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A Meditation on Heaven

Homily
Wednesday, November 1, 2006, Solemnity of All the Saints

St. Joseph Parish, Detroit, and Sweetest Heart of Mary Parish, Detroit

           Today’s solemnity, All Saints, is an opportunity for us to meditate on the hope to which we are called, that is, heaven. We rarely meditate in prayer upon heaven. But remembering eternal life, as it has been revealed to us, is the most effective way to grow in the virtue of hope. It is by hope that we find strength, enthusiasm, joy, perseverance and many other spiritual goods.

            Death is not the last word on man. The soul lives on. The soul separated from the body by death does not wait until the world ends and Christ comes for the second time before it begins to experience its eternal recompense, be it for punishment or for reward.[1] And it is a personal reward, we are not all blended into some impersonal spiritual conglomerate, nor united with the “world spirit,” nor made one with some sort of “Nirvana.” The saints are already enjoying eternal happiness, now and before the universal resurrection at the end of time, a happiness which will only be magnified when they are given back their bodies which will be resurrected and glorified.

Heaven is not something we deserve, but a gratuitous gift of God. Since we men are incapable of earning the due merit for everlasting life, both because we are finite, and also because we are sinful, the Father sent his Eternal Son to pay the price of our sins – for every sin carries a very large price tag – and by paying this price to enable us to enter heaven. None of the just ever entered heaven before Jesus Christ’s paschal mystery. Therefore, to get to heaven, we need to live the Gospel, by repenting from our sins, observing the commandments, receiving the sacraments and both living and dying in a state of grace. Therefore, even the sinner has hope, but under the condition of his repentance.

            What will heaven be like? We will behold God face to face; we will never experience pain or toil or hunger, yet we will feast; we will enjoy the love and communion of all the saints forever, and we will know them and converse with them. “As it is written: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.’[2]”

            Heaven will never end for those who enter. Aphraates the Persian Sage wrote, in around the year 343, this: “Abraham said to the rich man, ‘There is a great abyss separating us from you; they cannot come from you to us, nor from us to you’… Neither can the wicked repent and enter the Kingdom, nor can the righteous any longer sin and go to perdition.”[3]

            The rewards of heaven, like the punishments in hell, are not equal for all, but depend on what merits or demerits we earned in our short lives on earth. St. Paul teaches, “Each and every one shall receive his reward in accord with his work,”[4] and again, “Star exceeds star in brightness; so also the resurrection of the dead.”[5]

            In his book, the City of God, St. Augustine says, “How great will be that happiness, where there will be no evil, where no good will remain hidden, where there will be leisure for the praises of God, who shall be all in all !... There the reward of virtue shall be God Himself, the Author of virtue; and He promised Himself, than whom there can be nothing better or greater. He Himself will be the end of our desires. He shall be seen without end. He shall be loved without surfeit. He shall be praised without weariness… There we shall rest and we shall behold, we shall behold and we shall love, we shall love and we shall praise. This is what shall be in the end without end.”[6]

            For a child, the contemplation of God might not seem like an attractive prospect. It could sound like watching TV for all eternity; but that would be hell (J). By prayer the Christian perceives what it is to long to see God for all eternity. Have you never been overwhelmed by the beauty of the ocean or of a magnificent sunrise or sunset? Have you never heard the beauty of raindrops on forest leaves? Have you never seen the beauty of the person whom you most love? The relishing of such natural beauty passes, but relishing the beauty of God never passes, and is greater than anything that has ever ravished our hearts.

            St. Augustine says in his Confessions, “Man, who is but a portion of Your creation, wishes to praise You. You excite him so that he may find pleasure in praising You, because You made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”[7]

            Of all the great joys in heaven, brothers and sisters, meditate in prayer and ask yourself what heaven will be like, and why it is worth abandoning everything to follow Jesus Christ. Among the joys of heaven, one of the greatest for me will be, I think, contemplating the masterpiece of all of God’s creation, the Blessed Virgin Mary. My heart swells with love to think of my mother in the order of grace, to wonder at her beauty, her purity, her virtue, her sinlessness. May we therefore never be swayed by sin. May we persevere in our repentance, and confess frequently. May we receive communion as often as possible, as our bread for us wayfarers. May we never sacrifice the goods of heaven for the goods of earth. May we live only for God, and in his mercy, may he take us to himself, after our short lives, unto our eternal bliss. Amen.