What is Heaven like?

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It would be interesting to hear the thoughts of everyone what their perception of Heaven is. (I mean the Heaven after we die - big ‘H’)

What is the Church’s teaching on Heaven? Do we have any records or statements of Saints telling us about Heaven, and what it will be like. What will we do once there? Will it ever get boring?

Love to all.
 
PopeMobile said:
It would be interesting to hear the thoughts of everyone what their perception of Heaven is. (I mean the Heaven after we die - big ‘H’)

What is the Church’s teaching on Heaven? Do we have any records or statements of Saints telling us about Heaven, and what it will be like. What will we do once there? Will it ever get boring?

Love to all.
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In the Buddhist tradition heaven (Nirvana) would only be achieved when every last soul was transformed by Love and awakened. If you arrived at the pearly gates you would refuse entry if but 1 soul remained on earth in darkness.

In the Christian tradition, I would view it as every soul fully surrendered the Christ reality in each person - fully surrendered to God’s will so we, united, returned ourselves to God as the Glory of God…
 
I view it like Boston in 2004 during the parade for the Red Sox breaking the curse of the Bambino.

In all seriousness ,we don’t have a clue what it’s like-and that’s the glory of it. Our little human minds cannot fathom the glory of heaven.
 
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, not has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love Him.” In other words, we do not have the capacity, in this life, to even imagine how wonderful heaven is. (Or, by logical extension, how horrible hell is.)
 
PopeMobile said:
It would be interesting to hear the thoughts of everyone what their perception of Heaven is. (I mean the Heaven after we die - big ‘H’)

What is the Church’s teaching on Heaven? Do we have any records or statements of Saints telling us about Heaven, and what it will be like. What will we do once there? Will it ever get boring?

Love to all.
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no time(as we can understand it), no evil, no suffering, constant adoration:thumbsup:
 
I cannot imagine what it will be like. All I know is what God has revealed to us and what Jesus has told us–it is paradise. I only hope my family I run the race well enough to earn a place with our Father for eternity.
 
I appreciate the responses so far.

Is there any thought as to what we will do? Sitting on clouds all day playing a harp sounds nice, but like could it get boring maybe? I’m just curious what sort of things we would do. Maybe it’s a whole other realm of consciousness where time has no meaning and just “being” there will be enough? Maybe the idea of being “occupied” with something is an earthly concept?

What do you think?
 
PopeMobile said:
I appreciate the responses so far.

Is there any thought as to what we will do? Sitting on clouds all day playing a harp sounds nice, but like could it get boring maybe? I’m just curious what sort of things we would do. Maybe it’s a whole other realm of consciousness where time has no meaning and just “being” there will be enough? Maybe the idea of being “occupied” with something is an earthly concept?

What do you think?
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Well personally, I’m hoping to explore deep space in my own personal shuttle craft (others are welcome aboard too) to see comets and stuff real close up.

Plus, I hope to have as friends the birds of Eastern North America, as well as Australian parakeets. And maybe other birds as I would become acquainted with them. It would be nice to be surrounded by birds in a heavenly choir of their singing praises to God.

I would live very simply in something like a tent or lean-to or cabin out in the forest, go horseback riding, and also have one or several cats as friends.

I wonder if as an artist I would still get to create art?

Meeting saints and angels is definitely a cool thing to look forward to, and of course talking with Jesus and worshiping the Trinity will be the best.

So what would you like to do?
🙂
 
PopeMobile said:
I appreciate the responses so far.

Is there any thought as to what we will do? Sitting on clouds all day playing a harp sounds nice, but like could it get boring maybe? I’m just curious what sort of things we would do. Maybe it’s a whole other realm of consciousness where time has no meaning and just “being” there will be enough? Maybe the idea of being “occupied” with something is an earthly concept?

What do you think?
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Heaven will never be boring!

If you could get a peek of heaven right now, and feel the love of God you would want to stay there and not look back.

The saints had deeply contemplative prayer lives, and sometimes in prayer God would infuse their souls with a knowledge of Himself. This is a taste of heaven, and enables a person, with this grace, to do great things for God.

Heaven is unlike anything we can imagine. Remember the Scripture: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard the wonders that God has prepared for those who love him.”
 
Dorothy said:
Heaven will never be boring!

If you could get a peek of heaven right now, and feel the love of God you would want to stay there and not look back.

The saints had deeply contemplative prayer lives, and sometimes in prayer God would infuse their souls with a knowledge of Himself. This is a taste of heaven, and enables a person, with this grace, to do great things for God.

