And so, because we are all sinners and there is bad in the best of us, no matter how many or how great our virtues may be, they cannot earn for us eternal life or Heaven as we call it – that is, life with God in his visible Presence.

In a word we cannot buy Heaven, we can only be given it. As St Paul goes on, “…the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (NRSV, Romans 6: 23). All we can do is to plead in the words of that great hymn, the Dies Irae:

“King of majesty tremendous,
Who dost free salvation send us,
Fount of pity, then befriend us”. (2) (our emphasis)

For eternal salvation is a gift that comes solely from the surpassing generosity of God, who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, and from the self-sacrificing generosity of God’s Son who gave his life as a ransom for many (see John 3: 16 and Mark 10: 45).