There is a subtle view, widely held by people of faith, that heaven will be experienced in the same way, by all those deemed worthy by God to attain it. But what if that view is wrong? What if heaven is experienced by the saints differently?
In my opinion, what this widely held view produces, in operation, is a minimalist effort to live one’s life in accordance with the two Great Commandments. And these two Great Commandments as Jesus taught us are:
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest commandment. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mt 22: 37-39)
Essentially, this subtle view creates, in one’s subconscious, a mindset to do just enough to get to heaven. Unfortunately, this leaves the two Great Commandments unfulfilled by many, as testified to, by the actions they chose during their life.
In addition, most of those who hold this view dismiss the existence of Purgatory, which only serves to further the case for a minimalistic approach to one’s life choices. With a misunderstanding of what God’s mercy truly is, and with no Purgatory to concern oneself with, our life choices can, and generally do become more self-indulgent. Which is another way of saying we end up putting our own interests ahead of those of God and neighbor. This is the exact opposite of what the two Great Commandments direct us to do.
In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul revealed that there are three great things: faith, hope and love. But he stated the greatest of these is love. This makes sense as faith and hope are transitory; a means to an end, which is heaven. Neither exists in the next life. They cease their useful purpose for which they were initially given to us by God, upon death and God’s judgment of one’s life. That judgment determines whether one will spend eternity in heaven or hell, where neither of these two virtues is of any usefulness.
But love endures! The mutual love we feel for our loved ones, who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith, transcends the grave! For the very essence of God is love! In point of fact, it is only love that endures the grave and it is only love that will accompany us to the heavenly banquet. Or more appropriately our capacity to love! In my opinion, this point reveals the very meaning and purpose of our life on earth.
To that end, we must first understand that love is an act of the will and not solely a feeling as so many believe it to be. It requires us to surrender our will to the will of God and to the needs of our neighbor.
The greatest act of love for all-time is captured in every image of a crucifix! And that act by Jesus wasn’t filled with feelings we typically associate with love. But rather it was filled with misery and pain to make atonement for our sins. Jesus, in this act of love, perfectly fulfilled the two Great Commandments: loving God and loving neighbor!
In human nature, repeated actions form habits whether they be good or bad. If love is expressed as an action of the will, then repeated acts of love will be habit forming. It works the same way as a runner who pushes himself to build up his endurance to run a marathon. Both require discipline, focus and sacrifice. It therefore stands to reason, that the more we exercise love through acts of love, the greater will our capacity to love become!
Have you ever wondered why God puts us into these earthly bodies of ours for eighty or ninety years when eternity weighs in the balance? To what purpose; to what end? When one measures their earthly life, in comparison to eternity, it is infinitely short. To analogize this point, it is infinitely shorter in duration, on a relative basis, than a snap of one’s finger is to the length of one’s earthly life! Think about that for a moment.
This infinite brevity of our earthly life renders it either insignificant and unimportant, or conversely, precious and extremely important. It’s necessarily one or the other. Of course the answer is the later. Life is precious and extremely important! Jesus became incarnate to lay down his life to save us. If life had no meaning why would Jesus make such a supreme sacrifice to save us? So what is the takeaway from this that should guide us in living our life?
Many, if not most people, are only concerned about that briefest of moments; that snap of the finger of time, from a self-indulgent point of view. But its true purpose is, for each of us, to use this earthly time to learn how to love to the fullest extent possible!
Now that I have established a basis that love endures into the next life and repeated acts of love increase our capacity to love, how will this manifest itself in heaven? Well, this really gets to the meaning of the title of this article. That being, heaven as a place of infinite possibilities!
One of the greatest verses in all of Sacred Scripture is “God is love.” God loves us more than we can fathom! So how can heaven be a place of infinite possibilities? Well, what if our capacity to love determines the extent to which we receive God’s love? Think of our capacity to love as our receptors of God’s love. The best way for me to explain this is by an analogy.
Imagine yourself on a tropical island standing on the seashore at sunset with two others. The vision is teeming with so many vivid colors. The colors of the sunset in the sky and reflected upon the water, the colors of the tropical plants and flowers arrayed in all their beauty, the sand glistening from the sun’s fading rays! It is truly the most beautiful thing you have ever seen! In fact, all three of you agree that it is by far the most beautiful thing that any of you have ever laid eyes upon.
But each person sees this scene differently by virtue of having a different eyesight. The person to your left has 20:100 eyesight, while the person on your right has 20:10 vision and yours is 20:40.
Now the scene in my analogy represents God’s love for us. Notice it is the exact same scene that each person looks upon. What changes is the person’s ability to take in that scene by virtue of their respective eyesight. And each person’s eyesight in my analogy represents a person’s capacity to love. They can’t be jealous of one another as they cannot imagine what the others are seeing. So too with our respective capacity to love! There is no jealousy in heaven. Ask yourself “what condition is my receptor of God’s love in”?
Think of the many occasions that are presented to us during our lives to love. Now imagine the infinite possibilities which those occasions to love can produce to enrich our experience of God’s love in heaven! It comes down to whether we submit our wills to the will of God and the needs of our neighbor in the everyday and ordinary circumstances of life.
Some might object to this viewpoint by saying “you can’t earn your way into heaven”. But loving God and loving neighbor is what Jesus commanded us to do. To love in this manner presupposes a lively faith in God which is his gift to us! As faith is a prerequisite to salvation.
It stands to reason that someone who loves in this manner, and does so repeatedly over the course of their life, will experience God’s love to a greater extent than someone who has a deathbed conversion. Think of the lives of St Theresa of Calcutta and St. Ditmas the good thief, who was crucified with Christ, and who some say stole heaven with his dying breath. Does it really make sense that these two saints would experience heaven in the same way? In fact, there are 31 biblical references that would say otherwise. They specifically reference that God repays each one according to his deeds.
In Matthew’s Gospel, when referring to the teaching of the law, Jesus stated, “whoever breaks the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven” and whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven”. Why would Jesus use such words if there were no differences in our heavenly experiences?
My purpose in writing this article isn’t to have you focus on the rewards of heaven. But rather to draw your attention to the errors that, in my view exist, with the subtle, yet widely held view of heaven that invariably lead to a minimalist approach to life. Doing just enough to get there. All life is precious, and God places many souls in our path during our lives. Love is contagious. If we love unconditionally our lives will be a force for good in a world desperately in need of goodness! And by our life choices we will bring greater glory to God with a life well lived!
Photo by Harmen Jelle van Mourik on Unsplash
