Guest Column / Richard Etienne

Getting yourself to heaven: Possibilities to consider as you focus on the afterlife

Do you see your task in life as more of a project of getting yourself to heaven, like your own personal salvation project?

Or do you see it as just one more part of God’s larger project of building the kingdom here on Earth—the same kingdom that will continue in the afterlife?

What if it is a combination of both of these essential tasks?

You may have noticed just before Advent starts each year (at the end of each liturgical calendar year) the Church focuses its Sunday readings on those final “end of times” events. The question that comes to mind for me is: “Is life all about ‘being saved’ and each of our personal rewards?”

And, if so, how does a person get into this exclusive group and never have to worry again that somehow his or her place in the afterlife will not be taken by another?

Is it really as easy as doing “x” and then moving to “y,” creating a perfect foolproof plan?

When you ponder the experience of heaven, what comes to mind? Will our souls just “look upon the loveliness of God” as indicated in the Book of Revelation? Or do you hope that Jesus has built you a mansion as alluded to in the Gospel of John 14:2?

Who else will be there and what will our relationship be to them in this next stage of our existence? Remember that when asked in the Gospel of Matthew about people who remarry after the death of a spouse Jesus replied, “At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven” (Mt 22:30). Therefore, when a person gets to heaven, will one recognize other people from their lifetime or will the relationship be totally different?

In St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, we read, “And what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel of wheat, perhaps, or of some other kind; but God gives it a body as he chooses, and to each of the seeds its own body” (1 Cor 15:37-38). Or will we “dart about like sparks through stubble” as described in Wisdom 3:7?

Or, yet again, will the kingdom only exist after the Earth has been destroyed and Jesus has returned (the parousia)? When will this “end time” come? In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says, “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come” (Mk 13:33).

So where does this leave our responsibility for our participation in religious activity and charitable works in the here and now? It leaves much for us to ponder!
 

(Richard Etienne has a degree in theology from Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad and resides in Newburgh, Ind.) †