Eternal Age?
In the spirit of Joe’s post below, I am offering something more fun than serious for the blog’s consideration.
I remember hearing once that everyone in heaven would be 33 years old–the perfect age, Jesus’s age.
I think that age was perfect for Jesus. But as for the rest of us, I have always thought that was a recipe for a rather self-involved social group. In fact, there once was a television series about how that might go– it was called “30-something” and it quickly became unwatchable.
My own utterly unfounded theological speculation/hope is that people in heaven will be the age that they are most fully themselves–whatever age that is, and it is not the same for everyone. I call it their “eternal age.”
We’ve all met children we consider “old souls,” and senior citizen pranksters. In fact, I think with many people, it’s not that hard to identify an age that suits their personality best. I’ve tried it with some of my friends and colleagues, and gotten remarkable agreement about what the eternal ages of various people are–even from the people themselves!
Does anyone else have the same experience?
I remember hearing that Jesus was exactly six-feet tall and that no one else before or since had been that height. I wondered what it meant that I stopped growing at six-feet….
When those of us “of a certain age” consider that the calendar and the math have to be wrong–I couldn’t possibly be 72!–we could ask ourselves: ‘Well, what age do you think you are?” And perhaps that would be a clue of how to respond to Cathy’s question.
I don’t feel significantly different physically than I did when I was in college in the 1960s, but when I look in the mirror, what I see is very different! I was once told by someone who knows me very well that I act like a 10-year-old. It was meant not entirely as a criticism, although certainly not entirely as a compliment, either, and there is only a slight element of truth in it. But I was rather pleased anyway. I’d be perfectly happy to be 21 permanently, although early thirties are perfectly acceptable. And if I am going to be a perfectly fit 64-year-old, that’s fine, too.
Any place without children seems bleak to me. I often say that when I retire I am going to spend my time in Whole Foods looking at babies.
The idea that we are all going to look like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in heaven, but there will be no sex, seems rather depressing.
25 was just a really great year for me in every imaginable way. So, I’m going to be 25 in Heaven. (I think that would work for my husband, too; I’m pretty sure he would be okay with having a 25 year old wife). My kids may not like it, but they’ll just have to deal with it.
Getting a little more serious here (since the serious question is an interesting one, I think) –
Is there any reason to believe that the “age” one would be in heaven would be static and fixed? Or that the age of Jesus there is fixed?
If one is in eternity, transcending the temporal, where all moments are one and single moments extend in perpetuity, why could one not be multiple “ages” in heaven?
Jesus is eternal. The adult Crucified and Risen Jesus is eternal, and the Baby Jesus is eternal. One current of thought on the Assumption is that, because Jesus is eternal, He is forever in the womb of Mary and, because He is in heaven, it was necessary for her also to be bodily assumed into heaven. That is, Jesus is both adult Jesus and baby Jesus simultaneously.
Thus, for those in heaven, all of there ages would exist simultaneously, such that, on any given “occasion,” he or she could be whatever age he or she wanted to be.
And, for that matter, why should we believe that our appearance is also fixed in heaven? Consider the various apparitions of Mary. In one place, she has the appearance of a mixed Spanish-indigenous teenaged girl, in another, she is a white young woman, in another, she has a Far East Asian look about her. There are many icons of the Black Madonna. None of these conform to the appearance of a Middle Eastern woman. And yet, if one believes the apparitions to be true, they are all as Mary truly appears.
Although everything in and about heaven is Truth, that does not mean that the laws of physicality are the same there as they are here. One could still be truly the person he or she is, and yet have a different appearance or age.
I too heard that one about Jesus was the only exact six footer from my Bronx father who was 6 foot. [ I heard from the same source, that the proclamation on the cross.. INRI, was translated as Iron Nails Ran In. So much for the good ole days of Bronx catechisis] As an oldster who is now much more content with his emotional life is there a way to have a combo age? Emotional 75, brain 55, physically 25, add em up and divide by 3. =52
[and San Francisco weather?]
I believe we will all be embryos in heaven, because, as John Paul II said, “No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined.”
Fr. Komonchak: It’s a MIRACLE!
David N.: My motto is, “You may get older, but you can stay immature forever!” Let’s promise to meet up by Whole Foods where we can take care of those Nickols babies and sing them “Danny Boy.” (hee)
Bender: “Is there any reason to believe that the age one would be in heaven would be static and fixed? Or that the age of Jesus there is fixed?” Hey, you and the Ricky Bobby family are on the same wavelength!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPcE1wvqLHU
Cathleen: I will be forever 41! I looked great, I felt great, I worked out, I had a great job, I got pregnant.
