Paradiso - Canto 31, Gustave Doré, c. 1868
"Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way where I am going" (John 14:1-3).
Catholicism maintains that those who die in a state of grace will go to live with the Lord in the eternal joy and splendor of heaven, where they will be joined by the angels and saints, as well as departed loved ones and ancestors who have been found among the just. The souls in heaven will be reunited with their bodies on the Last Day. These will be glorified bodies with no imperfections. We will at last be the perfect versions of ourselves, dwelling in an endless state of definitive happiness, impervious to pain, sorrow, hunger, and want (cf. Rev. 21:4). Our deepest longings will be fulfilled. First and foremost, we will see the face of God as He is, the singular greatest joy in heaven (cf. 1 John 3:2; Ps. 11:7; 27:8, et al.). As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains:
Because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as he is, unless he himself opens up his mystery to man's immediate contemplation and gives him the capacity for it. The Church calls this contemplation of God in his heavenly glory "the beatific vision":
"How great will your glory and happiness be, to be allowed to see God, to be honored with sharing the joy of salvation and eternal light with Christ your Lord and God, . . . to delight in the joy of immortality in the Kingdom of heaven with the righteous and God's friends" (St. Cyprian, Epistle 58,10,1).
Indeed, as the Church's doctrine of divinization assures us, our union with God in heaven will be so complete that we will come to share in His divinity—though not in our being as He alone does, but only through participation in it. Thus, our personal identity will not have been absorbed by Him. We will remain His creatures with limits; and He alone the Creator, for all eternity.
The reality of the blessedness of heaven is beyond the human intellect or imagination to fathom. Saint Paul, who received a vision of heaven while still on earth, commented, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him, God has revealed to us through the Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:9-10).