At our Particular judgment (and should our judgement be favorable and pleasing to God) we will be rewarded with a place and state that is of eternal happiness. Heaven is both a state of being, where there is no more suffering. Where there is joy and more, and a place fitting our reward.
Heaven is a state and a place where those who die in a state pleasing to God will be eternally happy. Jesus ascended following His Resurrection towards the east in an upward direction and He will come back from the same direction (Acts 1:6-12). For Jesus to have a glorified body which was touched by the Apostles (St Luke 24:39) Heaven is also a physical place.
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In many instances in the Bible we have references to the heavens meaning the skies, the universe, the firmament especially in Genesis. But heaven is a place.
Our Lord himself describes heaven as a place:
“Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God: believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and will take you to myself: that where I am, you also may be” (St John 14:1-3).
“And the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God” (St Mark 16:19).
What will our bodies be like?
Our hope is that we will rise again, as Jesus did, with our bodies glorified. Jesus has a glorified body which was able to be touched as St Thomas placed his finger in the wounds of Jesus; prepared a breakfast for the Apostles at the shore-side and broke bread as He dined with the two disciples, following His journey to Emmaus.
With a glorified body, then a physical place is required to house the Son who sits at the right hand of the Father. Therefore at the end of time our bodies will be reunited with our souls and for those who enter into Heaven, will be rewarded with a glorified body.
St Paul says:
“He will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory” (Philippians 3:21)
What are the qualities of the Glorified Body in Heaven?
Like the Resurrected Body of Jesus, our bodies will possess the following qualities:
- Impassibility – the glorified body will no longer suffer physical sickness or death Saint Paul says, “It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption” (1 Corinthians 15:42).
- Subtlety meaning that we will have a spiritualised nature where the Glorified Body will be able to pass through closed doors. St Paul again, “It is sown a corruptible body, it shall rise a spiritual,” i.e. a spirit-like, “body” (1 Corinthians 15:44).
- Agility – the glorified body will obey the soul with the greatest ease and speed of movement: “It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power,” that is, according to a gloss, “mobile and living” (1 Corinthians 15:43)
Saint Thomas Aquinas says:
“But mobility can only signify agility in movement. Therefore the glorified bodies will be agile.”
The Glorified Body will have the ability to bi-locate and travel great distances in an instant.
- Clarity – the glorified body will be free from any deformity and will be filled with beauty and radiance:
“The just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (St Matthew 13:43).
Not only will our bodies possess these glorified qualities but our every wish and desire will be fulfilled including:
- Our thirst for KNOWLEDGE
The Spiritual Soul with the INTELLECT and WILL faculties has the desire to KNOW. In Heaven, this thirst for knowledge will be perfectly satisfied.
The blessed will see God, not with the eyes of the body, but with the intellect which is made for truth. They will see His essence, His attributes, the Persons in the Trinity. They see Him as HE is.
Our Divine Lord assures us of this when He says:
“Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.” (Mat. 5:8).
No created intellect could, by its own power, stand the immediate vision of God. It would be darkened by the excessive light immeasurably more than our eyes are darkened when we look directly at the sun.
Hence, the human intellect needs to be elevated and strengthened to bear the Beatific Vision.
God will open our knowledge to the great mysteries we accepted on earth e.g.
- The Trinity
- The Incarnation
- The Redemption
- Transubstantiation and more …
We will also see the justice and mercy of God. Why God allowed certain things to occur and the many scientific wonders of the world. All will pass before our Intellect and our knowledge.
Heaven satisfies perfectly and for ever our greatest need and contributes to complete our eternal happiness.
- Great need to LOVE and BE LOVED
This will also be perfectly satisfied in heaven. We will LOVE God in the way God loves Himself. Love always vibrates in harmony with knowledge. This is the Charity that is spoken about by St Paul, that of the three – faith, hope and charity – Charity lasts forever!
St. John says,
“God will wipe away all tears from their eyes; and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow; for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
- Our SENSIBILITIES will be Perfected
This sense knowledge will be perfected and refined so that we shall be able to appreciate to the full the grandeur and beauty of the glorious new universe into which our present one will be transformed on the Last Day.
Our love, too, of all that is beautiful in nature, in form and sound and colour, will be enhanced a thousandfold, and become a source of exquisite sensible delight that can never pass away.
Heaven will thus satisfy to the full every desire for pleasure compatible with the condition of a glorified body; and so assure us of the last thing necessary for perfect happiness for ever.
In Summary
Heaven, then, is a PLACE and a STATE in which the angels and human beings who have died in GRACE, KNOW GOD in the way He knows Himself, LOVE Him in the way He loves Himself, and so share His measureless HAPPINESS in eternity.
What are the properties of Heaven?
- Unlosable – Heaven can never be lost and no sin is possible.
St. Paul describes Heaven as “an INCORRUPTIBLE crown” (1 Corinthians 9:5).
And St. Peter says it is
“An inheritance, INCORRUPTIBLE, and UNDEFILED, THAT CAN NEVER FADE” (1 Peter 1:4).
- It Is Eternal – no time exists in Heaven but eternity. The blessed, unlike God, have a beginning in Heaven, but like Him, it can have no end.
Scripture assures us that once the Last Judgment has been pronounced, the wicked
“Shall go into everlasting punishment; but the just, into everlasting life” (St Matthew 25:46).
- It is Ever New – do we grow bored in Heaven? Eternity is not measured in time for it is ever present. It is a now that never passes.
Heavenly joy has therefore a newness that can never fade nor end.
- It Varies For different Persons.
All in heaven have the same object of vision; but all do not know God to the same extent. Hence their love and happiness will vary. Scripture reminds us of this eternal reality:
“When Christ will come to judge us at the end of time, He will “render to every man according to his works” (St Matthew 16:27).
As these will vary with different persons, so will the reward.
St. Paul says the same thing:
“Every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour” (1 Corinthians 3:8).
He also warns us that:
“He that soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly; he that soweth in blessings shall also reap in blessings” (2 Corinthians 9:6).
- Yet Each Will Be Perfectly Happy.
Since everyone in heaven will know, love and enjoy God to the full extent of his/her capacity, each will be perfectly happy.