Where is heaven anyway?

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I’m kind of new to christianity. wondering if among the mormons, the muslems, the christians, if there is any sort of concensus where the Virgin mother went after she died. Everyone says heaven, but no one says where that is? Is it in the little piece of bread at catholic mass? Or is it in the stars, or the four directions on earth or what?
If I pray the Rosary, where is he that i am praying to? And at Mass where am I praying to?
 
Best put, heaven is a spiritual place, that means that it is not bound by space and time, but is everpresent.
 
But for Grace:
Best put, heaven is a spiritual place, that means that it is not bound by space and time, but is everpresent.
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So where do I pray to it?
 
You don’t pray to heaven - you pray to God. God is omnipresent (everywhere).
 
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DavidFilmer:
You don’t pray to heaven - you pray to God. God is omnipresent (everywhere).
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So, the Virgin Mary is everywhere too? And what about the saints? When i pray to my patron saint, is he everywhere too?
 
It gets complicated, but in most cases (Enoch, Elijah, Christ, and Mary excluded) the body is still on earth but the soul is in heaven, so yes, to an extent they can be anywhere.
 
But for Grace:
It gets complicated, but in most cases (Enoch, Elijah, Christ, and Mary excluded) the body is still on earth but the soul is in heaven, so yes, to an extent they can be anywhere.
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But Iread that mary’s body went to heaven and it didn’t stay on earth? And Elijah went to heaven in a chariot? So I just start praying to the air around me?
 
God created the universe, an existence bound by limitations of space and time. Spiritual beings like God and the angels (and Saints) are not bound by space and time. Before the universe existed, God and the angels existed. We cannot say “where” they were, because the whole concept of “where” had not yet been created. We cannot say “when” this was, because the whole concept of time had not yet been created. Eventually, this universe and all time and space will pass away, but spiritual beings will hardly notice, because they are not part of either space or time.

It’s difficult for us to comprehend such an existence. But that doesn’t mean it’s not so. It is also difficult for many people to understand quantum theory or relativity, but this does not disprove these sciences.
 
Yes, the four people I mentioned all were taken to heaven in their bodies. To be honest, I don’t really think of where heaven is, because it really doesn’t matter. I know that God can hear me and that is all that matters. Further, angels are messengers, and like Raphael in the book of Tobit, they bring our petitions to God.
 
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DavidFilmer:
God created the universe, an existence bound by limitations of space and time. Spiritual beings like God and the angels (and Saints) are not bound by space and time. Before the universe existed, God and the angels existed. We cannot say “where” they were, because the whole concept of “where” had not yet been created. We cannot say “when” this was, because the whole concept of time had not yet been created. Eventually, this universe and all time and space will pass away, but spiritual beings will hardly notice, because they are not part of either space or time.

It’s difficult for us to comprehend such an existence. But that doesn’t mean it’s not so. It is also difficult for many people to understand quantum theory or relativity, but this does not disprove these sciences.
Click to expand...
So, you are saying I don’t have to know where god is topray to him and i also do not have to know quantum theory to be Catholic. Good. That is a start, anyway.
 
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stillsearching:
So, you are saying I don’t have to know where god is topray to him and i also do not have to know quantum theory to be Catholic. Good. That is a start, anyway.
Click to expand...
Of course you don’t need to know God’s exact location to speak to him. You only need to know that God can hear your prayers.

If you and I are in a small room, and you are blindfolded and don’t know where I am, you don’t need to face me to speak to me. It does not matter which direction you face, because I can hear you regardless. God is the same way - He is always “in the room” with you.

You don’t need to fully understand the idea to talk to God. He is in the room with you now, ready to hear what you say to him.
 
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stillsearching:
So, you are saying I don’t have to know where god is topray to him and i also do not have to know quantum theory to be Catholic. Good. That is a start, anyway.
Click to expand...
🙂 I was interested in the answers to this as well. I didn’t know specifically what the church teaches on this - I was ready to believe anything it tells me about heaven, because it’s proven itself to me over and over on every other question which has come up.

