What will we do in Heaven?

 

 WHAT WILL WE DO IN HEAVEN?

We asked two priests who contribute articles here on The Christian Lounge to share their views. We are grateful for their contributions. Please remember them in your prayers. Thank you.

Here is what Father Francis Maple said: 

What will we do in Heaven?

That is one of the most beautiful questions a Christian can ask.

The short answer is that we shall spend our time in Heaven loving God, knowing God, and sharing perfect happiness with all the saints. Yet this does not mean sitting idle for eternity. Heaven is a life of endless wonder, discovery, joy, and love.

Jesus tells us: "This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3). In Heaven we shall see God "face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12). The saints teach that the vision of God is so beautiful and so fulfilling that it will satisfy every desire of the human heart while at the same time drawing us ever deeper into His infinite mystery.

What might we do in Heaven?

• We shall worship and praise God with the angels and saints.

• We shall rejoice in the company of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints.

• We shall recognize and love those we knew on earth, purified of all selfishness and misunderstanding.

• We shall continue to learn about God's greatness, for His beauty and wisdom are infinite.

• We shall share in God's own joy and love.

• We shall be perfectly at peace, with no sickness, sorrow, loneliness, or death.

The great theologian St. Thomas Aquinas taught that our happiness in Heaven comes from seeing God directly. Yet because God is infinite, there will always be new depths of His goodness and beauty to delight us. Heaven will never become boring.

As you often reflect, Father, Heaven is also reunion. There you hope to meet your parents, brothers and sisters, friends, and all those who have gone before marked with faith. Most of all, you will meet Christ, whom you have preached and served throughout your priesthood.

A lovely image comes from St. Augustine:

"We shall rest and we shall see; we shall see and we shall love; we shall love and we shall praise."

That may be the best description of Heaven: seeing God, loving God, and praising God forever in a joy that never ends.

Here is what Father Jonathan E Moore said: 

“What shall I DO in Heaven.” Is really the wrong question to ask, because it can only ever receive a one word answer, and that is “NOTHING”! Those in heaven are living in a state of eternity and perfection. There is nothing more for them to do, achieve or improve, and neither is there any time for it to be done in. Eternity is a perpetual NOW.

The proper question really is “What shall I BE in Heaven.

An inescapable consequence of earthly life is that we find ourselves with a constant tension between being and doing. We were created to know, love and serve God in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the next. Instinctive hunger for God, so often un-recognised these days, leaves us with the perpetual sense of incompleteness, coupled with the awareness that the clock of our human existence inexorably moves on towards death. Unfortunately, our fallen human nature means that, instead of concentrating on getting to know love and serve God in this world, we tend to concentrate on what’s going on in this world, where we find ourselves in a constant confusion of having, getting, being, achieving etcetera etcetera. This creates a difficulty when in our spiritual lives we begin to attempt to move from verbal prayer into meditation and then contemplation. As we try to move towards a state of being in the presence of God, we find ourselves stricken with a sense that we ought to be doing something!

There is a lovely story about an elderly French peasant who used to spend hours and hours every day just sitting or kneeling before the Tabernacle in his local church, someone once asked him, “But what do you do during all those hours? “ to which he replied, “I look at God, and God looks at me!" That old man had achieved a level of contemplative prayer.

Saint Paul, no less, describes the next life as “a mystery “ which “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Heaven will be happiness beyond all our possible present understanding or imagining. Sometimes in our human lives we find ourselves in a situation where we wish the time would just stand still, so joyous do we feel. These occasions are a little taste of Heaven, where we simply exist in God’s presence, free from all imperfection, responsibility, duty, care, anxiety, sickness and death. We have to trust God that He will give us that bliss which we cannot even imagine.

When I was first ordained more than 50 years ago now I had the joy and privilege of being the curate to Provost Humphrey Wilson, PhD. When I first went to him, he was already 80 years old. He had served as an officer in the Grenadier Guards during the first world war, enduring the horror of trench warfare and of the battles of the Somme and Cambrai. Even before the first world war as a young Edwardian man, he had gone to Australia in search of adventure and experience. In many ways he was the one who taught me how to be a priest. One example of his great wisdom and pastoral compassion came about when a very lonely old lady was grieving over the death of her cat, a beloved and constant companion in her loneliness. She asked the Provost, “Do animals have immortal souls as we do? “He replied in the negative. She then said “So does this mean that I will never see my cat again?” “Tell me, “ replied the old gentleman, “would your happiness in Heaven be incomplete without your cat? “ She replied that she believed this to be the case, and then he said “That  being the case, God will undoubtedly give you your cat in Heaven. “

There is some very good material in the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 1023 through 1029, which I have copied below.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

1023 Those who die in God's grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ. They are like God for ever, for they "see him as he is," face to face. By virtue of our apostolic authority, we define the following: According to the general disposition of God, the souls of all the saints . . . and other faithful who died after receiving Christ's holy Baptism (provided they were not in need of purification when they died, . . . or, if they then did need or will need some purification, when they have been purified after death, . . .) already before they take up their bodies again and before the general judgment - and this since the Ascension of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into heaven - have been, are and will be in heaven, in the heavenly Kingdom and celestial paradise with Christ, joined to the company of the holy angels. Since the Passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, these souls have seen and do see the divine essence with an intuitive vision, and even face to face, without the mediation of any creature.

1024 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.

1025 To live in heaven is "to be with Christ." the elect live "in Christ," but they retain, or rather find, their true identity, their own name. For life is to be with Christ; where Christ is, there is life, there is the kingdom.

1026 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.

1027 This mystery of blessed communion with God and all who are in Christ is beyond all understanding and description. Scripture speaks of it in images: life, light, peace, wedding feast, wine of the kingdom, the Father's house, the heavenly Jerusalem, paradise: "no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him."

1028 Because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as he is, unless he himself opens up his mystery to man's immediate contemplation and gives him the capacity for it. the Church calls this contemplation of God in his heavenly glory "the beatific vision":How great will your glory and happiness be, to be allowed to see God, to be honored with sharing the joy of salvation and eternal light with Christ your Lord and God, . . . to delight in the joy of immortality in the Kingdom of heaven with the righteous and God's friends.

1029 In the glory of heaven the blessed continue joyfully to fulfill God's will in relation to other men and to all creation. Already they reign with Christ; with him "they shall reign for ever and ever."