Is Heaven a Place?

Several years ago, in my ministry as a hospice chaplain, a dying patient smiled and said to me, “I hope Heaven is like Buffalo and that the chicken wings are even better.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I lived in western New York in the winter and that it didn’t feel like Heaven to me.

I’ve read?Proof of Heaven?by the neurosurgeon, Dr. Eben Alexander, and had my own near-death experience when I was born at Faxton Hospital in Utica, New York, and I don’t believe that Heaven is limited to any place, space, or time.?

During my study of theology in the seminary, having been raised in the Catholic faith, I learned that “Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the?state?of supreme definitive happiness.”

It was only when I reached the age of reason, at about the time of my First Holy Communion, that I began to recall images and acknowledge feelings of what it was like to have experienced for a brief time, a time that seemed like an eternity to my parents, that?state?of supreme definitive happiness, joy, and peace.?

As I look back now over the years, I learned two important lessons from my near-death experience as a child. First, Heaven is a choice made possible by Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection and the three gifts of justification, sanctification, and glorification. Justification is the gift by which our sins are forgiven; sanctification is the gift by which we grow in the likeness of Christ; and glorification is the gift by which we enter that heavenly state of supreme definitive happiness, joy, and peace. When we use the gifts of our intellect, emotions, and will to believe in Jesus Christ and live according to His Word, we are blessed to share God's presence forever.

The second lesson I learned is that we can experience a foreshadowing of that definitive happiness, joy, and peace on earth each time we reach out to be a hope and help to one another in an effort to make this troubled world we live in a better place.

The foundation of it all, however, and God’s eternal plan for us is clearly articulated in arguably the most popular point in the Bible, John 3:16-17:?For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”

So, while we are here in this?place?on earth, we believe in the Jesus who was crucified and rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, leading others to His truth, so that one day we will be called to experience with Him an everlasting peace, joy, and happiness that surpasses all understanding.