ALTAR & PEW: HEAVEN

Heaven

Introduction

- According to CFC # 2068: Filipinos usually speak of heaven as if it were a “place”, but only because since we live in time and space, we imagine everything as a place. Actually, HEAVEN means the state of “being with the Lord,” (cf. 1 Thes 4:17).

- The Question: In this chapter we shall comment, so far as Scripture and tradition offer us any clues, on the life of the individual within the total community. As we have repeatedly stressed, the future of man with Christ and with God is not, until the resurrection, the total fulfillment that will constitute heaven; in this sense, heaven is still “not yet.” We shall begin with some comments about the biblical concept of heaven before going on our discussion of the individual elements of the heavenly life.

THE WORD “HEAVEN”

- Both OT and NT the word “heaven” is used in many senses.

- It refers to the arch of the heavens; to the dwelling-place of God; his throne; the holiness reserved to him; the place proper to him.

- Heaven opens when God speaks to man (Mt. 3, 17; Jn. 18; 2 Pet. 1,18).

“17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." Mt.3:17

- the incarnate Logos comes down from heaven to earth…(Jn.8:23)

“23 He said to them, "You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world (John 8:23).

- Revelation 19: 11 Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.

- From heaven he sends his spirit (Mt. 3,16; Acts 2:2; ! 1 Pet.1:12).

“2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” Acts 2:2 ff.

- These texts do not mean that God’s existence is confined to a specific place but rather express his sovereignty over the whole world and all of history, his active and dynamic world dominion.

- The word heaven is expressive of quality; refers primarily to the divine power which rules all human power and the forces of the universe and is therefore a word symbolizing GOD.

HEAVEN AND THE LIFE-FORM CREATED BY CHRIST

- When the faithful are promised that they will enter into heaven, the promise means that they will go to God; it does not give the assurance of a special dwelling-place.

- Rising into heaven does not mean a movement in any spatial sense, but a special mode of fulfilled life, the life with God.

- Christ’s resurrection marks the beginning of heaven; its fullness will be reached with the completion of the total Body of Christ as the community of all the members who believe in him.

- The Christological element of the heavenly life is expressed by both Paul and John in many images.

- Heaven is called being with Christ (Jn.14:3).

- Salvation and damnation are summed up in the words of the Lord: “Come to me” and “Depart from me.”

- To be with the Lord for ever is the goal of Paul’s most intense yearning (1 Thess.4:17f.: 2 thess. 2:1; Rom.6:23; Phil. 4:19; Col.13;2ff.)

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

- The Eucharistic meal in particular is an anticipation of the eternal satisfaction of hunger and thirst in the union of love between Christ and his members.

- In the Eucharist the Lord gives himself to his Christ and his own, but hidden under a sign.

- This gift of himself is, however, ordered towards that giving of himself which will be unveiled.

- The Eucharist prepares us for heavenly encounter.

- In the encounter with Christ man’s hunger and thirst for life are satisfied with eternal life. His quest for truth reaches its fulfillment in the pure light of Truth which Christ is.

HEAVEN AS FACE-TO FACE ENCOUNTER WITH GOD

- Christ as Truth, Life, and Light, may be, it is still not the last step in the complete realization of perfect humanity. Christ remains what he was in this earthly life, the mediator with God the Father.

- When Jesus says the he is the Way (Jn. 14:2), the meaning is not temporally circumscribe; it is an invitation for ever.

- Christ leads to God the Father. He is the Son, who has everything in the Father’s house at his disposal; he can invite a guest into his Father’s house without any fear that the Father will reject him.

- He invites his friends to feast at the family table of God, and through this he mediates to them the Father’s love, and therby the happiness of being loved and being able to love (Mk. 10,14; Mt.12,28; 22,1-14; Lk. 12,37; 22,26ff.; Jn.13,1-17; 12.2).

- NRS Matthew 22:1 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying:2 "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.

- Mark 10:14 “But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”

- Heaven is an exchange of love between God and man. The author of the Psalms exclaims that neither riches, power, nor pleasure can bring happiness to man, but only God, and that nothing worse can be fall him than the loss of God.

- Both in the Scriptures and in later theological writings, this exchange of love is called the vision of God.

- But man is not able to see God, the most real of all beings and the ground of reality itself, is due to God’s transcendence of the creation.

