“…I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven” (NRSV, Matthew 18:10)

Heaven is not where God is, but where God is seen.  It is the immediate sight of the Eternal Maker, of the Lord in his glory, “…who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (NRSV, Revelation 1:8).  And that sight of the King in his beauty (Isaiah 33:17) is what the angels are at this moment enjoying.

The angels are the highest creatures God has made.  We are half animal, half spiritual, but they are pure spirits, intelligent beings who occupy a place above that of human beings in the scale of existence.  When first created they underwent a period of probation to give them the opportunity of choosing God of their own free will.  Those who were led by their knowledge and love of God to desire him above all else and to have him for all eternity, they were counted worthy to see him face to face and, in their dazzling perfection, to enjoy that blessed state for ever.

Thus the angels now enjoy what is also the intended goal of human life, the vision of God.  For nothing less than that is set before us, that we should see him and share fully in his life, and that our souls should be filled with the glorious Being of God as a crystal is filled with the light of the sun.

But before so a close a union is possible we must first have learnt to love the things which God loves and to hate the things which he hates.  Nothing that defiles, even to the most minute degree, can remain in the sight and presence of the all-holy God.  For so long as one’s mind and soul desires one thing that is contrary to the sanctity of God, then one is at variance with him.  

The spiritual state which each of us has to achieve is not a grubby white but the spotless purity of freshly fallen snow: the soul must be cleansed, not merely of the blots of sin, but of the most dilute stains.  And this is so for each one of us: Our Lord was not exaggerating when he told the crowds in Galilee, “Be perfect…as your heavenly Father is perfect” (NRSV, Matthew 5:48).

The probation of the angels was a spiritual one as befitted their nature: ours is both spiritual and material.  It is a trial which involves our whole selves, our surroundings, our bodies and our souls, in which we have to desire and to choose either the world, the flesh and the Devil, or the all-holy God and Maker of us all.  

On the one hand there is the world, with its self-interest and love of gold, its avarice and dishonesties; there is the flesh, with its lack of self-control in eating and drinking and its resistance to that chastity in thought, word and deed which God requires; and there is the Devil, the spirit of evil, himself a fallen angel, with his ceaseless temptations to commit the sins of pride and hatred and slander and selfishness in every form.

Such is the conflict against evil which a person wages here in this life and which is symbolised by the drawn sword in the Archangel Michael’s right hand.  It is the conflict which no one can evade, and which can only end in one of two ways: in the soul’s complete victory or in its utter defeat, the first leading to the vision of God, the second resulting in total exclusion from him.

Final victory is not possible in this life; that has to wait for Purgatory.  What we have to achieve here is the beginning of the end, a stage, that is to say, when the soul has advanced far enough against the world, the flesh and the Devil as to leave the ultimate issue in no doubt.

It may be objected that the achievement of an unsullied perfection by ordinary people like ourselves is beyond the range of human possibility.  So it is.  “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible” (NRSV, Mark10:27).  

For as God in his holiness requires us to become like himself, so in his love he gives us the means and the power to attain that.  So, by prayer and Sacrament, by wholehearted confession of sin, and by devout reception of Holy Communion, a person’s soul – as sinners in every age have proved for themselves by their own experience – can be transformed from within by Our Blessed Lord into a true likeness of himself.

But not even God can save a sinner against his or her own will; and sinners who have no room for God in their life, who indeed deliberately exclude God from their life and the way they live it, also by that very act exclude themselves from God’s life, and that exclusion when permanent, is what we call Hell.  Hell, therefore, is a state which individuals choose for themselves and which is the direct consequence of their own actions and the final condition of their soul.

Indeed, for the unrepentant sinner Heaven, the sight of God, is an impossibility because one of the effects of sin is to blind the soul to God.  This is vividly illustrated by the contrasting experiences of St Stephen, the first martyr, and of St Paul who assisted at his murder. 

The dying saint saw “…the heavens opened…” and “…saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (NRSV, Acts 7:56,55, our emphasis).  But when Saul the persecutor was on the road to Damascus, “…a great light from heaven suddenly shone…” about him and after one glimpse of Our Lord he “…could not see because of the brightness of that light…” (NRSV, Acts 22:6,11).  He heard Jesus, but he could no longer see Jesus (see also Acts 9:17).

So the vision of God must ever remain invisible to unrepentant sinners who by their own actions deprive themselves of the eternal bliss and joy which that vision bestows, and which in the end is the only happiness which the Universe provides.

We are all sinners, but if we are repentant sinners who seek to be transformed by Our Blessed Lord into saints of God, we will eventually receive the reward of the pure in heart – we will see God, and see him for ever.