Peter John, at first I was impressed by your description of Catholic marriage as Eternal Communion instead of Eternal Marriage. But then I asked myself what does Eternal Communion mean? Does it mean we can hang out with our family just like we can everyone else in the afterlife? In all fairness, I’m asking hypothetical questions that I can’t answer any better.
It means the nature of this existence is so different from Heaven that we can only understand it by analogy. We ultimately have no way of comprehending it, and you do not know it, but that is what you believe too.
You believe that as man now is God once was, as God now is man may become. While Joseph Smith taught all of this as a direct comparison to this life, and that we cannot fully worship a God we cannot understand, that does not mesh with the rest of LDS doctrine about the afterlife. I cannot remember which LDS President said it, but we are all gods in embryo. I think it was actually John Taylor or Wilford Woodruff who said we have all the characteristics Godhead in its embryonic state.
How much can an embryo comprehend the nature of existence of an adult human being? Not at all. The environment, circumstances, and exigencies differ so tremendously as to make it impossible.
Approaching comprehension of the the state of eternal communion first entails recognizing the incorporeal condition of God the father, and this His incarnation as one of us as the only Body he has. It particularly means understanding the unique nature of His conception as having no physical Father at all, as your Book of Mormon even decribes: He is Himself the Very Eternal Father, and is the Son by virtue of taking on Flesh, and this is part of His Eternal Nature, as your Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon shows.
This leads to recognizing the unique condition in which He created His Mother. Then we begin to recognize the Eternal role His Mother plays in His Plan of Salvation, and her role as a revealer of Christ to the World – even today… With that understanding we can begin to comprehend the nature of the Lord’s relationship to His Mother, which is why Catholics pray the Rosary. Meditating on this we begin to get a sense of our relationship to God in the Heavenly realm, enriching our experience in Mass, where we experience what we can of it in this existence.
Enough of this brings a proper frame of mind to read the Song of Solomon without perceiving anything sexual about it at all. This is where God communicates more completely than in any other scripture the blessed state of the Church in full communion with God – but you can’t explain it. Academics can break it down and describe the symbols, but understanding it is a very personal experience. It requires a mind open to Divine influence and revelation with a correct concept of the nature of God and the Incarnation. With that reading that book can literally alter your state of conciousness, just as the Rosary does.
You can study what is written of it to prepare for when the understanding comes, but when it happens it is not like intellectual interpretation. It is like a flip switches in your head and sudddenly you understand everything different.
Here is my answer: The quality of relationship we have with anyone in Heaven is not a matter of an assigned state. It is a matter of the quality of the relationship we have attained before we get there. Heaven goes by one covenant alone, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Whatever we feel in the presence of our loved ones will be there with the same qualities we have, but magnified and enhanced by the overwhelming mutual communion with God.
In Heaven if all you do is hangout with your spouse the same way as anyone else, then that is all you’ve done here. For my part, just hanging out with my wife on Earth is different than hanging out with anyone else. While the state of marriage is just a mortal state, it is still a religious vocation like being a Priest or a Deacon. I would expect some associated eternal blessings to accompany embracing this vocation, just as it comes with embracing a Holy Order. I am content to trust God with the details. It matters more how I keep those covenants now.
