Why history still matters in heaven – America: The Jesuit Review

A Homily for the Ascension of the Lord

Acts 1:1-11 Ephesians 1:17-23 Matthew 28:16-20

The philosopher George Santayana wrote that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Should we add that willful ignorance of history is a sin? Two reasons for saying that. The first is Santayanas point: our inability to move forward when we forget our past. The second is more properly theological: our inability to appreciate the heaven of history that awaits us.

Lets explore that odd turn of phraseheaven of historywith a bit of history.

In the summer of 1917, President Woodrow Wilson was leading the United States into its first European warand only the second to be fought entirely outside American borders. Then, as now, there were many in America who viewed international conflict as an instrument to enrich the already wealthy. One such group was a labor union founded in 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World, the I.W.W., though they were more commonly known as Wobblies.

Adam Hochschilds book American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracys Forgotten Crisis (2022) details the often quite illegal abuse the Wobblies suffered for their unwillingness to assist in the birth of what would become Americas military-industrial behemoth. If you think that America only recently became a dark and threatening place for liberty and civil rights, this book is a must-read.

The mineral copper would be essential to the American war effort. It was already being sold in vast quantities to the Allies, funding American investors in the largest domestic copper mine, located in Butte, Mont. Hochschild writes:

In the summer of 17, a fire broke out in the Butte mine.

That is a bit of history. Now let us consider heaven.

If our Lords ascension into heaven represented only his departure from us, it would not be a cause for celebration. No, our reason for joy is contained in a phrase from todays second reading from the letter to the Ephesians:

When Christ entered heaven, he took something with him: a human nature forged by the story of our striving and suffering. When Christ became man, God entered human history. When Christ returned to his Father, human history entered God.

Now, God is no longer the unmoved mover, the impenetrable, the eternal stillness and satiety of Greek thought. Now, we proclaim that God has walked among us, fallen in love with us and forever bears our wounds. This is Christs inheritance among his holy ones. This is heaven!

In the summer of 17, an I.W.W. organizer named Frank Little stepped off the train in Butte, Mont.

That sort of talk could notor would notbe tolerated after America had just entered the war to end all wars.

A few days later, armed men broke into Littles boarding house room and seized him.

What did the numbers mean? One theory is that they are the dimensions of a grave.

No one would ever be arrested for the crime, and 11 days after Frank Littles death, federal troops entered Butte with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets. They would remain there for three years, ensuring that strikes did not slow the war effort. Woodrow Wilsons vice president Thomas Marshall cynically coined a pun on the victims name. In solving labor problems, he quipped, A Little hanging goes a long way.

It matters greatly to us that history should be taken into heaven. This is Christs inheritance among his holy ones. It is where long-denied justice is done, and the wrongs of time are redressed. But that can only happen because in Christs ascension, history enters heaven. It does not, as we popularly assume, stop at heavens door.

Heaven does more than set history right. It transforms human striving from the ephemeral to the eternal. Far from being forgotten, in heaven, countless unknown acts of valor and sacrifice are revealed as foundations stones for the city of God.

At the wars end, Wilson broke down during a dedicatory speech for what would be the first of many European cemeteries for American soldiers. Looking out on a field of 1,500 crosses, the president took responsibility for them, saying, I sent these lads over here to die.

Those poor but celebrated lads! In heaven they march with the unsung coal miners of Butte. They parade together, nay, arm in arm, to hear Frank Little speak. Why? Because in heaven, history matters still.

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Why history still matters in heaven - America: The Jesuit Review