Will we become angels when we go to Heaven?

THE MAGAZINE OF THE CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF LANSING

YOUR FAITH
TO FATHER JOE

Dear Father Joe: I have heard many things and seen many pictures about heaven and I wonder if this will be the case. Will there be palaces and streets of gold and will we become angels?

This is such an important issue for all of us: death affects us all indirectly and obviously at some point it will affect us all personally. We try, as a Church and also in society, to describe the ideas of death, resurrection and heaven because this is important to us. heaven is our goal, but if we forget our goal, we get lost.

I'll use Scripture and our tradition to answer these questions, with a lot of help from Dr. Peter Kreeft, my favorite philosopher and a guy who has written extensively about heaven. If you type "heaven" and its name into Google, you will find numerous helpful articles on this topic. So with that in mind, let's dive right in.

First things first: do we become angels when we die?

Short answer? No.

It has become popular in our culture to say, "Heaven has gained another angel" when someone dies. I guess this is just an expression we use and, in this regard, it may seem harmless. However, I want to point out that, as humans, we definitely don't become angels when we die. We humans are unique in creation and have a special dignity. It seems to me that thinking that we must change from human to something else to enter heaven can inadvertently have many negative consequences, philosophically and theologically. I won't burden us with these issues now, as it would probably take up more space than me.

The key is this: As humans, you and I are totally different creatures from angels. Probably the most distinctive difference between us and angels is that we are body / soul units, while angels are pure spirit. If we get to heaven, we will join the angels there, but we will join them as human beings.

So what kind of humans?

If we look at the scriptures, we see that what happens after our death is ready for us.

When we die, our soul leaves our body to face judgment and, at that point, the body begins to decay.

This judgment will result in our going to heaven or hell, knowing that, technically, purgatory is not separate from heaven.

At some point known only to God, Christ will return, and when that happens, our bodies will be resurrected and restored, and then they will reunite with our souls wherever they are. (As an interesting side note, many Catholic cemeteries bury people so that when their bodies rise at Christ's Second Coming, they will face east!)

Since we were created as a body / soul unit, we will experience heaven or hell as a body / soul unit.

So what will that experience be? What will make heaven heavenly?

This is something that, for more than 2000 years, Christians have been trying to describe and, frankly, I don't have much hope of being able to do it better than most of them. The key is to think of it this way: all we can do is use the images we know to express something that cannot be described.

My favorite image of heaven comes from St. John in the book of Revelation. In it, he gives us images of people in the sky waving palm branches. Because? Why palm branches? They symbolize the scriptural account of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem: In heaven, we are celebrating the King who overcame sin and death.

The key is this: the defining feature of heaven is ecstasy and the word itself gives us a sense of what heaven will be. When we look at the word "ecstasy", we learn that it comes from the Greek word ekstasis, which means "to be beside oneself". We have hints and whispers of heaven and hell in our daily life; the more selfish we are, the more selfish we act, the more unhappy we become. We have seen people who live only for what they want and for their ability to make life horrible for themselves and everyone around them.

We have also all seen and experienced the wonder of altruism. Counterintuitive as it is, when we live for God, when we live for others, we find a deep joy, a sense that goes beyond anything we can explain for ourselves.

I think this is what Jesus means when he tells us that we find our lives when we lose them. Christ, who knows our nature, who knows our hearts, knows that "they never rest until they rest in [God]". In heaven, we will be outside of ourselves focused on what and who really matters: God.

I want to conclude with a quote from Peter Kreeft. When asked if we will be bored in heaven, his answer left me breathless with its beauty and simplicity. He said:

“We will not be bored because we are with God, and God is infinite. We never get to the end of exploring it. It is new every day. We will not be bored because we are with God and God is eternal. Time does not pass (a condition for boredom); he is alone. All time is present in eternity, as all plot events are present in an author's mind. There is no waiting. We will not be bored because we are with God, and God is love. Even on earth, the only people who never get bored are lovers “.

Brothers and sisters, God has given us the hope of heaven. May we respond to his mercy and his call to holiness, so that we can live that hope with integrity and joy!