On today's Solemnity, the Lord grants us the joy of celebrating the glory of the heavenly Jerusalem, our mother, where a multitude of our brothers and sisters praise him eternally. Towards her, as pilgrims, we set out joyfully, guided by faith and animated by the glory of the Saints; in them, glorious members of his Church, we find example and help for our weakness.
We are still the pilgrim Church on our way to Heaven; and, as we journey on, we must gather that treasure of good works with which one day we will present ourselves before our God. We have heard the Lord's invitation: If any man will come after Me.... We have all been called to the fullness of life in Christ. The Lord calls us to a professional occupation, so that we may meet him there, carrying out that task with human perfection and, at the same time, with a supernatural sense: offering it to God, exercising charity with the people we deal with, living mortification in its realization, seeking already here on earth the face of God, which one day we will see face to face. We can and should acquire this contemplation and friendship with our Father God through the things of everyday life, which are repeated many times, with apparent monotony, because "to love God and serve him, it is not necessary to do strange things. Christ asks all men without exception to be perfect as his heavenly Father is perfect (Mt 5:48). For the great majority of people, being holy means sanctifying their work, sanctifying themselves in their work, and sanctifying others through their work, and thus finding God on their life's journey.
What else did those mothers of families, those intellectuals or those workers..., do to be in Heaven? Because that is where we want to go; it is the only thing that matters to us at all. This holy decision is of great importance for others. If, with the grace of God and the help of so many, we reach Heaven, we will not go alone: we will drag many with us.
Those who have already arrived have tried to sanctify the small realities of every day; and if they were not faithful at times, they repented and began the journey anew. This is what we have to do: to earn Heaven every day with what we have in our hands, among the people God has chosen to place at our side.