Recently, I was sent a copy of a column that appeared in the press. The author of the column recounted a conversation with an ill friend, evidently close to or pondering her coming death. 

 

She describes a conversation that she had with her sick friend that brings into focus much that the Church has prayed over, celebrated and wondered about during the soon-to-be-completed Easter season.

 

The very sick friend asked if the author thought that there is a heaven. The author responded, no, she didn’t think so. But she admitted that she wished a more comforting answer could have been given. 

 

Later, when the topic came up again, the sick friend asked what she thought happened after death. The writer said that while she didn’t believe in heaven, she thought there was some sort of “home” that awaits those who leave this world.

 

The conversations recounted in the op-ed columns are illustrative of the doubt, confusion and uncertainty that characterize our modern and secular society. And they demonstrate the deep need for us to witness to the world and to our very selves about the nature and the truth of the Resurrection.

 

As faith even in the existence of God, to say nothing of the need to fulfill His will, continues to diminish in our society, something has to fill the void that remains. 

 

Built into every human person is the desire for continued existence beyond death. For that reason, we naturally fear death and we ponder what lies beyond. 

 

The questions about eternity are not new to our time. Recall that when some of Jesus’ early followers fell away from Him, St. Peter remarked, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (Jn 6:68).

 

In the current day, the removal of God as the basis of our understanding of existence has thrust many people into a reliance upon science for all knowledge. But science, for all its advances, is limited. 

 

There is so much about our own world that we simply don’t know. How then can science tell us about a real world that awaits us but does not fall into the categories of human study and measurement?

 

Still, each of us must ask the same questions as the writer’s ill friend. Is there a heaven? What happens after death, to me and to my loved ones?

 

The Easter season is the memory and celebration of God answering precisely those questions for us. We do not simply celebrate the story of one rising from the dead, as if it were simply a comforting mythical tale. We celebrate that witnesses — people like you and me, often people with their own skepticism after seeing Jesus beaten and crucified — later encountered Him alive and glorified.

 

This news of faith changed the world. Christ’s resurrection broke the power of death. 

 

And while it is up to each of us to give ourselves in faith to what we cannot now see, we have every reason to do so. 

 

Those witnesses testified and wrote down what they saw. Many gave their lives even under great pain and distress rather than retract or modify their witness.

 

Jesus rose from the dead. As the head of the human race, He invites us to join ourselves to Him, in our faith, our moral conduct and in our charity. In so doing, we will be joined to Him by rising in our own bodies to the joy of eternal life after death.

 

Perhaps on our own sick bed in our final days, we may once more ask ourselves if heaven is real and what it might be that awaits me. The Easter season and the Resurrection give us every reason and confidence to believe in heaven and the love of Jesus that awaits us. 

 

And thank God for that!