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How Hopeful are We About Heaven?

As we enter the month of June, many things in church world are slowing down, getting ready for the summer break.  Parish councils are having their last meetings, diocesan committees are wrapping up another pastoral year and even faith development gatherings such as catechism and R.C.I.A. are taking a break.  I am blessed to serve as part of the team that are facilitating the sessions entitled “Dying With Christ, Living With Hope”, and we are presenting for the last time at St. Augustine’s tomorrow (June 2^nd).  One of the questions put forward in the first session is, “what do you think happens when you die?”  My initial response to this was that my wife sells my golf clubs, but I think they are looking for an answer that goes far deeper.  As much as people say they don’t want to talk about death, the vibrant discussions generated at these sessions tell me something different.

So, what do you think happens when we die?  Have you given it any thought at all?  Does the question inspire hope in you or fear?  Maybe some of both.  I put this question to our R.C.I.A. group at our last meeting.  This is a group of adults who have recently completed their initiation into the church and are beginning to live out their Christian lives as Roman Catholics.  One thing that was clear in the answers that were given that evening and in our Dying With Christ sessions up to this point is that, while we obviously don’t know 100% for sure what happens, folks were pretty confident that we don’t go directly to heaven.  The consistency of this response really surprised me.  There were many who said it didn’t seem right to them that someone could die and go directly to heaven without having to atone in some manner for the things done wrong here on earth.  I totally understand that thought process and a part of me agrees with it.  But then I wonder if that is the way God looks at things.  I am reminded of Isaiah 55: 8, which states, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways, declares the Lord.”  I wonder what God means by that.  Is it possible that God may see someone in a more compassionate light than I?  That maybe God sees we are more than what terrible sin we think defines us.  Can we even give a modicum of credence to the idea that God loves us so much that there is nothing we can do that can separate us from that love?  I have come to believe that, while that would be nice, we just can’t get there.  We are more comfortable getting ready to pay the price for the bad we have done than reap the reward prepared for us from the beginning of time.  And not because we are so wonderful but because God is!

Oh, to just let ourselves think for a moment that we are loved that much.  That when we die, we aren’t going to the principle’s office or detention, we are going home.  This is Ascension Sunday, and we celebrate Jesus’ going home to be with his father for eternity.  While on earth, he tried so hard to tell us of the Father’s love for us and that all that was required in return was for us to love in that same way.  And to tell others how much they mean to us and how our lives wouldn’t be nearly as rich without them in it.  But we just don’t seem to be comfortable delivering that message.  Our anxieties and our need to focus on what’s wrong with us keep us paralyzed with fear.

Watching Jesus leave in that fashion must have been amazing, and a little bit terrifying.  But remember what he told us.  He told us that he is leaving, to go and prepare a place for us.  And then he will come back and get you so that where he is, you will be also.  So, what do I think happens when I die?  I get to see my room.  And if Jesus prepared it, no doubt it will be spectacular.

~Mark Mahoney, Pastoral Associate