Never Describe Heaven to a Child This Way

The Faith can be challenging to explain to kids, especially its more abstract points. Since children do not develop abstract thinking skills until around age 12, it is sometimes a struggle to find explanations that are age appropriate but also theologically sound. We often resort to analogy to make the point for us. The late Fr. Robert J. Fox, for example, had a great analogy for explaining mortal and venial sin that I used with my own children growing up: Fr. Fox would describe the soul as a tomato plant in the garden, then explain that mortal sin was akin to chopping the plant down and killing it, while venial sin was like little insects that gnaw on the stem, leaving the tomato plant intact but weakening the stem, making it more likely to fall. These sorts of analogies are incredibly handy for imparting the Faith to children in a way that helps them understand the substance of a teaching even if the abstract principles are still beyond their grasp. 

The downside, of course, is that there are a lot of bad analogies floating around out there. Whereas a good analogy accurately explains the teaching in a way that is age appropriate, a bad analogy usually explains the teaching incorrectly and confuses the hearer—or, what's worse, turns them off to the teaching.

In my years of working with young people, I have often seen this in relation to how parents explain heaven to their young children. From infancy Catholic children are taught about heaven, that it is the abode of God and the angels, that its duration is eternal, and that we should strive to enter into it. Most kids understandably want to know what heaven is like, especially if they are going to be spending eternity there. This is tricky; most parents understand that the vistas of clouds and harp-bearing angels are artistic conventions that don't comport with reality, but they find it challenging to furnish a more theologically accurate description. This is where they dig down deep into their Catholic memory, drawing from a thousand barely-remembered homilies to bring forth what I consider the worst possible description of heaven you can give to a child:

"Heaven is like being at Mass forever."

I do understand where parents are coming from when they say this. They are attempting to explain how the liturgical actions we participate in every week veil heavenly realities. They are laudibly hoping to explain to their children that the essence of heaven is the eternal worship of God, which is carried out even now under the sacred symbols of the Catholic Mass. They want the child to understand that our highest fulfillment and happiness as created beings is found in the adoration of God. It is all very well-meaning.

But this is absolutely not what a child hears when you tell them that heaven is like being at Mass forever. Remember, children are generally not capable of abstract thought during their first decade of life. They are not going to make the connections you intend for them to make when you say this. They are going to take it in the most crassly literal sense: heaven is a giant parish where they are sitting in a pew for eternity. Spending eternity in a scratchy dress or wearing a choking tie. Listening to some heavenly priest drone on eternally in a boring homily that never ever ends. Their butt aching for countless ages from being forced to sit forever on an uncomfortable wooden pew. Looking at the back of a person's head in saecula seculorum. Having to keep quiet and still for all eternity. These are the things children think of when you tell them heaven is like being at Mass forever. This is not just my speculation; I have met many teens in my professional work who told me that this is how they conceived of heaven when they were young due to being told this very bad analogy.

Aside from the fact that most kids will take this far more literally than you intend, there are other reasons why this analogy is so bad:

First, we have to keep in mind that while some children will develop a complex spiritual life at early ages (as seen in the lives of saintly children), most do not. Most young children go to Mass because it's simply what the family does and they know they ought to, but that does not mean they inherently enjoy the Mass-going experience. It takes a degree of spiritual maturity to really enjoy the Mass and understand how it benefits us. For most cradle Catholics, this maturity doesn't come until the teen years. Even though very young children can understand that they are supposed to go to Mass, many do not find it an inherently enjoyable experience. It's something they deal with because it's just what Catholics do and what is expecting of them. Heck, many adults sadly never even learn to enjoy going to Mass! We should certainly not expect a seven year old to possess the spiritual maturity that many adults never ever attain. Saying that heaven is like a Mass of eternal duration is essentially expecting them to possess a level of spiritual maturity they simply won't have at that age. Basically you are telling them that heaven is going to be boring. Imagine someone telling you that heaven is like sitting through an eternal Power Point presentation and you will get a sense for how kids react to this analogy.

