Eternal Light

As we get older, whether we believe or not, we begin wondering what happens to us, after we pass away.

I myself am writing my own funeral homily. I don’t trust anyone to say what they are thinking about me, when I am not there! What happens at the moment of death? The Bible suggests that we are given a body unlike the one we used here. What will heaven be like? The Book of Revelation is replete with Paul’s vision of what heaven is like and we have adopted many of those into our cultural ways.

I like the story of the billionaire who was dying and prayed to God and made a deal that he would give all but a small amount of his fortune to charity, if he could bring a case of his fortune to heaven. Well, he did just that filling a suitcase with gold. He died and found himself at the Pearly Gates with St. Peter. No one had ever brought a suitcase to heaven before. St. Peter went off to confer with God about this case. Satisfied, he returned and asked the man if he could peek into the case because this was so unusual. The man opened the case revealing the shining gold. Peter rubbed his head and asked, “Pavement! Why did you bring pavement?!” What it will be like is filled with speculation and won’t be satisfied until we get there ourselves.

I have been reading a book entitled, “The Universe in your Hand.” by Christophe Galfard, who was an intern with Stephen Hawking, at Cambridge. The book, in laymen’s terms, describes the universe from a physics standpoint. It was while reading it that a thought came to me that had never cross my little grey cells before. In it, Galfard writes, “Now being made of mass, you have no choice but be subjected to the passage of time. To become eternal, you’d need to turn ourselves into light. Light has no mass and is governed by Einstein’s theory of E=mc2.”

My mind went to remember God’s first item of creation - light. Jesus is often called the, “light of the world.” People who have had near-death experiences speak about walking towards the light. Then, I thought about Jesus on the cross when he said to the crook on the other cross, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” Today? Nothing travels faster than light. Is heaven made up of light?

I remember reading about a university class experimenting with what happens to us when we die. They had a number of palliative patients room filled with sensors. When the patient died, they noticed that there was a sudden surge of energy filling the room emanating from the bodies. The soul? I have been at many death beds and have witnessed that at the moment of passing, the room is suddenly filled with an atmosphere that can only be described, as holy. Anxious hearts are suddenly at ease because somehow we know that everything is okay.

Eternal light. Heaven. Heaven is being with Jesus and with God.

The eyes are the window to the soul. A room is lit up by someone’s presence. What if, when we die, we turn to light so that we can be part of the light we know that is of Jesus and of God. God calls us all to share the light of our being with someone else through love. Light up your world with love. May God bless you all.