What does the church teach about heaven? I’ve heard all kinds of theories. Heaven is perfect union with God. It a place we go to when we die, if we merit it…a sort of magical land without suffering or want. As a kid I was told that dead relatives could see me from heaven. I never believed that, not even as a kid. If heaven were a place of perfect happiness, how could someone who loved me in life, be perfectly happy in heaven while watching me hurt and crying here. Ignorance is bliss they say.
Yours truly,
Just Me.

Dear Just Me,

To begin let me say that my few words are but the poor beginning of a very long conversation.

First the church teaches us that Heaven is a mystery of our faith. Both words mystery and faith are important here. To quote St. Paul, we look at ‘eternal life’ i.e. heaven, as through a glass darkly. Since in our life on earth we have no way of knowing what heaven is, where it is, or what it is like, and since it is beyond our human ability to even imagine heaven very well, we resort to all kinds of images or metaphors to try and describe it. Every metaphor open some doors and closes others. But we being human as we are will continue to try ‘to imagine’.

First let’s be clear – heaven is not a place like Toronto, or St. John’s. So it’s not up or down, or east or west. We say it’s a kind of state of being in which we dwell or be after, by the grace of God, our human life is resurrected in its wholeness to be with our Creator ‘face-to-face’.

Note the expression here is about union with God. Using your imagination you can try to picture how we will be together in heaven but it’s first and foremost about our union with God. Imagine as much as you want as long as you remember at the end to say ‘nice try’. We believe we will be united in heaven in the communion of saints, but what that means and how and under what circumstances we cannot really imagine.

Our human tendency in this day and age is to say if we can’t imagine it, it doesn’t exist. The truth is imagination can capture only a very small part of what really is. Like I can imagine all I want that I know who you are, but the truth is that I can’t really know you as you know yourself. And even you cannot imagine fully who you are. Think about it.

So heaven is that one great grace, or gift of God, that is not somehow already present (embedded?) in our human nature as we find it. It’s simply beyond.

So don’t believe all you might hear about the full truth about heaven. That fullness will only happen when we experience heaven. But do continue to consider images that might in some small way touch your soul and let you have at least a small “oh! yeah” experience that you’ve captured a touch of lightening in a bottle. Lightening, after all, is created, (metaphorically of course), in the heavens.

As St. Thomas Aquinas might say It’s much more interesting thinking about existence than non-existence.

Maybe one day, in the here or hereafter, we’ll meet and carry on this conversation, and you can enlighten me about your own life long experience of heaven and earth!

aka Fr. Jim C.Ss.R.