Heaven: Our True Home
This is what our earthly purpose is all about!
Who are rewarded in heaven?
Those are rewarded in heaven who have died in the state of grace and have been purified in purgatory, if necessary, from all venial sin and all debt of temporal punishment; they see God face to face and share forever in His glory and happiness.
(a) The happiness of heaven consists in the beatific vision ant! the consequent joy of the blessed. This happiness is not postponed to the end of the world but begins as soon as all venial sin and the temporal punishment for sin have been remitted.
(b) The body participates in this happiness only after the resurrection at the end of the world.
(c) The blessed rejoice in the company of Our Saviour, the Blessed Virgin Mary, all the angels and saints, and the friends they knew on earth who have attained the reward of eternal life.
(d) There is no sorrow or pain in heaven; the joy is complete, though unequal, throughout an eternity.
The Baltimore Catechism, no. 3, Lesson 14
Heaven is Fullness of Communion with God
Heaven as the fullness of communion with God was the theme of the Holy Father's catechesis at the General Audience of 21 July 1999. Heaven "is neither an abstraction not 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," the Pope said.
1. 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 fulfilment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness" (n.1024).
Today we will try to understand the biblical meaning of "heaven", in order to have a better understanding of the reality to which this expression refers.
2. 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" (Gn 1:1).
Heaven is the transcendent dwelling-place of the living God
Metaphorically speaking, heaven is understood as the dwelling-place of God, who is thus distinguished from human beings (cf. Ps 104:2f.; 115:16; Is 66:1). He sees and judges from the heights of heaven (cf. Ps 113:4-9) and comes down when he is called upon (cf. Ps 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 (cf. 1 Kgs 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 Mc 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 (cf. Gn 5:24) and Elijah (cf. 2 Kgs 2:11). Thus heaven becomes an image of life in God. In this sense Jesus speaks of a "reward in heaven" (Mt 5:12) and urges people to "lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven" (ibid., 6:20; cf. 19:21).
3. 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" (Heb 4:14), and "entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself" (ibid., 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" (Eph 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.
4. 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 Thes 4:17-18).
Mary's Part In Salvation and Her Intercession
What the Catholic Church really teaches on Mary's mediatorship and co-operation in the redemption:
Although Christ is the Sole Mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2, 5), since He alone, by His death on the Cross, fully reconciled mankind with God, this does not exclude a secondary mediatorship, subordinated to Christ ... [Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1974), 211].
The title Coredemptrix=Coredemptress ... must not be conceived in the sense of an equation of the efficacy of Mary with the redemptive activity of Christ, the sole Redeemer of humanity (1 Tim. 2, 5). [...] Her co-operation in the objective redemption is an indirect, remote co-operation, and derives from this that she voluntarily devoted her whole life to the service of the Redeemer, and, under the Cross, suffered and sacrificed with Him. As Pope Pius XII says ..., she "offered Him on Golgotha to the Eternal Father together with the holocaust of her maternal rights and her motherly love like a new Eve for all children of Adam" (D 2291). As "The New Eve" she is, as the same Pope declares ..., "the sublime associate of our redeemer" ... .
Christ alone truly offered the sacrifice of atonement on the Cross; Mary merely gave Him moral support in this action. Thus Mary is not entitled to the title "Priest" (sacerdos). [...] Christ, as the Church teaches, "conquered the enemy of the human race alone (solus)" (D 711); in the same way, He alone acquired the grace of Redemption for the whole human race, including Mary. The words of Luke 1:38[,] "Behold the handmaid of the Lord," imply Mary's mediate, remote co-operation in the Redemption. St. Ambrose expressly teaches: "Christ's Passion did not require any support" (De inst. virg. 7) [Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 212-13].
The Catholic Church is clearly emphasizing that CHRIST is the ONLY redeemer and that his sacrifice was perfectly sufficient.
It is Heaven and Hell that put bite into the Christian vision of life on earth, just as playing for high stakes puts bite into a game or a war or a courtship.
