In His Glory, art by YongSung Kim

As long as we live here on earth, it often feels as if we are separated from him. Obviously, we aren’t, but because we are so dependent on what we can see and hear, it is difficult to believe fully in an invisible reality.

In our own days, it is often heard that we don’t know what happens after death; nobody has ever come back so you can never be sure. That it is even said among Christians is perplexing. The central truth in our faith is exactly that someone has come back, and that the Risen One has appeared to many. He has been seen, spoken to, eaten with.

We know very well what happens after death. When we die, we meet him who is love itself, we receive a body that is like the body of glory that he has (Phil 3:21), free from all limitations, a body that is no longer bound in time and space. We get to be with Christ, be together with him in the Father.

We can’t imagine the security, peace, and joy involved in being forever with the Lord. It transcends our comprehension. It is “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1Cor 2:9). But the fact that we can’t imagine it exactly doesn’t mean that it isn’t real.

~ A Meditation by Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.