In the next life all is centred on God not, as in this life, on the things he has made.  One day, by the brutal logic of death, this life, which we now think is so substantial, will appear in retrospect like a dream, and the next which now seems so shadowy, will be seen to be the true reality.  Then we shall realise that the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal; and we shall be amazed that we should ever have imagined it otherwise.

In the next life many of the things for which here people scheme and strive, are valueless.  In the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, when the one was in torment and the other at peace, what use would either of them have had for purple robes, fine linen, the daily banquet?  Such things would have been as valueless to them as bars of gold to someone on a desert island.

So in the next world, where God is seen with the blessed Saints and angels, only Christlike qualities of soul will count: purity of heart which enables one to have the bliss of seeing him, and an intense love of goodness, truth and beauty which makes seeing God an unimaginable joy.  What a splendid guess the pagan Greek poet made over 400 years before the birth of Christ: “Who knows if this life be not death, and death the real life?” (1)