Heaven is unlike anything we can imagine. Remember the Scripture: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard the wonders that God has prepared for those who love him.”
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Yeah, I realize we can’t comprehend it, but that’s not the same question as what we will do and how we will occupy ourselves. Is it about doing the things we like best, like the user “the phoenix” says bird watching and traveling space and stuff like that? The universe sure is a HUGE place for a reason. Can we imagine that it is our choice what we can do for all eternity? I mean, if I had the opportunity I’d like to read every book ever written, but is that something that is done in heaven? Do people eat in heaven? If people can have birds and look at comets then couldn’t I eat the finest foods to the glory of God? I don’t know if I’m making sense or not… :confused:
 
FWIF…

In Heaven you spend all your time adoring God and meditating upon Him and His infinite goodness. The choirs of angels have the higher choirs like the Seraphim and Cherubim, who more greatly understand and love God, and the lower choirs, who receive from the higher communication about God’s perfections.

So too the saints some are higher some are lower, and those higher in God’s grace and perfection communicate to the lower deeper knowledge of the love of God.

Depending upon one’s merits from life on earth one receives particular rewards and graces in Heaven which others do not receive. The virgins are allowed to sing the canticle in procession after Christ. (Rev. 14:3)

‘Virgins enjoy many privileges. They will have gold crowns, they alone will sing the canticle, they will wear the same garments that Christ wears, they will always march after the Lamb himself.’

St. Jerome, Doctor and Father of the Church

Martyrs, doctors, confessors, each have different rewards…

One admires the beauties of God in the virtues of the angels and saints, one sees God in all the acts of supernatural goodness they performed on Earth and the true and precious value of each of these actions – One see this goodness in one’s brothers and sisters, and their merits and rewards of incalculable beauty. Based upon one’s nature and one’s merit one serves in one capacity or another, one position or another in Heaven… teaching… being taught… interceding…

The angels we are told vie to serve Our Lady. . . whose splendor is greater than all else of Heaven together…

The Seraphim for example are closest to God and most directly contemplate Him, they represent the fire of charity, the Cherubim, represent fullness of knowledge…

When one third of the innumerable angels fell and were condemned to Hell forever, they left empty positions and roles in Heaven. The greatest saints fill these lost roles and positions, until the stars in the Heavens no longer have any gaps.

The extent of one’s beatific vision, greater or lesser, is determined by one’s nature and merits here on earth, should one achieve Heaven. While one is full of joy beyond comprehension in this life, life on earth determines whether one is a relative thimbleful or a great vessel full in the next.

Which is why every little deed matters in this life immeasurably because its consequence are eternally greater or lesser love of God, should one achieve Heaven. Each act of virtue shows our greater capacity for love, for God.

If you have not taken joy in meditating on God on this earth, one might wonder whether one will be spending time in the next life doing something one didn’t pursue or enjoy in this life. … and move quickly to appreciating goodness and virtue more greatly and thinking on the goodness of God, which after all, isn’t anything but good to contemplate. 🙂

When all the places in Heaven are filled for predestined men and the places that were the angels, then the world comes to an end.
 
I really appreciate the many different perspectives here.

Hopefully more people will share their vision of Heaven, for example what they hope it will be like, or what they imagine it to be like, what they’d like to do there, etc…
 
… my dear friend …

… it’s really something impossible to explain and that’s why none ever have or can , but in this life we are to build up our capacity to love by loving god , everyone and everything , because it is this love after perhaps needing purifying and perfecting in purgatory that will determine the degree of our happiness in heaven , in heaven which is god and god is infinite love god will just love us infinitely and all we will want to do is love god back to the fullest capacity we can and we will , but the more our capacity to love god back the happier we will be — always perfectly happy no matter what our capacity to love is though , heaven is the ultimate mystical experience - in it we contemplate and experience infinite love like nothing we can understand — sheer ecstatic bliss , and it never gets boring because we constantly discover new things in heaven to love and apply our capacity to all the new blissful treasures we find in god and our capacity to love is fully applied to each new blissful treasure we find there and so our happiness grows eternally , we will be like little babies in our relationship with god too , we will have no concept of time because all our dreams and even those we could never dream up have come true and keep getting better - a bit like " time flies when your having fun " in heaven time flies so fast it disappears into the distance , and we are just in " now " and " now " is eternal infinite ecstaic bliss that never stops increasing forever , and we will get a shock to find out that god has an eternity ahead for us we could never dream up - it will never be boring , the most spectacularly fascinating adventure awaits us , and all will be invited some now some eventually - we will be surprised dear friend …

… god bless you 👍🙂 …

… john …
 
The Holy Father suggests that Jesus began His ministry with the wedding at Cana, because it was a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb. I think our stay in heaven will begin with a marriage feast, and that will be interesting because I’m sure that my favorite foods will not be the same as those of other cultures. Will we each have what we like best, or will we be introduced to the cuisine of other nations, or is it only a symbol for spiritual feasting? But Jesus ate fish after the resurrection, so I hope there is real food.

