5 Things to Know About Heaven

Let’s talk about heaven. After all, getting there is the main point of our lives.

Granted, we’re limited in what we can say. As St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.”

There are some things we know for certain about heaven. Here are five.

The answer is “no.”

This is because the vision of God in heaven is the fulfillment of all human desire, making it impossible to want anything else apart from God. The problem on earth is that we don’t have this vision of God and the fulfillment that it brings. This makes us susceptible to looking for “heaven” in the wrong places.

2. We will enjoy the fruits of our merits from our lives on earth
At judgment, we will face an accounting of our lives. For those destined for heaven, this accounting will be a blessing. All of the acts of love and sacrifice we carried out on earth will bear fruits of joy and love in heaven.

3. We will finally know the full truth about ourselves
Not only will heaven reveal the full truth of God to us, but we’ll also see the full truth about ourselves for the first time, as living icons of God’s love and conduits of His grace.

4. Not everyone will have an equal amount of glory in heaven
Our degree of glory in heaven will be based on how we loved and served God on earth. Since people don’t serve God with the same level of commitment, not everyone will harvest the same fruit.

Don’t worry, though. No one in heaven will be jealous or sad about this inequality. Think of each of us as different-sized cups. While each of us will only be able to hold the amount of heavenly glory our cups allow us, we will all be filled to the brim.

5. We will fully possess Christ and be possessed by Him
Heaven is where our spousal relationship with Christ reaches perfection. This will not have any of the limitations of spouses on earth. Christ will fully possess each one of us as if we were the only person in heaven. Imagine that!

So that’s just a sketch of some of the things we know about heaven. And here’s one more: In heaven, we will forever be enraptured in the sight of truth, beauty, and goodness Himself and finally come to that fulness of love and knowledge we so deeply yearned for on earth.