On your way to Heaven?

There have many articles wrote recently on the need for more effective preaching. Not delivering homilies like pizzas, but preaching. I have had the great privilege of listening to many great priests and deacons preach a great message of love and happiness. They unfortunately are few and far between. Our brothers and sisters in the pews have real issues they are dealing with in their lives. They, we, need to be assured that God has a great plan for them. Fortunately gas prices have fallen which helps a lot with the stress levels. Still, we come to Church to praise God as a family, a Church family, to share in a spiritual meal. We come with both hope and faith that God will provide just what we need. We, in our hearts know He will, in his time, but we want to hear this told to us. What is your goal in this life, to enter heaven, and finally see the beatific vision? Or do you hope just to make it through this week and worry about next week on Saturday? If you desire to enter heaven, come with me on a journey where I share in part with you a lecture given on the end times. My hope is that you will see the happiness of the end.

You lived your life the best you could, trying to follow God's commandments, going to frequent confession. Your material component (body) of your being, either violently, all at once or simply through the passage of time becomes less and less able to be the material bearer of our form (soul) and you die. Death is the separation of our form from our matter. When we are dead, we are really dead. This moment of death is EXTREMELY important for two reasons: Merit Ceases and Judgment takes place. What do we mean by this? We mean that how we are at the moment of death is how we are forever. The state of our soul and its relationship to God at the moment of death is its state eternity. A rotten life, followed by a final repentance and perseverance = you are in a state of grace forever. On the contrary, a good life followed by a final apostasy would mean you are in apostasy forever. EVERYTHING hinges on that last moment, which is why we constantly pray for the intercession of the saints and for God’s help at the moment of death—last part of the Hail Mary, for example.

It is the moment when we undergo what the tradition calls our “Individual judgment” In death; we come to eternity, which isn’t so much a “place” or a “time” as it is the reality that contains all space and time. We come face to face with ultimate reality, that is, with God Himself. Everything in our life is just a preparation for this (for lack of a better term) “moment”. At this moment, there are only three possibilities with regard to meeting up with the Ultimate Reality. We are perfectly ready to receive it, (Heaven) we are imperfectly ready to receive it, (Purgatory) or we are not ready to receive it. (Hell)

Corresponding to each one’s individual judgment, there will be a general judgment. The main question you might ask here is – why bother if there was already an individual judgment? All three Answers, all having to do with God’s justice: One, Effects: Individual acts, public or private, good or bad, have effects and consequences that long outlast the act itself. At the individual, judgment God will judge the individual and their individual acts, but here each will be judged in their effects on others, in the consequences for humanity that the individual acts resulted in. Two, Motives: It is fitting that what was hidden to all or most, should be manifested to all. Everyone will get the full story of the world’s history. All the intentions of everyone’s hearts will be laid bare for all to see. Three, Fittingness: Not only should the individual be honored or blamed by God for his acts, but also by all the other members of his race. Hence, the public character of this judgment will confer also a communal honor or dishonor to each according to his acts.

The essence of Heaven is nothing less than a participation in the very act, the true life, of God, the eternal, perfect, supernatural bliss of the life of the Persons of the Trinity. And we have access to this life in Christ, who, as God who is Man “made a space” in God’s very life for humanity. If this doesn’t make you want to die and go to heaven then there is something wrong with your soul.

So, what is Heaven going to be like? And, what are we going to be doing for eternity? It is, I think, very important to get a more detailed understanding of the joys of heaven. If the saints are right that Hell fire and Brimstone are more apt to convert people and keep them on the right path through FEAR, they are equally right in seeing that once that has been accomplished, PROGRESS in the spiritual life is primarily gotten through DESIRE and LOVE. If we are really to Love and Desire Heaven it has to be for its own sake and not simply because it is not Hell.

In heaven, we will truly love our neighbor as ourselves. His joy will be our joy. Insofar as someone else has a greater participation in God in heaven than we do, so much the more will our own joy increase. Infinite life and joy is INFINITE. Now how this affects us: How does the beatific vision affect our body; how does it affect the soul? God will be in the soul perfectly and this perfection will overflow into the body.

What will the resurrected body of man be like? The tradition gives 4 properties of the risen body, patterned after the risen body of Christ: One. Impassibility = Perfect dominion of soul over body means negatively, incapability of suffering (every tear will be wiped away) Rom 6:9 Christ once dead, never dies again, death no longer has power over him Two, Subtlety = Perfect dominion of soul over body Insofar as spirit is the form of the body. Lk 24:39; Jn 20:19 Three, Agility = capability of the body to obey the soul with perfect ease and speed, perfect dominion of the soul over the body, Insofar as soul moves the body. Lk 24 = Jesus bi-locating Four, Clarity = free of all deformity, filled with beauty and radiance (Transfiguration)

What will our soul be like? Love – the essence of heaven is love of God, but in and through that Love we will also share in the community of life with creatures—the humanity of Christ, the Mother of God, the Angels and the saints. Knowledge—the essence of heaven is the perfect knowledge of God, but in and through that knowledge we will also share in perfect knowledge of God in all his works. So, the short answer to “what will be doing in heaven?” is Enjoying—Enjoying God, and enjoying all creatures in reference to God.

After the End of the world and the general judgment, the whole person, body and soul, and the whole of mankind in all its individual constituents will enter totally into the Ultimate Reality. There really is only ONE ultimate reality, and that is God the Trinity. That ultimate reality will either be an everlasting pain to each person, or an everlasting glory. Heaven is the End, not merely in the sense of the last thing in a series, but rather in the sense of the absolute PURPOSE of everything. Those who are in Hell or Purgatory have either permanently or temporarily FAILED TO REACH THE END/Purpose for which they and everything else was created.