In Peter Kreeft’s book “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Heaven,” he says that creative work is a primary human need, and our conventional pictures of heaven are boring partly because they do not fulfill this need.
He thinks we might have 3 primary tasks in heaven: understanding our earthly lives “by Godlight,” 2. sharing all other human lives, and 3. exploration into God (the beatific vision). His book is fascinating, though only guesses of course.
I like to think of heaven as J.R.R. Tolkien describes the last homely house: “a perfect house, whether you like food, or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear and sadness.”.
 
I was seriously thinking about making a thread like this before I even saw it. 🙂

I always imagined Heaven as sort of a boring place (but I still wanted to go because I didn’t want to spend eternity suffering in Hell) but now I imagine it as more than sitting on clouds in white robes with angels.

I don’t have a vivid image in my mind of what it will be like but I just imagine that every good thing on earth will be amplified and all of our needs will be met. So there will be no suffering, sorrow, anger, boredom, etc.

But on earth we’ll never be able to understand Heaven because it’s so far beyond human comprehension. Even thinking about the concept of eternity freaks me out and I can’t handle it, which tells you a lot right there.

Although some things I’ve always wondered…

Will we remember our earthly lives? Will I recognize friends and family in Heaven? Will we be conscious that souls are in Purgatory or Hell? Will we still be “human” as in…will we laugh and stuff? :confused: 🤷 So many questions! I can’t wait to have an answer… 😉
 
I think the answer is to trust the Lord. He who created everything out of nothing, became Incarnate for us and loves us beyond our wildest dreams will take care of our eternity! We don’t even have to wonder. Just develop the best relationship with the Lord now while you are on earth, and he will be with you satisfying your every need for all eternity.
 
Dorothy said:
I think the answer is to trust the Lord. He who created everything out of nothing, became Incarnate for us and loves us beyond our wildest dreams will take care of our eternity! We don’t even have to wonder. Just develop the best relationship with the Lord now while you are on earth, and he will be with you satisfying your every need for all eternity.
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Yes, we trust the Lord for sure. But we still have hopes, dreams, and wishes. Whether they are true or not isn’t really relevant. My interest and reason for starting this thread is in knowing what people think of when they think of Heaven, and what they would like to do there. (by like I mean what the desire of their heart is) Lots of people think of it in terms of being able to share in the best pleasures, the greatest joys, the most wonderful peace, the greatest love, etc… So, trusting the Lord is a given, but what are your hopes and dreams and desires? What is Heaven to YOU? 🙂
 
PopeMobile said:
Yes, we trust the Lord for sure. But we still have hopes, dreams, and wishes. Whether they are true or not isn’t really relevant. My interest and reason for starting this thread is in knowing what people think of when they think of Heaven, and what they would like to do there. (by like I mean what the desire of their heart is) Lots of people think of it in terms of being able to share in the best pleasures, the greatest joys, the most wonderful peace, the greatest love, etc… So, trusting the Lord is a given, but what are your hopes and dreams and desires? What is Heaven to YOU? 🙂
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Experiencing the total love of God for me, and being able to love Him back. That may sound overly simple, but it will take any boredom one can think of out of an eternity with the Lord! Only He knows how to fulfill all my dreams, hopes, and needs.
 
‘Beside all this, a more wonderful grace is bestowed upon the Saints in heaven: for they know not only them with whom they were acquainted in this world, but also those whom before they never saw, and converse with them in such familiar sort as though in times past they had seen and known one another: and therefore when they shall see the ancient fathers in that place of perpetual bliss, they shall then know them by sight, whom always they knew in their lives and conversation. For seeing they do in that place with unspeakable brightness, common to all, behold God, what is there that they know not, that know him who knoweth all things?’

Pope St. Gregory the Great

‘It is related of Blessed Stephanie of Soncino, a Dominican nun, that she was one day carried in spirit to Heaven to see the happiness of the saints. She saw their souls mingling with the choirs of angels according to each one’s degree of merit, and noticed among the Seraphim several persons she had known before their deaths. Having asked why these souls were raised to such a high degree of glory, she was told it was because of the conformity and perfect union of their will with God’s while they lived on earth. Now, if this conformity to the will of God raises souls to the highest degree of glory in heaven among the Seraphim, it must be concluded that it raises them on earth to the highest degree of grace and on it is founded the highest perfection man can attain.’

The Secret of Peace & Happiness, Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure, S.J.

‘Blessed the one who has become like the Seraphim and the Cherubim and never wearied in his spiritual ministry, unceasingly giving glory to the Lord.’

St. Ephrem of Syria
 
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