Going the Distance to God

I love Disney’s Hercules. It’s one of my favorite Disney films. I love the comedy, the characters, and the music. Recently I started thinking about Hercules’ song “Go the Distance”. In it Hercules is expressing his desire to “find the place where I belong” and that he will “go most anywhere to find where I belong”. This lead me to think about where my own journey to find where I belong. For most of my life, I never felt like I belonged anywhere or to any group. I always felt like I was on the outside. Back in 2014 I felt a call to explore religious life and was drawn eventually to a group of Franciscan Friars in Indiana. For the first time, I felt like I belonged. I ended up living with them for 7 months in 2017 and discerning if this was truly where God was calling me to. I ended up leaving the Franciscans at the beginning of November last year as it was not God’s Will that I remain with them, which left me feeling lost and confused about my path. I had been so certain that I belonged to that community. I had traveled halfway across the country to live in a state where the only people I knew were the brothers I met when I visited the community early 2017, I had “gone the distance” to seek where I thought I belonged. It was difficult for me to leave the brothers but it did help remind me that I don’t always know God’s plan for me.

To get to my point, that experienced helped remind me that Jesus taught that this earth, this world, is not where we belong. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6) “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:3) God knows each and every one of us intimately (see Jer 1:5) and made us and sustains us by willing our existence, as He wills the existence of the entire universe; but He desires us, His greatest creations, made in His image and likeness, and desires us to live with Him forever in Heaven as we explore His infinite Love. That is where we belong. That is the end goal of this life: to be with God in Heaven where we can enter into full communion with Him and be filled with every blessing. To quote St Augustine again: “Our hearts of restless until the rest in you.”

Taking another look at “Go the Distance”, I believe that this is the reality expressed in Hercules’ quest to find where he belongs. We can find belonging in places, groups, family, etc here on this earth, but out ultimate end or purpose is to be in union with God in Heaven. This idea was expressed by ancient philosophers like Aristotle with the concept of telos (meaning "end", "purpose", or "goal"). The telos of something is the fulfillment of what that thing was made to be/do. The telos of an acorn is an oak tree, the telos of an ax is to chop wood. The telos of man (proper human end) is to be with God in Heaven because that is what God destined us for. Hercules alludes to this:

“Where a great warm welcome will be waiting for me. Where the crowds will cheer when they see my face”.

To me this invokes thoughts of the cloud of witnesses (Heb 12:1), or saints, in heaven and that “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous who do not need to repent.”(Luke 15:7) The angels and saints are praying for us, desiring, longing for us to join them in God’s Kingdom.

Hercules knows the journey will probably be difficult and that he must “be strong”. Life is difficult at times, especially living as a disciple of Jesus. We need to persevere in following Jesus if we hope to be in Heaven with Him. That requires dependency on God to give us the grace and strength to persevere as only He can help us “Go the Distance”, according to His divine plan. But in the end, just like Hercules, we know “every mile will be worth my while”. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev 21:4)

Whether he knew it or not, Hercules encourages all of us, or at least me, to persevere and to dedicate and surrender ourselves to fulfilling God’s Will for us so that we will be like the faithful and wise virgin and be admitted into the wedding feast of the Lamb of God. So Herc and I will leave you with one final question:

Are you willing to go the distance and, if so, what do you need to do to get there?

Side note: I enjoy the fact that Hercules goes the distance and thinks he has made it to be with his father, Zeus, on Olympus, but he is not a true hero yet. Herc has done everything to be a hero, but has done it either selfishly or out of a need to complete a check-list. It isn’t until he does an act of pure love: sacrificing himself for Megara, that he becomes a true hero.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,[a] but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor 13:1-3)