Hungry For Heaven

Ever notice your desire to be filled, filled with food: the crunch-crunch of potato chips, filled with distraction: the constant arrival of new text messages, filled with entertainment: something always in front of you—your computer, the television, a book, or person. We are perpetually longing to be fed in soul, mind, and body. Where do we go to be fed? Why is it that we are never satisfied?

Let’s put our modern world aside going back to the beginning, to Eden. We see 2 trees, 2 realities: the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life. Like man today, man in Eden longed to be fed. Despite God’s directive, they ate from the tree that only promised death looking to be fed by something that could not satisfy, buying into Satan’s false claims. Similarly, contemporary culture says this about many of the things on which we gnaw. What tree do you eat from?

In reality, our cravings are for the tree of life, Christ upon the cross. “To him who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7). In paradise, we will experience what is called the Beatific Vision. We will see God face to face (CCC 1023). Jesus will perpetually fill us, and forever satisfy each heart’s palate. “Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness” (CCC 1024).