Beauties. Candidates of the Mutya Ning Kapampangan 2014 pose with pageant chairperson Board Member Cherry Manalo (2nd from right) and other officials in front of the main building of the Macabebe Hidden Paradise training and education center on December 2. The coronation night is set on December 10. Contributed photo
There surely is good reason why God did not give us details on Heaven. But there isn’t a shortage of philosophers to explain this, and I leave to them the philosophizing. The fact is shortage of revelation about Heaven has some downside.
So cartoonists portray heavenly denizens doing nothing but pluck harps on fluffy clouds, while the more serious ones depict flocks of folk doing nothing but pray and sing paeans for all eternity. Worse, some priests insist, wrongly, that Heaven is merely a state, not a place, contrary to declarations of mystics who were given glimpses of the high realm that it is a happy state in a place.
The latter, of course, is soothing, since it jibes with our comprehension of happiness, which God will not frustrate. Really, we are not short of good, soothing glimpses of how human things can be in a place called Heaven. Research into the details of modern-day apparitions of the Blessed Virgin and other citizens of the upper world and savor the humanity of Heaven.
For example, in the early years of the Blessed Virgin’s apparitions that started in 1981 in Medjugorje, one visionary asked about her mother who had died two months earlier. The Blessed Virgin said the mother was with her. “Can I see her?” the visionary asked.
The Blessed Virgin nodded, then moved aside. The mother appeared smiling at her daughter, went to embrace her child and remarked, “I am proud of you”, before she again vanished. How motherly, how human. In arabandal, Spain in the early 1960’s, Michael the Archangel was the first to appear before three girls (now all seniors) to prepare them for the first apparition of the Blessed Mother.
At one time, Michael praised the set of teeth of one of the girls who then asked that the angel also show them his teeth. Angels are pure spirits without body, but this does not mean they were never given the power to assume physical dimensions.
And so St. Michael widened his mouth to show the Garanbandal children a perfect set of teeth. Also in Garabandal, the Blessed Mother was known to also have engaged the visionaries in what we’d call “small talk.” One time visionary Conchita was compelled by local authorities to have her hair cut for some silly reasons, the Blessed Mother remarked that Conchita’s shorter hair looked good.
In Heaven, looks matter. One time the Blessed Mother appeared wearing brown, the Garabandal girls askedwhy she wasn’t wearing the usual white and blue they were used to in previous apparitions. “I can wear anything I like,” the Blessed Mother replied. That is a big reason to convince fashion buffs that Heaven is not boring. For lack of space, enough with these heavenly tidbits.
Now, as has been a staple in this column, I share the message of the Blessed Mother in Medjurgorje last Dec. 2. To visionary Mirjana, the Blessed Mother conveyed to us the following rather long message: “Dear children: Remember – for I am telling you – that love will win. I know that many of you are losing hope because around you, you see suffering, pain, jealousy, envy… but, I am your mother.
I am in the Kingdom but am also here with you. My Son is sending me anew tohelp you. Therefore, do not lose hope; instead, follow me – because the victory of my heart is in the name of God. My beloved Son is thinking of you as he has always thought of you. Believe him and live him. He is the life of the world. My children, to live my Son means to live the Gospel.
This is not easy. This means love, forgiveness and sacrifice. This purifies and it opens the Kingdom. Sincere prayer, which is not only words but is a prayer which the heart speaks, will help you. Likewise fasting (will help you), because it is still more of love, forgiveness and sacrifice.
Therefore, do not lose hope but follow me. I am imploring you anew to pray for your shepherds so that they may always look to my Son who was the first Shepherd of the world and whose family was the entire world.”
