If you ever read one of these, the time is now...

If you watch LOST, then this blog is infinitely appropriate considering the series finale was last night. But before I get to the meat of the topic, I want to tell you something that I am learning more and more every day. It is hard to explain properly, but it is something that seems so simple and yet I have been missing it my entire life till know. It is the idea that God comes to wherever you are. After watching the last episode of LOST last night I was overcome by the sheer awesomeness of the story. I won’t spoil it if you haven’t seen it yet. Needless to say I was sitting up in my chair crying…literally overwhelmed with tears. I asked myself why. Why am I crying over the end of this show? It is not so important to me. Why cry? I realized that the story of the show had reached deep within me and I was crying for a completely unrelated reason. I came to this conclusion by thinking about the last time I had cried like that. It was my Grandpa’s funeral in South Dakota. I hadn’t cried about his death up until after the burial ceremony. The friends, the family, it seemed almost everyone in town went to St. Mary’s Church (the church my grandfather had attended regularly, from birth to death) for a supper. The cousins had stayed behind at the cemetery to watch over our Grandpa a little longer before going to the church. When we got there, something keep me back, I don’t remember what, but when I got to the table my family was sitting at, there wasn’t a place for me. In the 27 years I spent traveling with my family up to South Dakota to visit my Grandpa, there was never a time that there wasn’t a place for everyone (my Grandfather would often wait till everyone was seated before starting the blessing before the meal). It was a shot to the gut, my Grandfather was gone and it now seemed like my place at the family table (which I always felt like he guaranteed) was not there either. I lost it. I argued with my brother and then left the church. I went out to our rental car and as soon as I sat in the driver’s seat I burst into tears. Uncontrollable tears that just wouldn’t seem to stop flowed from my eyes. I missed my Grandpa more in that moment than I had in the years of separation before that. I drove back to the cemetery and stood and watched over him as they put the dirt into the grave. I stood, choking back tears, praying for my Grandpa and talking to him. I felt comfort there between the two of us as I watched the finality of his place on Earth. I felt God’s presence then…and I felt it last night. That memory reminded me of how much I loved my Grandpa and how much I missed him. It was almost like God telling me that he was ok and that someday I would see him again and have the chance to tell him how truly great I thought he was. I’m tearing up now writing this. Put simply, God came to me, sitting in my easy chair, where I was, and embraced me. There are only a few people I’ve told this story to about my Grandfather’s funeral. I hope it helps you to let God find you where you are. So what was I going to talk about today and what did LOST have to do with it?…if you've seen the final episode already then this will seem appropriate, if not then read on anyway because the topic has nothing to do with LOST itself.

Philosophers, theologians, and even the drunk guy at your local pub have been trying to answer the same question for ages. The question that is on every mortal person's mind as they seek to be better people through faith looms everywhere. "What is heaven? Where is it?" The response I have from learning and studying in the Catholic faith is: Heaven is "a living, personal relationship with the Holy Trinity. It is our meeting with the Father which takes place in the risen Christ through the communion of the Holy Spirit." It is the fulfillment of God's desire to be one with each man as God is one with Himself in the Trinity (John 17:20-24) . The Church does not know a specific place for heaven, such as in the clouds, except to know that heaven is union with God, face to face, without the mediation of any creature (Catechism 1023-1029). Because of our limited understanding, no amount of description will provide a satisfying understanding of heaven's reality. Historically, various men have described heaven as both a place and a state of being. However, no man can capture the reality and essence of heaven until he has experienced it personally. As St. Paul wrote, "[N]o eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9).

When the form of this world has passed away, those who have welcomed God into their lives and have sincerely opened themselves to his love, at least at the moment of death, will enjoy that fullness of communion with God which is the goal of human life. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, "this perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed is called 'heaven'. Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness" (1024).

In biblical language "heaven", when it is joined to the "earth", indicates part of the universe. Scripture says about creation: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). Metaphorically speaking, heaven is understood as the dwelling-place of God, who is thus distinguished from human beings (Psalms 104:2f; 115:16; Isaiah 66:1). He sees and judges from the heights of heaven (Psalms 113:4-9) and comes down when he is called upon (Psalms 18:9, 10; 144:5). However the biblical metaphor makes it clear that God does not identify himself with heaven, nor can he be contained in it (1 Kings 8:27); and this is true, even though in some passages of the First Book of the Maccabees "Heaven" is simply one of God's names (1 Maccabees 3:18, 19, 50, 60; 4:24, 55). The depiction of heaven as the transcendent dwelling-place of the living God is joined with that of the place to which believers, through grace, can also ascend, as we see in the Old Testament accounts of Enoch (Genesis 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11). Thus heaven becomes an image of life in God. In this sense Jesus speaks of a "reward in heaven" (Matthew 5:12) and urges people to "lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven" (Matthew 6:20; 19:21).

The New Testament amplifies the idea of heaven in relation to the mystery of Christ. To show that the Redeemer's sacrifice acquires perfect and definitive value, the Letter to the Hebrews says that Jesus "passed through the heavens" (Hebrews 4:14), and "entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself" (Hebrews 9:24). Since believers are loved in a special way by the Father, they are raised with Christ and made citizens of heaven. It is worthwhile listening to what the Apostle Paul tells us about this in a very powerful text: "God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:4-7). The fatherhood of God, who is rich in mercy, is experienced by creatures through the love of God's crucified and risen Son, who sits in heaven on the right hand of the Father as Lord.

After the course of our earthly life, participation in complete intimacy with the Father thus comes through our insertion into Christ's paschal mystery. St Paul emphasizes our meeting with Christ in heaven at the end of time with a vivid spatial image: "Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:17-18). In the context of Revelation, we know that the "heaven" or "happiness" in which we will find ourselves is neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but a living, personal relationship with the Holy Trinity. It is our meeting with the Father which takes place in the risen Christ through the communion of the Holy Spirit. It is always necessary to maintain a certain restraint in describing these "ultimate realities" since their depiction is always unsatisfactory. Today, personalist language is better suited to describing the state of happiness and peace we will enjoy in our definitive communion with God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church sums up the Church's teaching on this truth: "By his death and Resurrection, Jesus Christ has 'opened' heaven to us. The life of the blessed consists in the full and perfect possession of the fruits of the redemption accomplished by Christ. He makes partners in his heavenly glorification those who have believed in him and remained faithful to his will. Heaven is the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ" (1026).

This final state, however, can be anticipated in some way today in sacramental life, whose centre is the Eucharist, and in the gift of self through fraternal charity. If we are able to enjoy properly the good things that the Lord showers upon us every day, we will already have begun to experience that joy and peace which one day will be completely ours. We know that on this earth everything is subject to limits, but the thought of the "ultimate" realities helps us to live better the "penultimate" realities. We know that as we pass through this world we are called to seek "the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God" (Colossians 3:1), in order to be with him in the eschatological fulfillment, when the Spirit will fully reconcile with the Father "all things, whether on earth or in heaven" (Colossians 1:20).


After the fever of life--after wearinesses, sicknesses, fightings and despondings, languor and fretfulness, struggling and failing, struggling and succeeding--after all the changes and chances of this troubled and unhealthy state, at length comes death--at length the white throne of God--at length the beatific vision.
- Cardinal John Henry Newman