As Monsignor Francis Mannion observes in the opening line of his engaging new book, Models of Heaven: Interpreting Life Everlasting, “the topic of heaven continues to receive less than favorable reviews” (1). For many in today’s secularist culture, even for believers, the thought of heaven is somewhat uninspiring; the idea of “white-robed ghostly figures” wandering “aimlessly between clouds” and playing harps seems rather boring in the long (eternal) run (2). In his introduction, Mannion proposes to show that there is much more for us in the Christian tradition on heaven, and this book, theologically informed yet accessible to the layman, does not disappoint. He offers a rich series of reflections on heaven, each carefully researched and supported by abundant insights from scriptural, theological, literary, and especially liturgical sources.
One cannot describe a divine mystery in only one way. As in some of his earlier scholarly work on liturgical matters, Mannion employs a methodology of models very effectively to present this topic in a series of focused themes. Here, he offers for our reflection eight models of heaven well-supported in Christian tradition: resting in peace, contemplating divine beauty, participating in the Trinity, communing with the saints, singing with the angels, tending the new creation, dwelling in the holy city, and feasting in the Kingdom. Throughout the book runs a unifying thread: the Church’s liturgy on earth anticipates heaven in all these ways, revealing and bringing about the eschatological fulfillment of earthly life, and through the beauty and fidelity of its celebration, the liturgy should effectively reflect the glorious reality of the liturgy in heaven.
Peace Out
In Chapter One, Mannion reflects on heaven as a state of perfect peace and eternal rest, which “responds to the human experience of restlessness and anxiety” (10). As he does throughout the book, Mannion draws from a wide spectrum of literary, theological, and scriptural sources (here, W.H. Auden, Paul Tillich, and Hans Urs von Balthasar) to diagnose the causes of contemporary anxiety as well as its final redemption in the Kingdom of Heaven (e.g., Revelation 14:13). Yet this heavenly rest from the anxiety felt by so many today is not, as some imagine, a kind of motionlessness that would lead to boredom. On the contrary, heaven will be a state of “dynamic rest” and creativity that participates in the eternal activity of God (18, 25). It will be an experience of total engagement and “flow” anticipated in the “liturgical sense of time” found in the Church’s celebrations (20), and especially in the Christian Sunday, as the “eschatological day” (25).
Chapter Two offers an especially attractive perspective on heaven in its treatment of the contemplation of divine beauty in the beatific vision. Mannion interweaves liturgical themes throughout as he reflects on the divinization that begins in baptism and culminates in the vision of God in glory. With abundant selections from theological and liturgical texts, Mannion demonstrates that the liturgy is the “source and summit of the process of divinization” in this life, transforming us for ultimate “trinification” in heaven (35). Mannion argues that although the theology of beauty has been somewhat neglected in Western Christianity, more work is now being done to explore the mystery of God as “beauty itself, the heart of the process by which men and women are made beautiful and ennobled by the beatific vision” (40). The liturgy is the primary place where divine beauty is revealed in the world, giving the Christian a “foretaste of heaven” as “an endless celebration of all that is wondrous and beautiful…an unending ‘feast for the eyes’” (45, 46).
Chapters Three, Four, and Five continue, in a sense, the theme of participation in divine beauty with their reflections on sharing in the “dance” of Trinitarian life, in the communion of saints, and in the heavenly song of the angels. In Chapter Three, Mannion gives us a “perichoretic paradigm” of trinitarian theology, again drawing on a wide range of theological sources (from St. John Damascene to the contemporary theologian Richard Rohr), and scripture texts that speak of the mutual indwelling of the divine persons. The metaphor of a “dancing trinitarian God,” Mannion argues, helps to “revitalize trinitarian theology from excessive abstraction and affective dryness” (50). It also underlines the way in which trinitarian life can be “a paradigm for human society” (57), but its fullest expression on earth is mediated through the Church’s liturgy, in its doxological worship of the Triune God.
In Chapter Four, Mannion reflects on the communion of saints (on earth and in heaven), likewise emphasizes the trinitarian dynamic of Christian life as self-giving agapic love, uniting heaven and earth (72-3). The liturgy again gives us a clear expression of this communion in the Eucharistic Prayers, but Mannion also offers an encouraging picture of the communion we can imagine with family and friends in eternal life. Chapter Five explores how this communion in heaven will extend even to the company of angels, with whom we will join in the cosmic worship of heavenly song. Even now, the beauty of music, and especially of liturgical music, “raises the human being to heaven, where humanity and angels sing together” (83). One might say that “God is the original musician, the one from whom music radiates throughout the whole cosmos,” and “Christ is the Song Incarnate” (92). Mannion concludes this chapter with a list of eight essential characteristics of sacred (especially liturgical) music that exemplify much of what has preceded: it manifests God’s beauty; it is eschatological, cosmic, “evocative of the great space of the universe”; it is doxological, glorious, and expressive of the whole range of human reality, from tragedy to joy (98).
