The liturgies of these final days of the Church year would have us consider what the Catechism calls, the “last things:” death, judgment, heaven, and hell.” With the exception of heaven, of course, they are not the most appealing to ponder, but they make up what is called “eschatology”—the end times and our eternal destiny.
Today we meet the Sadducees who raise the issue of the resurrection of the dead with Our Lord. The Sadducees were a sect within Judaism—part of the ruling class—but they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead or the soul’s immortality. So, they intended to ridicule Jesus and all who believe in the resurrection by posing an absurd case, using the Mosaic law itself, of a woman married seven times to brothers who die one after another…suggesting that at the resurrection there will be confusion as to whose wife she really is! Were I one of those brothers, I’d avoid my sister-in law! Talk about having an in-law problem!
Our Lord refutes their argument using the Mosaic law and teaches that the life of heaven will be quite different from earthly realities. We cannot project earthly realities into our understanding of heavenly realities. We should not think of heaven in terms of this earth. But we tend to do that. Don’t we hear people speak about their deceased loved ones with images such as
Uncle George playing that perfect game of golf for eternity
Aunt Susie giving the angels and saints a taste of her exquisite meatballs
Cousin Millie who loved to sing joining the celestial choir. She can now finally carry a tune!
What are your images of heaven? Wings and halos? Robes, harps, trumpets? Floating along on a cloud? Standing at the pearly gates with the hope that St. Peter finds our name in his book? These are amusing images, but they are also our poor human attempt to describe a reality that is far beyond our imagining. When we think about it, don’t they trivialize a truth, a reality that should be considered with great seriousness?
St. John had a vision of a new heavens and a new earth. Heaven is our goal, Christ’s promise and desire for us: “This is the will of my Father, he said, “that everyone who looks upon the Son and believes in him will have eternal life. Him I shall raise on the last day.”
Yet, we know so little about it. Scripture provides images but hardly any details about heaven. Perhaps this is because God knows that it is impossible for our natural faculties to grasp any supernatural truth in its totality. Fr. Roland Knox said that trying to describe heaven is “like wanting to play the works of Wagner on the teeth of a comb.”
What will life be like; what will we do in heaven? Will we become bored? Is it like being in church for eternity? Would it be like being at Our Lady of Sorrows Church for all eternity…with me in the pulpit? Now that’s a scary prospect. Actually, that would be a great suffering and suffering has no place in heaven.
Heaven is our goal and what God wants for us. Whether we enter it, depends on how we spend our lives on earth. While we imagine St. Peter holding the keys to heaven’s gate, the Lord has given us the key in the Gospel when our Lord said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” St. John of the Cross reminds us that in the evening of life, we shall all be judged on love.
Only then will we come to know what God has prepared for us—what “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor even conceived in the mind of man.” That is our goal, let us pursue with all our strength.
