Are you prepared to enjoy heaven?

A Reflection for Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

Find today’s readings here.

In a homily on holiness and heaven, the soon-to-be Doctor of the Church, St. John Henry Newman, addresses the question, “Why is it that holiness is a necessary qualification for our being received into heaven?” (Sermon 1. Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness). It seems like an almost silly thing to ask. When we declare someone to be a saint, it is because we see that they lived a holy life. We might not be saints, but if we try our best to imitate them (and spend some time in purgatory), we can get there eventually.

But if the answer seems so obvious, maybe it’s because we have a somewhat impoverished view of what heaven is and what it means to be holy. Because the real question Newman is asking is: Would we even enjoy heaven if we got there and weren’t holy? And his answer is this: “[E]ven supposing a man of unholy life were suffered to enter heaven, he would not be happy there; so that it would be no mercy to permit him to enter.” Indeed, “Heaven would be hell to an irreligious man.”

I am often guilty of thinking of heaven, as Newman puts it, as “a place like this earth,” but without the suffering and with all the people I love. If God, in his infinite mercy, admitted me to such a place after I lived a less-than-holy life, I am pretty sure that I would still enjoy it! 

Of course, we do not know exactly what heaven is, but Newman’s description is probably closer to the truth than mine: “an endless and uninterrupted worship of the Eternal Father, Son, and Spirit.” He likens it to church: If you find Mass boring and too long, imagine that times infinity.

If that is heaven, today’s Gospel lays out the path to holiness—one that can feel impossible to follow to completion:

“To you who hear I say, love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you,
pray for those who mistreat you.
To the person who strikes you on one cheek,
offer the other one as well,
and from the person who takes your cloak,
do not withhold even your tunic” (Lk 6:27-29).

Is it fair for God to demand so much from us weak, fallen creatures? Perhaps not if it were a different god. But God does not tell us to love our enemies as some sort of extreme test of moral character. He gives these commands because he wants us to enjoy heaven, to be “children of the Most High” (6:35). And if we are to enjoy it, we must know who God is and love him enough that an eternity of worshipping him sounds like, well, heaven.

If God is the one who forgives your enemy, who showers love on those who strike you, steal from you, curse you, do you want to worship that God without ceasing? If your enemy is among the children of the Most High, does an eternity as their beloved sibling sound like some great reward?

God knows it’s a near-impossible ask. That is why the Father sent his only Son to show us the way. And it’s why God is always willing to forgive us when we fail. 

But we must practice forgiveness first. And practice is the right word. If heaven is not a place but an eternal state of being, a constant activity, we cannot expect to get in shape for it overnight. You wouldn’t expect to win a marathon without training; we cannot expect to enjoy heaven unless we try each day to stop judging and condemning others and instead focus on the forgiveness God offers us when we fall short.   

“Be you content with nothing short of perfection,” St. Newman says. “Exert yourselves day by day to grow in knowledge and grace; that, if so be, you may at length attain to the presence of Almighty God.”

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