- Despite his own godlikeness, the power of perceiving God does not belong to man’s constitution.

- Many of the Church Fathers-especially Augustine-were of the opinion that although man possesses by nature the capacity for the vision of God, this capacity has been so much weakened by sin that he must be healed by grace before he can see God (existential foundation).

- Thomas Aquinas set forth the view that man is ordered to the vision of God but does not have the power to realize this innate capacity bestowed on him in creation (ontological-existential foundation).

- Neo-scholastic theologians argue that the vision of God is a strictly super-natural occurrence: man is incapable of it not merely because of his sinful condition but by his very nature. They hold, however, that man does possess the potency (potential obedientialis) to receive the capacity for the beatific vision from God as a gift.

- There is in man an unslakable thirst, an unfathomable longing, to know the personal mystery of the universe.

- When God reveals himself to man, this longing which is fundamental to human nature is satisfied.

- In OT: “No man can see me and live” (Ex.33,20)

- Christ declares: “Blessed are the pure, the upright, for they shall see God” (Mt. 5,8).

- The vision will be granted only to those who give themselves unreservedly to God. Only the pure are permitted and have the capacity to see God.

- “Here and now, dear friends, we are God’s children; what we shall be has not yet been disclosed, but we know that when it is disclosed we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn.3,2).

The Teaching of the Church

· As an everlasting happiness

· Eternity

It will be recalled that Pope Benedict XII, in a treatise of January 29, 1336, sets forth the thesis that the beatific vision begins immediately after death or after the purification of purgatory and will continue without interruption and without end. There is also the constitution Benedictus Deus, which is not only an objective statement concerning what is to come but also a call to man, in the midst of a world full of grief and suffering, oppression and disaster, not to yield to doubt, but to strive the life of joy and happiness in God, who is love.

The Nature of the Meeting with God

1. Beatific Vision- not viewed OBJECTIVELY. It is an exchange of Joy-giving and Life-giving between God and man.

The word VISION has intellectual connotation- in biblical sense it is an act leading to union.

A personal God cannot be an object at the disposal of man; he is always the Lord who gives himself, Love who gives himself freely. There is no diminution of the divine transcendence in this encounter.

How it is to be reconciled?

Medieval theologians- man has the capacity to attain a vision of the transcendent God through the LIGHT OF GLORY, conferred on him. This would transform the power of man’s knowing and loving.

Only when he possesses this light of glory can man be in the divine presence without being destroyed by the intensity of God’s love and his light (Ex.33, 21).

Is vision of God consists more in an act of knowledge or an act of love?

The vision of God and exchange of love with him takes place at that deepest level of the spirit where knowing and loving are not yet separate faculties Aristotelian philosophy makes of them.

According to Scripture, it is the heart which sees God. This is the very centre of man’s being, where knowledge and love are one.

Human experience of exchange love is through words or accompanied by words, a conversation; by analogy man and the divine exchange of love also has the form of conversation.

It is a conversation through and with Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, where the glorified Lord is the eternal Word and the eternal Response. Our conversation with God, therefore, is a participation in that dynamic wherein the eternal Word engages with God the Father, in the Holy Spirit, in the inner Trinitarian exchange of knowledge and love.

But, even in the beatific vision God’s transcendence remains ultimately a mystery that can never be penetrated to its depths.

Christ as mediator unites man with the Father. The union of the blessed in the uttermost intimacy is an essential element of Heaven.

2. HEAVEN- not a state wherein the person who has been saved lives alone with God, but one wherein he lives with God in community of brothers and sister who are also saved, seeing them in them and seeing God in them.

The Scripture uses a picture of heavenly life through a community gathered around a dining table. This heavenly community is free of all those defects.

But, this state of unity still sets a limit; no “I” can be fused with any “Thou”. The man (I) remains “I”, the “Thou” remains “Thou”.

The Notion of Meeting Friends Again- implied in the answer Jesus gave to the Sadducees when they try to trap him. He did not deny that she would be reunited with the seven men in heaven, but only denied that there would be marriage in heaven (Mk. 12, 18-27).

Another element of heavenly life comes from union with Christ. He is the firstborn of the new creation, ever present to the world as the Glorified one. He is present wherever two or three are gathered in his name; in special way in the celebration of the Eucharist and other sacraments.

