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Charlie Traffas
Charlie Traffas has been involved in marketing, media, publishing and insurance for more than 40 years. In addition to being a fully-licensed life, health, property and casualty agent, he is also President and Owner of Chart Marketing, Inc. (CMI). CMI operates and markets several different products and services that help B2B and B2C businesses throughout the country create customers...profitably. You may contact Charlie by phone at (316) 721-9200, by e-mail at ctraffas@chartmarketing.com, or you may visit at www.chartmarketing.com.
Religion
2006-11-01 08:42:00
Will we all get along in Heaven?
There are many verses in the Bible that show heaven to be a place of absolute happiness, including 1 Corinthians 2:9. My wife and I have been married for many years. I am happier being with her than with anyone else. Suppose I die first, and she remarries, and all of us (me, her, and her new husband) end up in Heaven. Will I spend an eternity watching her with her new husband? Will he spend an eternity watching me with her? How does all of this work out?
ANSWER:You are correct that heaven is a place or situation of absolute happiness. You have well cited St. Paul in 1 Cor. 2:9. Therein the Apostle is repeating what the prophet Isaiah (64:3) had taught: “Human eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it so much as dawned on man: what wonderful things God has prepared for those who love him.” We are unable to even imagine the happiness of heaven.There are no vices in heaven. Jealousy or envy is a vice. Therefore there can be no jealousy in heaven. The definition of jealousy is: “sorrow over the good of another person.” In the gospels of Matthew (22:23-30) and Mark (12:18-25) and Luke (20:27-36), Jesus Himself seems to have anticipated your concern about your wife’s possible new husband after your death. Some Sadducees proposed to Jesus the situation wherein a woman had seven husbands in succession, having lost each one by death. Then they asked: “At the resurrection, whose wife will she be? Remember: all seven married her.” Jesus replied: “The children of this world marry and are given in marriage, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the age to come and of resurrection from the dead, will not then marry. They will be like angels and are no longer liable to death. They are the sons of God, because they will have risen from death.” Everyone in heaven will be filled with love for God and for one another. Each will rejoice in the other’s good. Therefore in heaven you, filled with happiness, can only rejoice about your wife, and be happy for the joy and comfort she has given you and will have given to any future husbands. In heaven you will enjoy the companionship of your wife and of all the other good persons, who ever lived, including your successor, whether in this life you liked him or not. This supposes that he was a good man. If he was not good, he won’t be in heaven and you won’t be concerned about him. You see, life after death is quite different from anything we have experienced or can imagine. Each person in heaven is filled with happiness, according to their capacity for such happiness. The saints and those individuals, who have lived good and holy lives, will have a greater capacity for happiness: than will those persons, who spent their lives in selfish pursuits and neglect of God. Through God’s mercy those latter sinners were able to repent before they died, and so eventually they will go to heaven. But their capacity for happiness will be much less than the capacity of those persons who devoted their lives to serving God and their neighbor. Of course, those who do not repent before they die will not go to heaven! Unrepentant sinners go to hell, and in hell there is plenty of jealousy along with every other misery. But in heaven there is no jealousy; each person is perfectly happy in whatever capacity they have for happiness. I illustrate this idea with a crude example. Let us suppose that water represents happiness. The seas and rivers have a greater capacity for being filled with water than do a swimming pool or a bathtub or a bowl or a cup. During this life each person increases or decreases his/her capacity for happiness (or for suffering in hell) according to the virtues or vices they practice. By reason of their many virtues, the saints might be compared to the seas and rivers in their capacity for happiness, whereas those persons with few virtues, but who have repented of their vices, will have a capacity for happiness comparable to a bowl or a cup or a thimble. Yet the bowl is not jealous of the bathtub. Each can be completely full of water. Still, there is more water in a bathtub than in a bowl or a cup or thimble. The holy Virgin Mary, in her capacity for happiness, must be compared to the ocean. Therefore, while you still have life, strive to increase your capacity for happiness, which will be fixed forever at the moment of your death. In heaven you will rejoice at your wife’s happiness with her new husband and you will rejoice at his good fortune in succeeding you. But you cannot be sad or jealous over either party because your own soul will be completely full of the love of God. That is the perfect happiness, awaiting you in heaven.
 
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