“The Kingdom of God is at hand”

THAT’S from the Gospel of St. Mark (1,15), words spoken by Christ himself when he went into Galilee and proclaimed the Good News of God after John the Baptist was put in prison. After saying this he immediately said: “Repent and believe in the good news!” Yes, the way to the kingdom of God is when we repent of our sins and believe, nay, live the very message and spirit of the gospel. We often think of heaven or of the kingdom of God as so inaccessible here on earth that we think it only exists in our dreams, in our fantasies or in our desires. It cannot be here and now. And because of that, we often fail to consider it in our thoughts, words and deeds when in fact it is a very important and indispensable parameter in the way we live our life here on earth. Truth to tell, heaven is and should be a constant element to consider so we would know if we are still doing right, if we are still on the right track. We should never ignore heaven in any way, because that is the final destination for all of us. Yet in all the supposed ineffableness of heaven, Christ described it in very down-to-earth terms. In Chapter 13 of the Gospel of St. Matthew, we are given a series of parables that Christ said to describe the kingdom of heaven. In these parables, Christ compared the kingdom of heaven: - with the man sowing seeds on different kinds of ground; - with the man who sowed good seeds of wheat only for his enemy to sow weeds also; - with the mustard seed that is small and yet grows into a big tree; - with a leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour till it was all leavened; - with a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field; - with a merchant in search of fine pearls and finding one of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it; - with a net which was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into vessels, but threw away the bad. Hardly anything can be more down-to-earth, matter-of-fact, realistic and practical than these descriptions of heaven. And the lessons they impart are actually simple. They are no rocket-science lessons, though we have to admit that to live these lessons we need nothing less than God’s grace and our all-out effort. Another consideration is that while we should be immersed in our earthly affairs, we should see to it that such immersion should actually enrich us spiritually, that is, lead us to God, or make our love for God and others grow, because the earthly things are precisely for that purpose. That is the law and disposition God has imbued in the earthly things that are made available to us for our use. We have to see to it that love for God and others should always be the motive of everything that we do—from our thoughts and intentions, to our words, and to our work. It should also be the motive when we have to go through the different circumstances of our life, the good ones as well as the bad ones, our fortunes and our misfortunes. That’s how we can feel that truly “the Kingdom of God is at hand.”