How Strange: Longing For Heaven Is Almost Never Expressed Today

Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 9/17/2014 | Msgr. Charles Pope

[johniegrad]

#1 and #2 are inconsistent with both Christian theology and anthropology but #3 is, in essence, taught.

[zot]

Thank you for your posts 38 and 39.
I intend to go to Heaven, report to my Master, and ask Him what he wants me do.

[Old Yeller]

Because Satan has deceived people into thinking heaven will be one eternal church service.

Billy Joel's song, "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints". Like the lost will be partying all the time in hell. Which is more deception.

Lots more examples.

[mlizzy]

Does the thought of it [Heaven] excite you?

Oh, yes! Every day. Thoughts of heaven keep me going even though I've been doing battle (for decades) with the most annoying constant elevated ringing in both ears; one which is deaf, the other at 5%. I shudder to think all this suffering is just for my soul, but maybe it is. I recently read about holy fear from Michael Voris, that "[t]here are souls in hell at this very moment damned for all eternity who were at one stage of their lives holier than we are now," so those with sorrows; "gifts," might wish to thank Jesus repeatedly (as did the sinful woman from today's Gospel, Lk 7:36-50) while you can:

"Do you see this woman? When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet, but she has bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered.......So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love......."

[NYer]

“Why are we here?” Good question. My own musings are: 1) we are angels who wanted to try physical life on the planet God created for whatever reason they may have had; 2) souls that were created and have not gone to heave found a way into newly created bodies at conception as a means of finding a way back to heaven through God’s mercy; 3) God gave the gift of procreation and life to humanity, with each new soul/person what is created from that gift, He sent Jesus to lead us home to our Father in Heaven.

Are any of the above Doctrine/Dogma of any Christian Church, not that I’m aware of. Should they be?

Musings? Did your Church not address this question? We seasoned Catholics, educated in elementary school using the Baltimore Catechism, can easily respond to that question:

Why did God make us? God made us to know, love and serve Him in this world and be happy with him forever in the next.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church begins with a similar statement:

---

I. The life of man - to know and love God

1 God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

2 So that this call should resound throughout the world, Christ sent forth the apostles he had chosen, commissioning them to proclaim the gospel: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."⁴ Strengthened by this mission, the apostles "went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it."⁵

3 Those who with God's help have welcomed Christ's call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world. This treasure, received from the apostles, has been faithfully guarded by their successors. All Christ's faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation, by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing, and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer.⁶

FULL TEXT

It truly is just that simple ... no musings necessary.

[married21]

There are so many people I love that I want to see again. I know I lack imagination where envisioning Heaven is concerned, but the older I get, the more I just want to be there with everyone I love. Jesus has more in mind for us than a big reunion of long lost friends, but even that is enough to give me a lot of hope.

[GreyFriar]

Thus the Baltimore Catechism’s answer to “Allie’s question of “If we all go to Heaven when we die, then why does God want us here first? Why does God want us here? Yeah, why? Why are we here, Daddy?”

Is that God placed us here to enjoy and/or suffer life on this planet so that he could eventually send His Son to guide us back home? That almost seems like God ordered us to be prodigal sons and daughters as a condition of being born into life on this planet.

“musings aka thoughts”

[NYer]

Is that God placed us here to enjoy and/or suffer life on this planet so that he could eventually send His Son to guide us back home?

Why did God make us? He made us to:

KNOW HIM - The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for. Created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of "converging and convincing arguments", which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These "ways" of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.

In coming to know God, we also come to love Him and with that love comes the desire to serve Him in this world. Does that make any sense?

[Biggirl]

A catechism in a nutshell. Thank-you for making my day with that.

[Biggirl]

Keep a close eye on the southern part of the globe in which the Christian faith is growing bigtime. They are even sending missionaries to America and the west to bring the good news of the Gospel of Jesus.

http://www.ecumenicalnews.com/article/shift-of-center-of-christian-gravity-to-global-south-most-dramatic-in-history-22528

[tired&retired]

A person has to be free of sin to be in heaven. Totally pure.

Thank God for His Grace and Forgiveness...

[tired&retired]

There are also many bad books out there on NDE’s and the Heaven Experience.

The most popular one of all was written by a person who the Virginia medical board investigated and fined for his changing medical records to cover up for his operating on the wrong vertebrae.

[tired&retired]

I’ve never met anyone who really understands the “science” of the NDE. I’ve met many who think they know it and have written books on the topic.

[Biggirl]

The one of the little kid, who is now in his teens, that also became a movie as well. That is one of the few good write ups there is. I do have the book, “Heaven Is For Real”.

[tired&retired]

......Heaven and not to have my soul stuck on this planet after my body dies.

There are far more stuck here than most people realize.

[tired&retired]

I have not read his book but I have heard many good things about it.

Two other really excellent authors are Dr Mary Neal, an orthopedic spinal surgeon from Jackson Hole Wyoming and Anita Moorjani, (for get the name of her book). I have met both of them and their experience is real and they did not allow it to create a big ego in themselves.

[GreyFriar]

Yes that makes sense. And it also points toward the falseness of Allie’s line: “If we all go to Heaven when we die....” which should have been in the father’s never written reply: “No Allie, not all of us go to Heaven, even it God wants us there. Because we do not live as God wants us to live, have accepted Jesus’s gift of salvation, or for many, openly reject God and Jesus because they chose to follow lesser gods or reject the fact that God, the Most High, even exists.”

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

The Southern Hemisphere is doubtfully a member of Western Civilization.

[Biggirl]

Yet to correct you, the southern hemisphere is where the Christian faith is growing and where the misionaries will be coming from to go to the west to spread the Gospel.

[OneWingedShark]

There is a long list of things that people never hear in sermons anymore:

1. mortal sin
   This is because this is utterly redundant — James 1:14-15 makes it clear that all sin leads to death. Period.
2. judgment
   Who says you don't hear this anymore? Granted it isn't mentioned as often as it could be, but Christianity is more about mercy than judgement — James 2:13 says For judgement will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment furthermore, in John 5:24 Jesus is recorded as saying Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.
3. Hell
   Another one that doesn't get as much as it ought; though there are still some Fire and Brimstone Baptist preachers.
4. purgatory
   Not biblical, so it shouldn't be heard in sermons.
5. fornication
   This is perhaps the only one on the list that I wholeheartedly agree isn't being preached in sermons enough. It seems to me one of the reasons that the church is so anemic on its support of traditional marriage [vs homosexual] is because the church has for so long not acted like marriage was something sacred. Given your Catholic bent maybe I should mention Peter and binding/loosing?

But there is another omission that is rather odd given the tenor of these times: Heaven.

Oh, very much agreed.
I sometimes find myself strongly wanting simply to be God's man, and Him to be my God. (This is, again and again, the description/promise of Heaven.)