“Daddy, is heaven beyond the moon and stars, and how is it higher than space?” — Leo
At as little as four years old, the question of heaven — where it is and what it will be like — is already pondered in our hearts.
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| Noah and Grandpa, 14 Oct 2024 |
When the Pharisees asked Our Lord when the Kingdom of God was coming, He said that the kingdom would not be determined by some set of signs and wonders, or by people saying “here it is” or “there it is.” For, in fact, “the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:21).
Our Lord then recalls the terrible times of Noah, when people refused to listen, and of Sodom, when fire and sulphur rained down upon the city, destroying people. Then comes the punchline: those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it. When they ask Him, “Where, Lord?”, He answers, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”
Our Lord is telling us that the door to the Kingdom of God lies in letting go of our need for control. We are not in control of our lives in the truest sense. The Kingdom of God is among us.
My worries and concerns about the future, and my desire to control its outcomes and secure my life, are ultimately not possible. This can sound scary, because to let go feels unsafe. But is that not how we learn some of life’s most basic lessons?
For example, I remember learning how to ride a bicycle on my own. Years later, I can still recall my Dad jogging by my side and then, suddenly, giving me a nudge forward and letting go. At first I felt afraid. Where was my support? But then that fear quickly turned to freedom as I realised I could ride on my own. The freedom came from the reassurance that he trusted me enough to let go, while at the same time I knew he was there by my side should I stumble. Our Lord is not asking us merely to lose control, but to trust Him — to trust that He is there to lovingly guide us along the way.
If the Kingdom of God is among us, then He comes to us in the loving disguise of the Eucharist. Whether we are able to receive Him in the Mass, or sit and adore before the tabernacle — the resting place of the Blessed Sacrament — we may feel that moment of peace, even if only briefly, where our soul feels somehow connected to something great, something beyond the here and now. In these brief glimpses, in those moments when our hearts burn like the early Apostles after meeting the Risen Lord, we know that the Kingdom of God is among us.
At death, it is our body that remains on earth, at least until the final judgment. It is our souls that rise. So when we speak of heaven for the time being, it is therefore a state and not a place, because our bodies are not physically present there. “By ‘heaven’ is meant the state of supreme and definitive happiness” (CC, 209).
In an interview, Dr Peter Kreeft explains:
“God is eternal. He’s not just everlasting; He’s outside of time, and therefore He includes all time. And we can come a little close to that in mystical moments, and in memory and in hope, all of which transcend the present or connect the present with the past and the future. And I don’t think anything else in the universe can do that. So what I look forward to after death is not just more time with better stuff in it, but a different kind of time, a time in which my past becomes present to me.”
Though such ideas are deeply mystical and can at times float over my head, they do help us to see that heaven is not simply “up there” somewhere beyond the stars. If the disciples’ hearts burned in Our Lord’s presence, then we realise that we can taste what heaven might be like — a tiny fraction of the real deal — when we find a moment to be still and in awe before the real presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist.
And the Eucharist is not cracker bread and fruit juice from the grocery store that some pastors mistake for a replacement of Jesus in the breaking of the bread. It is the true living Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, consecrated upon the altar by the hands of the priest, whose unbroken chain traces back to the Apostles of Jesus Christ.
As St Josemaria wrote:
“When you seek to draw close to Our Lord, remember that He is always very close to you, that He is in you. The Kingdom of God is within you. You will find Him in your heart.”
So heaven may seem far away — beyond the moon, the stars, or even outside the universe. However, Our Lord is trying to tell us that we can find heaven, the Kingdom of God, deep in the heart. All it takes is a little searching.
For that reason, I would encourage you to find 30 minutes in the next week to visit a church, sit before the tabernacle, and meditate on Luke 17:20–37 — The Coming of the Kingdom — and what it means for you to have God with you, to have Him in you.
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