Yet, at the same time, he sits at the right hand of the Father, exercising his power over history and human hearts and calling mankind into the future.

There is cosmic element in the life of heaven. It is because of Christ union with the Father and his relation to the world.

REMARKS

The Degrees of Heaven

God gives himself totally to all the blessed, but they differ in their capacity to receive him. The fulfillment is essential the same, but the intensity of individual experience of God differs.

It has no connection with the distinctions, like those of social classes, which prevail in the world. On the contrary, many who are first in the world will be last in heaven, and many who are last in the world will be first. (Lk. 6, 20-25…)

The criterion for the degree of heaven is the love of Christ, of God, and of the Brethren. Every soul will possess that measure of joy and perfection which corresponds to his capacity- that is, his ability to love.

Heaven

It is the state of “being with the Lord,” (cf. 1 Thes 4:17), living in Him in whom the blessed find the perfection of their identity and the perfect consummation of their earthly lives (cf. CCC 1023-1029). By His death and resurrection, Christ “opened up the gates of heaven,” meaning He has enabled the blessed to enjoy the “depths of God” by the Spirit, in the presence of the whole “Church in glory,” that is, all those have been gathered together and incorporated into His Body.[1]

Grace and Reward

The life of heaven can be considered as grace and as reward. It is first of all grace, but it is also recompense of the man who obeyed his call during earthly life. By living in faith, hope, and love during his earthly course, man exercises himself in the virtues of that perfect life which he attains in heaven. God has promised to draw into an eternal dialogue of love whoever will prepare for it with the aid of grace. God gives to man’s actions signify the full maturing of that love to which a man aspired during his earthly life and endeavored to achieve, but could never do so perfectly.

Peace and Joy

In the Church’s liturgy we frequently find the words “eternal rest”. The rest of heaven allows man to be active in a measure fitted to his nature and in a way he desires: it is ordered towards love.

Heaven is at once the most intense activity and the highest form of rest, for it involves the greatest exercise of love.

The Synoptic gospels describe the life of heaven in terms of freedom from the distress and suffering of earthly existence. The life to come will bring what Christ taught his disciples to pray for (Mt.6,13): liberation from temptation, sin, suffering, and death. The recollection of sins committed on earth will cause only an intensification of the happiness of heaven: for the more threatening and fearful the past was, the greater the joy in being saved. Satan’s power will be broken, and the saved will have no more anxiety over the encroachment of evil (Mt. 12: 24-50); it is contained within the province of God’s mercy (Mt. 5:5-10; Mk 10:24ff; Lk. 6: 20-26).

Paul interjects the hope of heaven into his letters by way of a reminder, warning of a temptations and afflictions of temporal existence (2 Thess. 1:6; 2:16; Rom. 2:6-11; 8:1ff; 2 Cor. 4:10-18).

Eternal Life

When Scripture and other texts of the Church call heaven “eternal life”, they are referring to its endless duration of course; but their reference is even more to the quality of the life of heaven.

Eternal means that heaven is the final fixing in ceaseless motion towards God and into God, and so into itself. In all the uncertainties in life and time, faith safeguards the certainty of this hope. The way is full of struggle and confusion, but it is illuminated by the confidence that the goal of human history will be reached: the presence of God, perfect justice and reconciliation, love as the power of a deep, all-encompassing brotherhood.[2]

Nature of Everlasting Life

The life Christians believe in and hope for is based firmly on God’s promises in the Old Testament Covenant (Gn. 3:16-18); Ps 105, etc.) and particularly in Christ’s resurrection and risen life.

~ No longer will we have to lie to ourselves that what we enjoy now will last forever. It will not, but it will be turned a hundredfold.

~ No longer must we fear and disguise the reality of death. We will die, but live ever more fully in Christ.

~ No longer need we deplore the fleeting, transitory character of time that drains away even the memory of our earthly fragile joys. These momentary sparks of joy will be brought together in the eternal Light of the Risen Christ.

~ No longer must we bewail twisted limbs, withered by age, or dread the revelation of our sinfulness-we shall be made whole in a new creation of body and soul.

~ No longer will solitary emptiness and loneliness threaten us-we will be received in the company of all Christ’s joyous members.[3]

[1] Catechism for Filipino Catholics, 602.

[2] Eschatology: The Destiny of Man, 270-274.

[3] Catechism for Filipino Catholics, 598.