A Place Prepared with the Father

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Head of Christ by Rembrandt van Rijn, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

In that new life our soul will one day be reunited to the body: not the feeble, imperfect body we have on earth, but a glorified body like the risen Christ, free from every defect and blemish; a spiritualized body incapable of illness, injury, or pain, just as the soul will be incapable of sorrow, temptation, or any kind of suffering, for all these former things shall have passed away.

When we arrive at our Father's house, it will not be as a stranger. Waiting for us will be the members of our family and our friends who were taken from us by death. How wonderful will be that reunion with those who were dearest and closest to us on earth, a reunion never again to be broken up by separation, by misunderstandings, by human frailties. But there are other and larger groups of persons waiting to give us a most ardent welcome. Most of the persons in these groups were on earth total strangers to us; but they know us, they have known us for a long time. One of these groups is the men and women who, while they were in this world, often offered up to God their prayers, sacrifices, and sufferings for the salvation of souls. It was through them that we obtained many a grace from God when we badly needed help. God reveals to them how their love has helped us, and so they are waiting to welcome into heaven the soul they helped to arrive there. And the members of the next group will give us an equally warm welcome, for they are those whom we by our prayers and sufferings helped to gain heaven. They are longing to express to us their gratitude, a gratitude that will last forever.

These are the promises of Christ. These promises were guaranteed and confirmed by the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead. This is the reason why the first Christians, recently converted from paganism, were so transported with joy on Easter morn that they were wont to greet one another with the salutation: Christ has arisen from the dead! And the enthusiastic response was: Yes, he has truly risen! Since he has risen, he will fulfill his promises! For those Christians, no price was too great for so radiant an eternity. The confiscation of their wealth and estates; the loss of all civil rights, honors, and titles; exile in a distant, barbarous land; cruel and revolting forms of torture ending in death: What were these temporary sufferings compared to the ecstasy of beholding the beatific vision throughout the unending ages of eternity?