Every time we attend a wake or funeral or pass by a cemetery, we are vividly reminded of our mortality. Our life on this earth is finite and those of us who are strong will live seventy to ninety years, give or take a few years. This mortality, we all must come to grips with, points to the fact that our destiny lies elsewhere. For those who have welcomed God into their lives and have sincerely opened themselves to His love are destined to spend eternity with God in Heaven. I have often pondered what Heaven will be like. 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.” (CCC 1024) Heaven is understood as the dwelling-place of God, who is thus distinguished from human beings. After our earthly life, participation in complete intimacy with the Father thus comes through our insertion into Christ’s paschal mystery. Thus heaven becomes an image of life in God. 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. Any description we try to place on heaven often seems to come up short. After all, we who live in time, in this valley of tears, can never attain complete fulfillment and happiness in this life. We always find ourselves hungry for something more, something else. What is it that could quench our thirst for happiness and fulfillment to such a degree that we could truly be happy for eternity? I think Saint Paul said it best when he said, “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9) These words capture the indescribability of a place that will make us happy beyond our wildest hopes and dreams. The book of Revelation adds a wonderful foreshadowing, “They will look upon his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more, nor will they need light from lamp or sun, for the Lord God shall give them light, and they shall reign forever and ever.” (Rev. 22:4-5)
If Heaven is nigh indescribable, what must Hell be like? Hell is the absence of God. If God created all good things, His absence must be horrifying. Redemption remains an offer of salvation which it is up to us to freely accept or reject. The New Testament using fiery imagery presents the place destined for evildoers as a furnace, where people will “weep and gnash their teeth.” The Book of Revelation also figuratively portrays in a “pool of fire” those who exclude themselves from the book of life, thus meeting with a “second death.” (Rv. 20:13) Whoever remains closed to the Gospel is preparing for “eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.” (2 Thes 1:9) Most of us, when we think of horrible ways in which we can die think of being burned alive as ranking near the worst. Hell however rather than being thought of as a place becomes even more terrible when placed in the perspective of it being a state in which those who separate themselves from God will continue that separation from the source of all life and all joy.
For some, it will be necessary to be purged further of imperfections. For these souls, their initial destination will be purgatory. If God is perfect and heaven is the place where those who have achieved worthiness to spend eternity with him dwell, then those who die not yet ready for heaven, but not deserving hell need a place to dwell until they are ready to join God. This purification will be a painful process and is described quite well by Saint Paul, “If the work which any man has built on the foundation [which is Christ] survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” (1 Cor. 3: 14-15)
We must always keep in mind, that we have great control over where we will go after this life and are preparing for and experiencing a bit of that final destination in the here and now.
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