Heaven

Posted by Molly

When my son, Charlie, was an infant and we were getting ready for his baptism, I took the baptism prep class that Teri Dwyer runs for St Raphaels. Teri asked all the parents in the class why they wanted to bring their child into the Catholic faith. Some parents had to ponder the question for a minute because it was a pretty serious one. I knew my answer immediately. It was because as a lifelong Catholic myself, I knew that if times got hard for my children that their faith would pull them through as it had for me. And then I told the class about my mom's passing and how knowing that she was in heaven and we would be reunited one day helped ease my pain. Without my faith in God, I don't think I could have ever gotten through losing my mother.

Before I had children, when I was working, I was friends with a lot of really liberal people whose ideas about religion differed greatly from mine. I am a big proponent of being open-minded and trying to have lots of different kinds of friends so I just avoided talking about religion or politics with these pals and enjoyed the other things we had in common. I had one pal in particular who was sort of an outspoken atheist. He did not believe in any God. That is until his father died.

Everyone else at work struggled to figure out how to help him because he was in deep despair. I bought him the book I always buy when someone dies - "What's Heaven?" by Maria Shriver and I sent him a note saying "I know you don't believe in this stuff, but I do and I wanted you to know that someone is praying for your Dad and knows he's in Heaven." He called me and said it was the greatest gift he'd ever received because what he really needed was to know that his dad was okay and that they would be reunited. That's the gift our faith gives us. And we are so lucky to have it. 

This afternoon I read another book. It's called "Heaven is for Real" by Todd Burpo and it's about the things his 3 year old son told him after awaking from surgery.  Apparently the boy went to heaven and then God heard the prayers of those on earth and sent him back. The things the boy says would be hard to believe if they weren't coming from such a small child who would have no way of knowing anything or trying to trick us. Mr. Burpo is the pastor of a Protestant church so he does not have the exact same background as us, but close enough. In the book he recounts things his son said and then compares them to scripture and it's remarkablely similar. I completely believed everything he said and it just strengthened my Catholic faith and made me so happy to know more about where my mom is and where we'll meet again. I highly recommend the book.

And even if you don't read it, just take a moment to think about your own thoughts about heaven and how lucky we are as Catholics to have the gift of blind faith. It gets us through the hard times and in the end we will be rewarded for our devotion and unwavering belief in God when we are reunited with our loved ones in heaven. I love my life and I hope it is a long one, but I really look forward to that day when I'll see my mother again.

photo credit:  heaven sky by adyyflickr