Why has He revealed so little about

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Mijoy2

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…Heaven.

I have difficulty attempting to imagine the concept of a Heaven.
The difficulty, I think, is in imagining a good without a corresponding bad. If one were to ask a person; what would make you happy? Aside from selfish answers like a new BMW or great wealth or the ability to slam dunk a basketball, many answers might be; world peace, a cure for cancer, no more abortion…etc etc. For example we get joyous in helping others because we know a good has been done. How do we, feed the hungry when there are no hungry, heal the sick when there are no sick, put a stop to violence where there is no violence? What do we pray for?

I understand answers usually come in the form of “it’s a mystery” or, “seeing His face, being with our Lord is all our hearts will need”…etc. Although I can appreciate this type of answer, it is difficult to imagine.

I’m not sure I have done a good enough job of articulating this. Where there are no evils to overcome, no sickness, no pain, no tears, what could Heaven be like? And why has so little been revealed?
 
I don’t know- perhaps it is something we can’t understand without experiencing it.
 
I have difficulty attempting to imagine the concept of a Heaven.
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The first thing you need to do is stop imagining.

Our fallen human natures being what they are, imagination is the biggest crutch we can have in trying to understand divine things. The imagination takes as its standard things we have sensed on earth, and relates everything we think of back to these sensory objects. It really can’t work that way with heaven. Or even Hell for that matter. (This is why so many people reject Hell as stupid; and rightly so, for what they are rejecting is not the doctrine but the popular, imagined reconstruction of what Hell is!)

It’s all a matter of Intellect. We know God is the course of all that is good, and in Heaven we are with God for eternity. That knowledge should be enough to console us. And imagination’s got nothing to do with it.
 
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Mijoy2:
…Heaven.

I’m not sure I have done a good enough job of articulating this. Where there are no evils to overcome, no sickness, no pain, no tears, what could Heaven be like? And why has so little been revealed?
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There’s a whole book on it: Revelation. Isaiah speaks a lot of the coming “Day of the Lord.” I recommend you read Isaiah (and the biblical footnotes) in the Old Testament, the Gospels (pay close attention to wherever Jesus mentions “the kingdom”, “my Father’s house”, etc.) and Revelation (not using a Protestant interpretation guide). Read The Lamb’s Supper by Scott Hahn.
 
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Mijoy2:
…Heaven.

I have difficulty attempting to imagine the concept of a Heaven.
The difficulty, I think, is in imagining a good without a corresponding bad. If one were to ask a person; what would make you happy? Aside from selfish answers like a new BMW or great wealth or the ability to slam dunk a basketball, many answers might be; world peace, a cure for cancer, no more abortion…etc etc. For example we get joyous in helping others because we know a good has been done. How do we, feed the hungry when there are no hungry, heal the sick when there are no sick, put a stop to violence where there is no violence? What do we pray for?

I understand answers usually come in the form of “it’s a mystery” or, “seeing His face, being with our Lord is all our hearts will need”…etc. Although I can appreciate this type of answer, it is difficult to imagine.

I’m not sure I have done a good enough job of articulating this. Where there are no evils to overcome, no sickness, no pain, no tears, what could Heaven be like? And why has so little been revealed?
Click to expand...
Heaven in some measure is revealed constantly -

ccel.org/a/anonymous/theologia/htm/v.XLIX.htm#v.L

Heaven is affirmed constantly in those who know pain,injustice,illness and where human nature suffers and especially in those who suffer for the sake of Love.For Christ and Christianity is nothing other than this.

That in some measure we must know what hell is to experience a glimpse of heaven, we must certainly partake in the body and blood of Jesus as he commanded.Even the disciples initially found this a very ‘hard saying’ and it would be no different today,for many would hesitate and others would turn away.

nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/john/john6.htm

Wish I could articulate this better but setting aside the magnificence of the body of Christ at mass,everything would remind Christians of heaven in such a way that there is nothing solemn when it is not there and we get wrapped up in daily concerns and we chuckle when it is there in the faces of delight and innocence which spring from humanity.
 
Hello Mijoy2,

I think your definition of heaven is spelled out in Christ’s parables. The Kingdom of God is built in individuals hearts here on earth. Those who use free will to love God through obeying the commandments and feeding the poor are born through Jesus blood on judgement day to become an eternal Kingdom for God.

You are right! There are no poor to feed in heaven. Nor can you choose not to commit murder, adultery or lie in heaven out of faithfulness and love for God. Love for God is the Kingdom of God and it is grown in free willed hearts on earth. Your store of earth produced love for God will warm God’s heart for all eternity.

Please visit
Parables Painting Pictures of Paradise

Peace in Christ,
Steven Merten
www.ILOVEYOUGOD.com
 
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Mijoy2:
…Heaven.

I have difficulty attempting to imagine the concept of a Heaven.
…
I understand answers usually come in the form of “it’s a mystery” or, “seeing His face, being with our Lord is all our hearts will need”…etc. Although I can appreciate this type of answer, it is difficult to imagine.

what could Heaven be like? And why has so little been revealed?
Click to expand...
Of this wisdom it is written:

“Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned on man what God has prepared for those who love him.” 1 Cor 2:9

I don’t think the Lord was skimping on details just to keep us in the dark. St. John of the Cross probably understood this better than most. When God reveals something so sublime to one of his servants, what they preceive simply doesn’t translate into human nature. Our natures themselves need to be spiritualized and even then without the Beatific vision what we experience can overload our wiring, so to speak. St. John described the experience of God as darkness. “This dark night is an inflowing of God into the soul, which purges it from its ignorances and imperfection, habitual, natural and spiritual and which is called by contemplatives infused contemplation or mystical theology.”

So God actually does allow some a peak but He must prepare them for this and they must dispose themselves for it. That disposition is a deep prayer life. Just as looking directly into the sun blinds us here on earth, imagine looking at God or His glory. Heaven is not natural but supernatural. Here on earth all words fail. Lovers experience this when even poetry and music fails to describe their beloved. Heaven afterall is union with the Beloved.

Peace and patience.
 
I believe that if He were to describe to us what the kingdom of Heaven is really like, we may find such “description” incomprehensible, simply because the words of human speech are grossly inadequate to describe what it really is.

No mere words are enough to describe the indescribable. This is one reason why Christ often spoke in parables when teaching certain truths, so that men may easily understand.

Gerry 🙂
 
Go to Mass. The worship we give God at Mass is a foretaste of the heavenly worship we will partake in for all eternity, because man has no greater joy than to contemplate and worship God. As the Sanctus says, we join with the angels and saints in our pale echo of their heavenly song. the more you get into the Mass, the more attentively and completely you participate and let the Eucharist bring you into contemplative prayer with Jesus, the more you will taste of heaven and the more you will long for it. Previous poster is correct, Revelation is all about heaven, but beyond our earthly comprehension.

If you went exploring and found a stone age tribe in S. America, and tried to persuade the chief to come back to New York City with you, what images could you give him, in his language, experience and understanding, that would convey to him what he would see in NYC? How would you explain cars, trains, plains, subways, buses? How would you explain 50 story buildings, traffic, millions of people, the noise, different languages and customs of all its immigrants, the foods, smells, everything he would encounter. The best you could do would be to say, well, several of your friends and relatives have moved there, and you can be with them. But you would not be able to convey what NYC is like except by comparing its elements to things within his experience. A lot of your stories would sound like nonsense or fables to him. So it is with trying to explain heaven to someone who is earthbound and limited by human sense experience.
 
The responses to this have been amazing. I thank each and every one of you. I’m going to follow through with all recommended readings.
 
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