City Life
Chapters Six and Seven examine different aspects of the model of heaven as a city; first, as the “garden” of the New Creation, and then as the Holy City. Mannion develops the connection between heaven and creation as he reflects in a timely fashion on the ecological significance of human participation in the stewardship of creation as an anticipation of the heavenly fulfillment of all things in Christ. Drawing abundantly, as always, from scripture, Mannion argues for the “eschatological character of creation” in the New Testament, brought about by Christ’s incarnation transforming all of earthly reality (including a brief speculation on whether there will be animals in heaven—Mannion thinks there will). The chapter concludes with an extended reflection on “eschatological ecology” inspired particularly by Laudato Sí; Mannion argues that “a theology of creation must inevitably be an eschatological theology,” because “human stewardship of creation now is a preparation for the world to come” (119). In the “garden-city” of heaven, “God will once again look at his creation and find it ‘very good’” (119).
Chapter Seven’s examination of heaven as the Holy City provides a discussion of an ancient symbolic model of heaven as the perfect city. Biblical treatments of the city in the Old and New Testament present it as “the eschatological place to which all people will journey” (122), the new Jerusalem, “an eternity of all that is most noble, graceful, and beautiful in the human city” (127). In the liturgy of the Church, “the holy and eternal city is given its central and fullest expression” (128), the liturgy “is the sacrament of the heavenly city conducted in the midst of the earthly city for the redemption of the latter” (129). An interesting reflection follows on the way in which the heavenly city in a sense counteracts and heals earthly distortions of what the city should be. In Babel, Raamses, and Philistia, we see three representations of “human deprivation in civic configuration: Babel, the city of confusion; Raamses, the city of injustice and oppression; and Philistia, the quasi-city of ugliness” (131). The Church’s “awesome responsibility” (134, 139, 141), especially through its liturgy, is to redeem the human city by drawing it forward into the eternal holy city, where “truth, justice, and beauty embrace in the heart of God, a city in which all men and women (whether they know it or not) have already set their hearts” (141-2).
Mannion’s final model of heaven examined in Chapter Eight is the sacred meal, which fittingly rounds out this book’s liturgical theme, with its focus on the Eucharist as the anticipation of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb described in the Book of Revelation. With a discussion of biblical meals in Old and New Testaments, Mannion underlines the way in which meals satisfy human desires, both physical and spiritual, not only for food, but also for communion with others. Mannion again draws on a range of scriptural and theological sources to bring out the eschatological aspect of biblical meals which finds its full expression in Jesus’ “meal ministry” (148) and especially his celebration of the Last Supper; indeed, Mannion argues, “Jesus’ eschatological ministry took place typically in the context of meals” (153).
The Wedding Feast of the Lamb in the Book of Revelation plays a central role in revealing the way in which Eucharistic worship anticipates the joyful feast of heaven. The last sections of the chapter give an interesting analysis of why it seems that “the eschatological vision of the scriptures, of the modern liturgical movement, and of Vatican II, [has] not been realized” today (158). Both historical and cultural influences, as well as “reductionist christologies” and suspicion of traditional eschatology as “oppressive and escapist” have resulted in a decline, especially since Vatican II, of the “eschatological consciousness” so central to the Church’s tradition (161). Expressing what is perhaps the central concern of the book, Mannion calls for a restoration and renewal of this consciousness in liturgy, in order to “bring back into focus the heavenly liturgy as the model for the earthly,” recognizing that “the liturgy of heaven and earth are united as the former gathers up the latter”; this is a theme whose importance, Mannion argues, “cannot be overestimated” (162).
Destination: Heaven
Monsignor Mannion, in this thoroughly researched and spiritually rich volume, offers us a vision of the reality, joy, and beauty of heaven that will lift the hearts of many towards the “majestic and glorious” end of all their desires (165). The specialist will appreciate the extensive bibliography as a resource for further study, but any Christian who seeks a deeper entrance into meditation on the life of heaven will find plenty of nourishment here. Mannion successfully retrieves for us an eschatological spirituality that calls us “to live now with heaven in view,” not fearing death but longing for “the fullness of life in heaven” (167). As he demonstrates from beginning to end, we can begin to taste this life in all its many dimensions even now in the Church’s liturgy, where in the presence of the Triune God we sing with the angels their joyful song of praise.
