Heaven! (Part 1)

(Extract from the book: "The End of the Present World and The Mysteries of The Future Life" By Father Charles Arminjon)


Theology starts from the principle that, after ressurection, the elements and material nature will be adapted to the circumstances of the glorious bodies.




The first prerogative that the resssurected bodies of the elect will enjoy will be that of subtility. Just as the risen Lord passed through a tomb that was sealed, and ,the following day, appeared suddenly before His disciples in a room where the doors were closed, so our bodies, when they are no longer composed of an inert and gross substance, but are vivified and penetrated at every point by the spirit -corpus spirituale- will pass through space like a ray of sunshine , and no corporeal object will have the capacity to hold them back.



The second property of the glorious bodies will be agility. They will dart about like the sparks through stubble. They will have the ability to move with the swiftness of thought itself, and wherever the mind wishes, the body will convey itself immediately.



Lastly , the ressurected elect will possess brightness. They will encompass with such splendour that they will appear like so many suns...In fact, this brightness will be distributed in different degrees among the elect, according to the inequality of their merits; for the brightness of the sun is one thing, that of the moon is another, and that of the stars yet another. The stars themselves differ from one another in brightness.



The brightness with which the elect will be adorned will unceasingly cast out new reflections, increasing every moment: the glorified saints will eternally communicate to each other the goods they possess,and they will reflect upon one another the streams of splendour that illuminate them.



Jesus Christ in the Eucharist gives us an image and likeness of what the glorious bodies will be like one day. Without leaving heaven, He is substantially present every day on earth in a thousand places. He is entire , without reduction or diminution, in each particle of the host and in each drop of the chalice.



St Thomas teaches us that heaven is destined to serve as the abode and principal habitation of the glorified saints, but they will not on that account be motionless and restricted within a fixed place. Each of the elect will have his throne, and they will occupy higher abodes according to their meriits, but observes St Thomas,the word place (locum), is to be understood rather as excellence of rank, order of primacy, than as the eminence of the place that will be assigned.



They will be free to explore the heavenly bodies, reappear on this earth, and pass again over the places where they lived and prayed, places that were the scenes of their labours and immolations. This view concurs with the texts of the Sacred Books, where they tell us that there are many mansions in our heavenly Father's house, that the saints will shine like the stars in perpetual eternities, and that , wherever the body- that is, the sacred humanity of Christ- shall be, there also will the eagles be gathered.



There was a fairly general belief among the doctors of old that superior intellects were assigned to govern the celestial bodies. It is reasonable to think that beings capable of praising and blessing God fill all space , as they fill all time; thus , there is no infidelity to Catholic tradition in linking the material existence of the stars to the existence of free, intelligient beings like ourselves.



The Church even gives us to understand that they were the scene of the first act in the providential drama of that great struggle among the higher spirits which St John describes in his Revelation, a struggle of which our earthly strife is the continuation. It was in the most luminous part of heaven , above the most brilliant stars, says Isaiah, that Lucifer tried to set up a throne for himself, from which he was cast down; it was to the summit of this heaven of heavens, says the psalmist, that Jesus Christ ascended.



However if these views are only theological opinions, what must be held certain and as an article of faith is that all the stars and suns were reborn in the divine blood and have shared in the grace of the Redemption. The church affirms it in one of her solemn hymns : " Land, sea, and stars are washed by this stream "



What practical and moral lessons are to be drawn from these teachings, for the guidance of our lives and the rule of our actions?



The first is this: that it is the height of human folly to become attached to the perishable and corruptible things of this life.



The second of these consequences is that suffering in this life is only a relative evil: There are cases of profound sorrow, of intolerable raw bruises, and heart-rending, indescribable seperations on this earth. Yet all this heartbreak and suffering are but a laboratory and a crucible, into which divine goodness has cast our nature, in order that, like coal, black and base, it may emerge in the form of a precious sparkling diamond.



The third consequence of our doctrine is that we must not allow ourselves to be pertubed by the noise of our social strife and the convulsion of our revolutions. All this is but a prelude. It is the chaos that precedes harmony; it is motion seeking rest, twilight on the move towards day. The city of God is being built, invisibly but surely, amidst these shocks and heartbreaking convulsions.



Children of men, how long will your hearts be burdened, how long will you seek your sustenance in lies and shadows? When will you cease imagining death as a curse, and cease imagining it as the abyss of darkness and destuction? Let us try today to understand that it is not the obstacle, but the means ; it is the paschal transition that leads from the kingdom of shadows to that of reality, from the life of movement to the life of immutability and indefectability. It is the good sister, whose hand will one day cast off the clouds and idle phantoms, to lead us into the holy of holies of certitude and incomparable beauty!

Love of the cross and Faith in Ressurection

When John leaned on Christ at the behest of Peter to ask Him who it was who would betray Him, Christ showed him the source of His betrayal and he, not Peter, was able to enter into the mystery of the cross , and though Peter determined to do the same, was not granted the grace and he denied Christ 3ce. It was only John who experienced to the full the mystery of love, up to Christ's death on Calvary .
On the day of Ressurection a kind of contrast also happened. Though John had ran faster than Peter to the tomb, for some reasons he couldn't enter in until Peter arrived and went in first; and it was given to Peter first to understand the mystery the empty tomb and faith in the Ressurection . This experience finds its root at Peter's confession and the promise of Christ on him that upon him and his confession He would build His church, for we are justified by faith, faith in the Ressurection of our Lord Jesus.
May we be granted the grace to experience the power of His Ressurection and the fellowship of His sufferings .
St Peter and St John: Pray for us