia, still others from Africa or South America. I always feel a sense of deep pride as I hold my American passport, and know people are probably checking out what passport I have, and I make sure they can see it. Why am I so proud of this little blue book? On the cover are emblazoned the symbols of our country: an eagle holds arrows of war and an olive branch of peace, thirteen stars stand for the thirteen colonies, and a banner in the eagle’s beak declares in Latin: “E pluribus unum,” meaning, “out of the many, one.”

That little Latin phrase packs a big punch. It not only means out of the original thirteen colonies one country emerged, but it also suggests that out of people from many cultures, languages, ethnicities, backgrounds and histories, one united people emerged. Grade school children are taught the Pledge of Allegiance, and we learn to say: “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” The pride of an entire people is embodied in that little blue book that I hand to the immigration official when it’s finally my turn in line. I cannot suppress a smile when he says, “welcome home, Father Antony.”

In the gospel today, Jesus delivers his timeless Beatitudes, the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount. In a sense, the eight Beatitudes are the oral equivalent of a passport. How so? Well, Jesus promises entry into the Kingdom of Heaven for those whose lives are defined by the Beatitudes, like a passport describes the life of Americans. Notice Jesus is not talking about how to get into the country of Honduras, but rather entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. I love Hamlet’s haunting description of heaven, “the undiscovered country.” The country we came from and to which we long to return. In other words, the Beatitudes is not your typical passport because the country we wish to enter is not your typical country, indeed, it is no country at all, but rather a Kingdom. And in that heavenly Kingdom, the King has instructed his head of Homeland Security, St. Peter, to check people’s papers, their passports, for entry.

What will your passport need to show? It must show how you were poor in spirit, how you were meek, how you mourned, how you hungered for holiness, how you were merciful, how you were clean of heart, how you were a peacemaker, and how you were persecuted for righteousness. Just like everyone standing in line at an international airport makes sure their passport and customs documents are updated and accurate, so too each one of us will one day stand in line to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Our passport will have eight boxes to check to show we have the credentials to enter that “undiscovered country” of Paradise. The time to prepare our passport for the final leg of our journey home is today, by practicing the eight Beatitudes.

There is another sense in which the Beatitudes can be compared to a U.S. passport, especially today, on the Feast of All Saints. Just like the eagle on the cover of the U.S. passport holds a banner that says “E pluribus unum,” so the Kingdom of Heaven is also made up of people from many ethnicities, languages, cultures, customs and histories, people from all places and from all times. That’s why we read in Revelation 7:9 (our first reading), “After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people and tongue.” In other words, no other country on earth enjoys the ethnic diversity of the United States of America, and in that sense, this country is a shapshot of the Kingdom of Heaven. To be sure, our country is far from perfect, but when we respect our rich cultural heritage which hails from everywhere, we really hit the heavenly nail on the head.

Let me leave you with the inspiring exhortation found on the second page of the U.S. passport. Most people usually skip over it, but it is insightful and instructive. It reads: “The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/national of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance and in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection. And if you don’t, we will bomb you back to the Stone Age.” Just kidding, I added that last part. So much for being meek and merciful!

In a similar spirit, we can say our King, Jesus Christ, watches over us as we travel abroad – as “strangers and sojourners” in far off lands we read in 2 Peter 2:11 – until we return safely home to the Kingdom of Heaven. The best part of every trip is returning home, especially if you hold a current and accurate passport with all 8 boxes of the Beatitudes checked. I cannot wait to smile when St. Peter says: “Welcome home, Fr. Antony.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!