Lesson 2-- Heaven

Now read pages 17-20, about the source of our unhappiness, and what heaven is like.

How did we lose our hope of heaven? (see this Baltimore Catechism lesson for review if necessary). There will be more detail about Adam and Eve's fall later in the course.

What are some false ideas of heaven?
What is heaven like, according to the book?

1. Possessing all good things
2. Beauty, Truth, Knowledge
3. Soul and Body
4. Friends

There is a catechism on heaven here (you have to click "heaven" on the left sidebar). Pope John Paul II spoke about heaven (here).

A Glimpse of Heaven Through the Eyes of C.S. Lewis

We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves — that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can't. They tell us that "beauty born of murmuring sound" will pass into human face; but it won't. Or not yet.

For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.

More on Heaven by CS Lewis

“There have been times when I think we do not desire Heaven, but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our hearts of hearts, we have ever desired anything else.”

“If I find in myself a desire, which no other experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

“Our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation . . . at last to be summoned from inside would be both glory and honor and also the healing of that old ache.”

“Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

“Joy is the serious business of heaven.”

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