Heaven: Book and Commentaries

I am reading the excellent little book “Heaven Sense: What Scripture and the Catholic Church really teach about Heaven” by Father John P. Arendzen, 2004, Sophia Institute Press, Manchester, NH. This book was originally published by the Macmillan Company, New York, in 1928 under the title “The Church Triumphant.” “Fr. John P. Arendsen (1873-1954), a native of Amsterdam, spent his life as a priest spreading the Faith in England. His eloquence and clarity led the “Daily Mail” to name him one of the ‘Preachers of the Century.’” (Quotation from the back cover of “Heaven Sense.”)

I plan to do a book review of “Heaven Sense” since there is a great deal of curiosity about what heaven (and hell) are like, and New Age material is fallacious and leads people into what often is fatal error.

Leading up to my book review, however, I will be doing an exercise to help people better visualize heaven (and implicitly, better envision hell.) I’m going to use a technique that is often helpful in therapy, which is to help people identify and subtract negative behavior and qualities, leaving a purer space to be filled by the productive and good.
Here is the first visualization. In heaven there are no bullies. Picture a place where bullying, whether minor, moderate or extreme, totally does not exist. It is not like bullying is a human tendency that is suppressed by superior goodness. Bullying (and bullies) simply do not exist in heaven, and cannot exist in heaven. I will leave it to your imagination where they can and do exist.

The people who oppress and bully either on the job, through their wealth or influence, through their civil service, taxing or military power, or through their ability to make you miserable and want to cross the street or hide in the bathroom when they approach will not exist in heaven. Bullying is a lack of charity, which the gospels have identified as the most important quality for a Christian to possess in order to be saved. There is no absence of charity in heaven because heaven is the totality of charity, being in the eternal presence of God. People who are bullies cannot exist in heaven. It is not a matter of being harsh, but rather, you should think of it as an oxygen breather being unable to live in a pure atmosphere of hydrogen. A person, who is a bully, whether on a small scale or a large scale, is in this example an oxygen breather. He or she, with every bullying, is refusing to adapt their body to breathing hydrogen, which is, in this example, the only “air” that can be “breathed” in heaven. So bullies are simply unable to exist in heaven.

So you can think, with solace and comfort, of heaven as being a place where no one will ever in eternity experience the deed of bullying or the soul of a bully.