Second, heaven is absolutely NOT "like being at Mass forever." Most practicing Catholic parents are sufficiently educated to understand that there is a correlation between the Catholic liturgy and the heavenly worship of God, but they tend to get muddled in the details, sometimes drastically (like the mom I once knew who told her kids that when you attend Mass, "you are literally time travelling" and that you actually go back in time to 33 AD when you're at Mass—and for the love of God, please don't leave comments trying to argue this point).

Let's get this straight: the Mass is the unbloody representation of the sacrifice of Jesus, which is offered to the Father for the forgivness of sins and glorification of God. The sacrifice of Jesus is "once and for all" (Heb. 10:10). Jesus suffered once for sins, but as our High Priest, He is perpetually offering this redemptive act to God the Father. All grace, all forgiveness, all friendship with God flows from this sacrifice. It is of eternal value. What this actually looks like in heaven, who can say? "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man" (1 Cor. 2:9). These are eternal realities that are entirely beyond the scope of human ken to explain. The heavenly imagery we see in the Scriptures—crowns, coals, censors, vestments and such—are highly symbolic. The realities are orders of magnitude beyond this. When St. Paul was actually taken up to heaven, he found that he could not even utter that which he had seen and heard (cf. 2 Cor. 12:1-4). It is simply beyond our creaturely capacity to comprehend while we are yet on this earth. Since we are limited creatures of flesh and blood, we must access these heavenly realities here on earth under a dispensation of symbols, which God, in His wisdom, has made efficacious. The symbols are not necessary in heaven, for there we partake in these realities directly, without symbolic mediation. Recall the lyrics to W.H. Turton's 1881 hymn, Thou, Who at thy first Eucharist didst pray, where heaven is described as a place where the sacramental dispensation has come to an end:

So, Lord, at length when sacraments shall cease,
May we be one with all thy Church above,
One with thy saints in one unbroken peace,
One with thy saints in one unbounded love

Heaven is emphatically not "just like" Mass. Here on earth we access these realities under sacramental signs; there, in heaven, the system of symbols has passed away. Here we perceive God through the mediation of the senses; there we perceive Him directly. "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood" (1 Cor. 13:12). It is absolutely true that we access heaveny realites at Mass, and hence the worship of heaven and the liturgy are related (the latter gives us access to the former under sacramental signs), but this relationship is not one of equivalence. We cannot even begin to fathom how different the worship of heaven will be when we access God directly through the beatific vision without need of the senses or the sacramental signs they require. So telling a child that going to heaven is like being at Mass forever is, quite frankly, plain wrong.

What, then, is the best way to answer the child's question, "What is heaven like?"

I find it is best to dwell on the joys of heaven. Joy, after all, is the essentially effect of the beatific vision. The Church teaches that the joys of heaven are twofold—primarily, the vision of God and the joy in the soul produced by communion with Him, and secondarily, the happiness of being reunited with loved ones, meeting the saints, etc. Children do understand what happiness means, so I think it is best to emphasize this fact. If a child asked me to describe what heaven was like, my answer would be something like this:

In heaven we see God and the sight of Him makes us happy, happier than we could ever be on this earth. In heaven you will never be sad, never hurt, never be sick, never feel alone, never be scared. There is no evil there, not from yourself nor others. The sight of God warms our souls, just like the summer sun warms our bodies. You meet all of your saintly heroes, are reunited with lost friends and family, and spend eternity loving and being loved in the brightness of God's presence.

This explanation is age appropriate, drawing on experiences that are easily understandable to children. And it is theologically accurate, highlighting the primary and secondary joys of heaven, tying them to the vision of God and union of the blessed in the communion of saints. And most importantly, it sounds desirable. A child who hears and understands this will find heaven to be something worth striving for, a place they will want to go. Then, as the child ages, maturing spiritually and cognitively, you can begin to introduce the concepts of the liturgy as heavenly realities made accessible to us under sacramental signs. But telling a six year old that heaven "is like being in Mass forever" is a monumentally counter-productive thing to say.