Defining Heaven

When I was in the first grade, I asked my teacher—a nun—what heaven is like.

She told me heaven is like the Mass.

That was absolutely the right answer.

That was absolutely the wrong answer. 

It was the right answer because it’s the truth. The Mass is where heaven touches earth. Jesus, truly present in the Holy Eucharist, gives us actual union with Him when we receive Him in Communion. And that’s what heaven is: a perpetual union with Christ.

But it was also the wrong answer—that is, it was the wrong answer to give a seven-year-old.

Because, you see, Sister didn’t go into any explanations other than to tell me heaven is like the Mass. And to a child of my age, heaven sounded awful because going to Mass was awful.

Back then, the Mass was still in Latin, so I didn’t understand a word of it. Also, because I was a child, my view was blocked by the backs of the adults in front of me, so I couldn’t see what was going on. In fact, I seemed to get placed behind the same man every Sunday, a large guy with so many creases in his neck that I thought it looked like the skin on a bowl of gravy that had been left out too long.

And of course I was forbidden from squirming or making any noise. If I did, there was hell to pay. My mother would yank me out of the pew and drag me outside for a few swift whacks on my behind.

So to me heaven sounded like having to sit still, staring at Mr. Gravy Neck. I could barely stand to do that for an hour. Heaven meant doing it forever.

In fact, it meant doing that forever and ever, world without end, amen.

At that point, the only reason I wanted to go to heaven was to avoid hell, which sounded like one perpetual spanking. In fact, heaven seemed only a little bit better than hell. To my mind, heaven was eternal boredom. Hell was an eternal sore butt.

Honestly, Sister should have given me G.K. Chesterton’s definition of heaven: a playground. Thank goodness I grew up to learn a better version of things.

By the way, I still think heaven is awful. But I think it is awful in the original definition of the word, that is, full of awe.