Christ-Haunted Sees Heaven!

Right here:

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says

"Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

Until tonight I mostly thought that Heaven is a place that I hope to see after my death. But after reading Scripture with some friends, I began to understand that Heaven is not only a place, it is the Life that God gives to me.

He sees God giving this life to him through the Eucharist.

Contrast his understanding to that of Pope John Paul the Great's teaching in Mane Nobiscum Domine:

Receiving the Eucharist means entering into a profound communion with Jesus. "Abide in me, and I in you" (Jn 15:4). This relationship of profound and mutual "abiding" enables us to have a certain foretaste of heaven on earth. Is this not the greatest of human yearnings? Is this not what God had in mind when he brought about in history his plan of salvation? God has placed in human hearts a "hunger" for his word (cf. Am 8:11), a hunger which will be satisfied only by full union with him. Eucharistic communion was given so that we might be "sated" with God here on earth, in expectation of our complete fulfillment in heaven.

Now, consider the Catechism of the Catholic Church's declarations on heaven:

IV. "WHO ART IN HEAVEN"

2794 This biblical expression does not mean a place ("space"), but a way of being; it does not mean that God is distant, but majestic. Our Father is not "elsewhere": he transcends everything we can conceive of his holiness. It is precisely because he is thrice holy that he is so close to the humble and contrite heart.

"Our Father who art in heaven" is rightly understood to mean that God is in the hearts of the just, as in his holy temple. At the same time, it means that those who pray should desire the one they invoke to dwell in them.54

"Heaven" could also be those who bear the image of the heavenly world, and in whom God dwells and tarries.55

and this:

2795 The symbol of the heavens refers us back to the mystery of the covenant we are living when we pray to our Father. He is in heaven, his dwelling place; the Father's house is our homeland. Sin has exiled us from the land of the covenant,56 but conversion of heart enables us to return to the Father, to heaven.57 In Christ, then, heaven and earth are reconciled,58 for the Son alone "descended from heaven" and causes us to ascend there with him, by his Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension.59

2796 When the Church prays "our Father who art in heaven," she is professing that we are the People of God, already seated "with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" and "hidden with Christ in God;"60 yet at the same time, "here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling."61

[Christians] are in the flesh, but do not live according to the flesh. They spend their lives on earth, but are citizens of heaven.62

It seems as though the Church defines Heaven more as God's presence than of some location in which one would travel in order to find him. Thus, Christ, as the son of God, brings heaven with him wherever he goes. When he rests in the heart of the faithful, at their invitation, he brings heaven with him. Since he is also "The Life", Christ is heaven and Life, wherever he is. Christ-Haunted appears to be correct, then, in hus understanding of heaven as the gift of God's Life.

However, Pope John Paul the Great refers to the Eucharist as the "foretaste of heaven." He also notes that our hunger for God can only be "satisfied only by full union with him", in which we can expect to receive "our complete fulfillment in heaven."

So, full communion with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit for all eternity is heaven. The problem with saying that the God's gift of life is heaven is that such an idea assumes a perfect and full reception of such a gift, in which communion is then born. This side of death, such a perfect union does not occur. Even the Saints, while on earth, struggled with sin. All of us have fallen due to sin, and remain weakened by conscupescience. We do not receive Christ with the fullness of our being. That's why we need his Grace. That's why the Church offers us the Sacraments. Christ gives himself to us so that we can live with him while yearning for him in fullness. When we have spent our imperfect lives living in as full a communion with him as our nature and his Grace allows, then we may hope to enjoy full communion with him in eternity. Then, we experience heaven.

Christ-Haunted understands that the Eucharist brings the foretaste of heaven. Imagine his delight--indeed, all of our delights--if and when he, and the rest of Christ's Church, experience him in the fullness of Love! Now, that's heaven!