Do you ponder Heaven?

"There, helpless, wholly at His mercy, resting at His pulsing heart, I could care for nothing in the world other than pure love."

Do you ponder Heaven -- what you think that it might be, what you've experienced that you feel it could be, what you've set your heart to hope that it will be?

Our group of about 20 middle-aged Catholic men and women who are participating in the third-year "Why Catholic?" series session at St. Patrick in Cumberland, Maryland, were posed that question Thursday morning. Asked to think a bit and jot some notes, we then gathered into small groups to discuss the topic and comprise a summary view to present to the larger group.

I shed gentle tears then just thinking upon heaven. My first note to myself was "to sing with the angels in adoration, 'Holy, Holy, Holy.'" Next thoughts were: "To see the face of God; perpetual consolation; beauty, peace, harmony, unconditional love; not having to think, judge, be judged; freedom just to be, just to love purely."

Just considering that I could have the chance finally to see His face in Heaven and to be so favored as to praise and please God with the angels and saints fills my heart now with anticipation so that soul-felt tears well up, brim over and spill down....

I recall a decisive moment as I lay, I think, between life and death following my second very complicated heart surgery two and a half years ago: I believe that right then, I grasped an understanding of the power of the type of selfless love alluded to by the saints; and I think I engaged in a rare chance then to sample an inkling of the glory the saints share with the angels in the all-consuming embrace of God's love in Heaven. My thoughts were immersed in that place at that time in love for family, friends, caretakers and God; and I begged Him that I should live. I likewise surrendered to His will for my life -- or if it be that I should die.

I know now that grave suffering in conjunction with the promise of death (or life) drew me utterly into God's great consolation. There, helpless, wholly at His mercy, resting at His pulsing heart, I could care for nothing in the world other than pure love. And I believe that He gently and persistently urged me over time to prepare for that day when I could choose between life and death -- real and ethereal.

In the couple of years leading up to this surgery, I felt an interior conversion nudging me to mature in my faith, to seek deeper and higher understandings of the practical as well as poetic, profound and mystical aspects of my Catholic faith. I set about seeking a spiritual director to advise me.

A regular visitor to the National Shrine Grotto of Lourdes in Emmitsuburg, Maryland, I happened one day there in 2004 to pick up a flyer about a coming weekend retreat by Father Jack Lombardi to be held at the Mount Saint Mary's Seminary. I signed up and went.

Father Jack impressed me as a truly holy priest, a regular guy aiming to be a saint, a flawed human being striving to detach from the vanities that tether his spirit, someone seeking to be Christ-like and free just to love God and love neighbor. In the month after, I asked Father Jack to be my spiritual director.

As such, and confessor, too, Father Jack generously shared his knowledge and insights with me, listening intently and guiding me expertly to probe the depths of my desires for harmony and life and God and eternity. Reading books on the spiritual life and Bible passages that he suggested, to fit my circumstances or wonderings, effected revelations for me: I began to let go to accept and surrender to the workings of God around me in renewed ways.

More pious poeple and wholesome opportunities came into my life, providing balance for sometimes more confounding situations: Familiar comforts and attachments, matters of livelihood, status and identity, were being stripped from my life. I wondered at times what more God could take (or permit to be taken) from me. As I sought to know Him better, I felt He was challenging my fortitude, testing my perseverance, distilling my spirit -- fortifying my faith. Then the surgery became imminent.

It was Father Jack, ultimately, who responded to the quiet call of my still spirit on April 23, 2006, one week after the surgery, and came to pray at my bedside and bring Christ to me in the Eucharist. That unsolicited yet deeply desired gesture of his was so selfless and generous and profound to me: My spirit responded, and my will awakened.

So as I lay after our visit in solitary silence conversing with God, nestled at His breast, consumed with love for Him and for all His creation, I asked to live.

Total recovery took nearly two years; and I am left now nearly blind as a complication of the surgery. In time, physical agony progressed to difficulty, and difficulty gave way to inconvenience, and inconvenience became mostly a memory; and my vivid spiritual awareness of the nearness of God likewise receded and waned, 'til now sometimes I fear I'll lose touch with the hard-earned reality of that awful and awesome experience.

Reality it was. I believe I experienced Heaven.

by Nancy E. Thoerig 10-12-08