Q: I was trying to explain heaven to my daughter recently and, among other comments, she said she would like to go to heaven but that it sounded boring. How can I answer her?
A: Let me first explain the Church’s teaching on heaven and then I will answer the question of whether it might be boring.
We can begin by looking at what Scripture has to say. St John writes that in heaven we shall see God as he is: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2).
St Paul is more graphic, saying that “now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor 13:12). So heaven consists in being with God and seeing him “face to face”.
Moreover, in heaven we will “see” not only God in the three divine persons, but also the Blessed Virgin Mary, the angels and all the saints; that is, all the people who have finished their earthly journey and are now enjoying eternal life with God.
When we say “see” we are referring to a vision that is not done with the eyes, since we will not have our body when we arrive in heaven, nor will the others there, except Jesus and Mary. The spiritual soul will be able to “see” God and the other spiritual beings through a special help from God that St Thomas Aquinas and other theologians call the “light of glory” (cf STh I, 12, 5).
This light is a perfection of the intellect, as are the lights of reason and faith, so that the intellect can know God as he is in himself.
Church teaching on heaven is summarised in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity – this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed – is called ‘heaven’. Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfilment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness” (CCC 1024).
Heaven is the fulfilment of our deepest longings. Man was made for love, for happiness, and he finds his complete fulfilment only in the infinite love of God, who alone can satisfy this longing. This is what St Augustine had in mind when he wrote: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Conf 1, 1, 1).
Our human experience bears this out. We search for happiness and, to a greater or lesser extent, we find it here on earth. But such happiness never satisfies us completely, nor is it lasting. In heaven, our happiness will be complete and everlasting. In the words of the Catechism, it is “the state of supreme, definitive happiness”.
The happiness of heaven is so great it cannot be described in human terms. The Catechism teaches: “This mystery of blessed communion with God and all who are in Christ is beyond all understanding and description. Scripture speaks of it in images: life, light, peace, wedding feast, wine of the kingdom, the Father’s house, the heavenly Jerusalem, paradise: ‘no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him’” (1 Cor 2:9; CCC 1027).
Will heaven be boring? If we conceive of it as endless succession of time, we might be forgiven for thinking even though it is a state of indescribable happiness, it will always be the same and possibly boring.
But eternal life is not endless succession of time. In heaven there is no time, it is all simultaneous, one great eternal instant. In the words of Boethius, eternity is “the simultaneously whole and perfect possession of interminable life” (De consol V).
In this sense Pope Benedict XVI writes that eternal life “would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time no longer exists” (Enc Spe Salvi, 12).
With that description, there is no way heaven would be boring! And it is worthwhile sacrificing everything and struggling for holiness so one day we will be there with God forever.