There are some things of which I finally know that my human mind will never conceive. God, Himself, is unknowable in all of His attributes. I can never comprehend it.

I can catch tiny glimpses of various aspects of God - His mercy, for instance - I see that it is like an ocean compared to the tiny droplet which contained all my sins. Even then, I cannot comprehend an ocean large enough, so the analogy falls short. The point is that my sins are not large enough that they cannot be forgiven and that I was painfully arrogant to ever believe that they were. I can see a tiny glimpse of His perfection when I consider the human body - how a new life can come from two individual cells from two human beings. I can see a tiny glimpse of His artistry when I watch the evening clouds blaze in unpaintable colors in the sky. I can’t imagine God in his fullness.

I guess I’m kind of like “But for Grace,” in that it really doesn’t matter to me much where heaven is. I have had tiny glimpses of heaven in prayer and meditation, so I know that it exists - that’s enough for me.

I just heard Father Groeschel the other day - he told a lady that she could picture God as something outside her or inside her when she prayed to Him. When I pray to God, I pray to “our Father” - a genderless Creator of all that is - something that is both inside and outside of me at the same time. When I pray to Jesus, I sometimes picture myself with Him in the Garden during the Agony or at the foot of His cross or watching Him ascend into the skies after His resurrection.

Keep searching. 🙂 If you are even a tiny bit willing to find and to know, the truth will fall into your lap.

I wish you even greater joys than I have found in Christ!

Elizabeth
 
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stillsearching:
I’m kind of new to christianity. wondering if among the mormons, the muslems, the christians, if there is any sort of concensus where the Virgin mother went after she died. Everyone says heaven, but no one says where that is? Is it in the little piece of bread at catholic mass? Or is it in the stars, or the four directions on earth or what?
If I pray the Rosary, where is he that i am praying to? And at Mass where am I praying to?
Click to expand...
Still Searching,

Heaven is somewhere outside the space and time of our universe. If I may offer a simile, it is perhaps as if our universe were like the surface of a ball and Heaven is like the air surrounding the ball. In this analogy we would be like two-dimensional creatures on the surface of the ball. By moving around on the surface we will never get to Heaven and we don’t have the ability to look “up” away from the surface. As far as we are concerned on our surface, Heaven is infinitely far away. To God in Heaven, on the other hand, the surface of the ball is right there, and He can reach out and touch any part of it at any time very easily.

If I may digress, Jesus told His listeners that God counted every hair on their heads. I believe (and while this is, I think, in accordance with the teachings of the Catholic Church I haven’t heard it from anybody else) that if Jesus’ listeners had known about cells, molecules, or atoms, Jesus would have told them that these things were being kept track of as well. I have this idea of God keeping His finger on every motion and vibration of every quark and electron in the universe on a continuous basis. He’s pretty impressive.

If you pray the Rosary, you are praying to God in Heaven, but you don’t have to speak loudly–or at all. God is also close at hand, as near to you as your own mind, spirit, and body. “In your own mind” means that actually you don’t have to speak at all; He knows what you are thinking, usually better than you do.
  • Liberian
 
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DavidFilmer:
God created the universe, an existence bound by limitations of space and time. Spiritual beings like God and the angels (and Saints) are not bound by space and time. Before the universe existed, God and the angels existed. We cannot say “where” they were, because the whole concept of “where” had not yet been created. We cannot say “when” this was, because the whole concept of time had not yet been created. Eventually, this universe and all time and space will pass away, but spiritual beings will hardly notice, because they are not part of either space or time.
Click to expand...
I agree with the first part of this but not the second. When this earth passes away there will be a new heaven and a new earth. After the resurrection we will have bodies, so time and space must exist in some form, though we don’t know what this will be like. But we do know that our new bodies will be glorious, powerful and imperishable (see 1Cor 15:42-43).
 
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