Heaven

Catechism on Heaven
Free Will of Man
  The Handbook for Today's Catholic
Copyright 1994 Liguori Publications.
 Used with permission.

     Grace, God’s presence within you, is like a seed—a vital, growing seed that is destined one day to break forth full-grown.  God has given himself to you, but in a hidden way.  For the time being, you seek him even as you possess him.  But the time will come when your seeking will be over.  You will then see and possess God completely.  This has been revealed.  In his first letter Saint John tells us:  “Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but what we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2). And in his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul says:  “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood” (1 Cor 13:12). This is heaven: direct face-to-face vision of God as he is—Father, Son, and Spirit; total and perfect union with God, an ecstasy of fulfillment beyond human imagining; the “now” of eternity in which everything is ever new, fresh, and present to you; the warm flood of joy in the company of Jesus, his Mother, and all the people you have ever known and loved; a total absence of pain, regret, bad memories; the perfect enjoyment of all your powers of mind and (after the resurrection on Judgment Day) of body. This is heaven.  That is to say, this is a pale, human indication of what God has promised to those who love him, of what Christ has gained for us by his death and Resurrection.


Hell

Catechism on Hell
The Fall of Man
  The Handbook for Today's Catholic
Copyright 1994 Liguori Publications.
Used with permission.

     God, who is infinite love and mercy, is also infinite justice.  Because of God’s justice as well as his total respect for human freedom, hell is a real possibility as a person’s eternal destiny.  This side of God’s mystery is difficult for us to grasp.  But Christ himself taught it, and so does the Church. The teaching on hell is clearly in Scripture.  In the Gospel of Matthew Christ says to the just:  “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  But to the unjust he says:  “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25:34, 41). Elsewhere Jesus is recorded as saying:  “It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire” (Mk 9:43).  One point that emerges quite clearly from this doctrine is the reality of human freedom.  You are free to seek God and serve him.  And you are free to do the opposite. In either case, you are responsible for the consequences.  You are free, radically free, to seek God.  And you are free, radically free, to choose the inexpressible pain of his absence.

From: The Handbook for Today's Catholic