What is heaven like? Of course, no one knows (or at least, no one who knows has been able properly to describe it, other than “eternal joy.” But what does that description really mean?). Scripture offers interesting suggestions, including a return to the Garden of Eden, or entrance into the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem. In its own way, today’s first reading is a mash-up of both—the cool, clean, clear air of a mountaintop on a sunny spring day, and the 5-star service of the best meal imaginable, from the catering service of the Lord. That’s what I call a picnic! We also encounter the image of the liturgy of eternal worship of God and of the Lamb—the celestial celebration of salvation, rooted in love—grateful love from us because of the prior love of God for us in the Son. To worship is to say (and act out) “I love you,” and when love is unending (after all, God IS love), then our own worship/love lasts forever, as well. St Augustine (in his monumental work De Civitate Dei—The City of God) has a famous description which I will translate: heaven is “…that most perfectly ordered and harmonious society of the enjoyment of God, and of one another in God.” So—will we be able to recognize and celebrate with those we have loved in the past (including our dogs!)? I think so (I hope and pray so!), though how this can happen is impossible to describe. After all, going back to Isaiah’s vision, how many people can we sit beside at the heavenly picnic at the same time? On the other hand, Dante knew that his climb up the seven-storey mountain of purgatory and his entrance into paradise was completed when he saw the face of his beloved Beatrice, who would now be his guide to the joys of eternal love. [Footnote: in the Ambrosian Library in Milan, in a staircase, there is a stained-glass window of Dante’s encounter with Beatrice, and hers may be (to me) the most beautiful artistic depiction of a woman’s face that I have ever seen.] So the question we might ask ourselves could be: who would we want as our guide (or guides), presuming we’re ready to enter? And who might in fact be chosen as our guide (or guides) by One who knows love better than we do? Yes, this musing seems to be a segue to C S Lewis’s writings (especially The Last Battle from the Narnia series, and The Great Divorce), or those of Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet In Heaven and The Next Person You Meet In Heaven). But you can check those out on your own. I’ll let St Paul have the last word, as he wrote to the Corinthians (I Cor 2:): “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not dawned in the human heart—what God has prepared for those who love him.” And, as Mother Julian of Norwich once said: “May Jesus grant this. Amen.” -Fr. David