Heaven - The first place on my bucket list !

A little bit of heaven as I imagine it.

I someday, maybe soon maybe a long time off, maybe today I will be summoned home to give an account of my life to the Just Judge.  I hope that Jesus finds me worthy of being with Him in heaven for all eternity. 1 Cor 2:9 tells us that "eye has not seen nor ear heard...what God has prepared for those that love Him."  So the first thing we know about heaven that it is going to be better than anything that we can imagine. This being said, we can imagine the joy our spirit will feel when we hear that heaven is the place for us.  The fact that the battle is over, the victory over sin and death that Jesus won for us on the Cross is now made manifest to us and we enter into the Kingdom of God. This joy of knowing that you will never have to struggle, you will never be tempted or sin again has to be the thing that is greatest about heaven.  But what do we know about the particulars?  Not a whole lot unfortunately at least from authoritative sources.  There are a plethora of stories of people who say that they have visited or have been granted visions of heaven. 

I personally have never been granted a vision of heaven but I believe in my heart of hearts that I have been privileged to have been given a small sample of what it is like to be a citizen of The Kingdom of God Triumphant. Many years ago I believed that I had a calling to religious life and I joined an order called the Third Order of St. Francis which at the time was based in a little town in the Allegheny mountains called Loretto PA.  I lived on the old estate of a man who was a millionaire around the time of the first world war by the name of Charles Schwab.  It was a beautiful place with formal gardens and tree lined paths and I lived in a building called Bonaventure Hall, first in the "Tower Room."  Here is a picture of the place.  I have to tell you, it did not look quite as nice back in the 1970's when I lived there for a year. No, it was in was 

Bonaventure Hall

need of some repair and updating some of which we postulants  were set to work doing during that first year of training for religious life. It was a wonderful time in my life, not without struggles but it served to help me to grow both as an ordinary human and it helped me grow in my religious life.  Our class celebrated investiture for around thirty brothers. We lost several along the way. That is what the formation years are about, you discern if you have a vocation or not. Living with a bunch of men can be difficult and yet because you all believe the same things you almost automatically get closer to God as you support each other. It was not a life that was perfect, there were things that I did not like, but that will be the subject of another post some time.  

Class of 1977

This is a picture taken of the brothers that were selected to continue study at the novitiate in Winchester VA.  This picture was taken of the 24 Novices the day before we left Bonaventure Hall.  I blurred everyone else out except me to prove to you that I was actually there. Prior to this we went on a week long retreat for which I was the sacristan and had to set up the chapel for each of the conferences. On the last day of the retreat I asked Father Pat, our postulant master whose favorite saint was St. Isidore, the patron saint of farmers, if I could have this last day off of being sacristan so that I could immerse myself more readily into the retreat.  He appointed a substitute for me and that Sunday I got more out of the retreat than on the other six days because I had no duties to perform.  The last conference finished and my substitute set up for Mass. It happened while we were singing a song that had been left to us by the previous years class.  The title of the song written by two of the novices was entitled Caught Up in Wonder.  The song went something like this: 

Let me sing of your wonderful name,

Let my lips tell the joy of your love. 

The heavens proclaiming the glory of God 

And yet no sound can be heart 

The world and it stillness are wrapped in your silence

Now Father give us Your Word....

When we got to those last words something happened to me. I believe my soul left my body.  No I did not have an out of body experience, no I did not travel towards the light or anything like that. I felt a joy that was so great unlike anything I had felt before and unlike anything that I have felt after.  There are no words to describe the joy I felt. I could not hear the music being played anymore and for one time in my life I was centered upon Christ and could just feel the love He had for me radiating out from Him, the Center and Creator of the universe.  This joy lasted but a moment, had it continued longer I would have died right then and there because the Illuminating Love flowing from Christ into me was something I wanted more and more of.  I no longer had to have faith on God, I knew that He existed just as I knew that two plus two equals four or if jump of a building I will die. I felt His power and His love for me.  Not for the whole world but me personally, Michael J. Spoula, a well renowned sinner! Of course God loves the whole world but I think I was granted this experience to show me how important I was to God. God loves his children with a burning love hotter than the seraphim angels that surround the throne of God with their burning love for Him, Now, think what you want about this. Some might say that I had some sort of psychotic break with reality. Some might say that it was just your imagination or it was just a good spiritual day. But I was there and I know what happened to me and I thank God for this sample of heaven every day even forty years after the event I remember it like it was yesterday. 

So that is my experience with heaven. There are any number of writers that have captured stories from people said to have been there or those that have been given vision of heaven. The "seers" in Medjugorje have described it in detail as as place of great beauty where people all are no older than the age of Jesus and that they have seem them in beautiful park like settings.  All four of the "seers" give similar stories about when the Blessed Virgin showed them Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell.  I put the word "seers" in quotes because the Church has not ruled on the vision said to have been continuing since the 1980's so we have to treat what they say with discretion. 

Other non-catholic sources claim that they were in heaven and were told to return. All of them describe it as a happy place (of course) and most of the accounts I have read claim that you know everybody's name.  

What is your opinion on heaven?  I would love to have your comments.