Ed, not a bad equation. I come up at 46 instead of 57. Highever, that’s mostly because of the immaturity factor …
In one of Vonnegut’s books (sorry I don’t remember which one), the protagonist reports – or maybe this was in a story that the protagonist wrote – that, in heaven, we could choose to be any age we wanted. The protagonist was extremely disconcerted to learn that his father chose a prepubescent age – i.e. when he met his dad in heaven, he was age 7 or 9. As I recall, some mischievous, slightly older denizens of heaven kept stealing his father’s underpants and dropping them down the Mouth of Hell.
I’m going to be 20 in the mornings and 65 in the evenings, and on Sunday afternoons I’ll be 6 so my father can take me around and show me some of the interesting parts of Heaven I’ve missed.
Some afternoon when I’m 23, Nureyev is going to ask me to waltz :-)
This morning, my first wife reminded me that it was fifty years ago today that we agreed “for better, for worse”, etc. without the slightest idea of what that might involve. Now, we know. The occasion stimulates remembering.
Picking out one age, of which she and I now have a lot to choose from, seems to me to miss the point of the whole exercise. For many of the most memorable happenings, it was the living process – before, during, and after – that I would pick to immortalize (or obliterate in some cases). Age is an accidental marker. I prefer a refined version of Ed Gleason’s approach as long as you leave out completely age 33 for reasons better left unsaid.
If time, by which we measure age, actually began at the Big Bang when space did, as some serious questioners suspect, the notion of many calendars hanging on the wall in eternal Heaven, declaring a different Today for each person there, is hard for me to understand. Nevertheless, this is a great exercise, Cathleen, especially today. Thank you.
Happy Anniversary to Mr. and Mrs. Barry!
I hate to be negative, but I think the question is misconceived. I have a sister, Helen Marie, who died on the third day of her earthly life. What does it mean to ask what her age will be when I met her?
David N., Jack Barry was referring to his “first” wife, so perhaps he now has a different wife. Although he does seem to be on very friendly terms with her, after 50 years. I find that his comment is a challenge to the imagination!
A friend told me last week that age ought to be measured, not by the number of years past since we were born, but by the number of years left to live. He claimed that, even though he is my junior by 9 years, I owe him respect and deference as if he was my senior because, as his health is much worse than mine, his expected remaining lifespan is less than mine. Under that measure, Fr K., maybe you ought to consider yourself younger than your friends who are in their 60s…
Also, this reminds me of the delightful children’s book “Le pays des 36000 volontes” by Andre Maurois. A 7-year old goes to a country where all wishes come true and you can be any age you want to be.
I hate to be negative, but I think the question is misconceived. I have a sister, Helen Marie, who died on the third day of her earthly life. What does it mean to ask what her age will be when I met her?
Joseph,
You ask a fascinating question. I remember another discussion of this kind of thing (glorified bodies, defects being corrected in heaven, and so on), and someone wrote as follows:
Will Mama Cass be slim in heaven? Will Jimmy Durante have a normally sized nose? Will Woody Allen not be neurotic? Will Dorothy Parker’s witty remarks be restricted to kindly ones?
If we are shaped by our environment, our parents, our life experiences into being what we are (and how could we not be?), what would a 33-year-old Helen Marie be like, never having had any of those experiences? Do we all have an “essential” me that can be differentiated from what we have become based on how we were raised, what accidents happened to us, what pleasant or traumatic experiences we had? What choices we made?
Can there be a person in total isolation from other persons? A newly fertilized egg or an early embryo is often argued to be a person, but I believe Benedict XVI has made an argument (about Original Sin) that a person can’t exist in isolation. (I may be getting him wrong, so what follows is me talking.) It seems to me a person can’t come into existence in isolation. Personhood isn’t so much of a thing in itself as a relationship between entities who have the capacity to become persons. The idea of one person totally alone and unable to communicate with other persons from the moment of its conception would seem to be impossible. So it seems to me we have to conceive of those who die before or shortly after birth as blank slates. They aren’t anything until something gets written on them, and without other persons, the slate must remain blank. If it gets filled in, we can’t know how. To the extent that nurture determines what we are, a “soul” that doesn’t experience nurture is nothing. It is not too difficult for us, having lived a reasonable amount of time and having our lives to look back on, to imagine ourselves at our best. But it is, it seems to me, to speculate on what a “person” who died before childbirth will be in the next life. It doesn’t seem to me to make any sense at all.
Deep, huh? :P
The Nickols babies may include two of mine, who died in miscarriage. I they made it to heaven (the Pope says we can hope) and I do (which strikes me as less likely), I really won’t care what form I meet them in.
If they are in heaven, perhaps they pray for me.
Now I’m sad.
Michelangelo claimed to be as ugly as Socrates was reputed to be. In a poem he further claimed that painting the Sistine Chapel made him even more ugly (“brutto.”) So he should be readily recognizable in heaven.
Another aspect of this fun topic – - Do those in hell also have an eternal age and how is that determined? I believe we need a unified theory covering both heaven and hell.
I was going to natter on about how I was pregnant with twins at 33 so I’m certainly not voting for that option, much as I love embryos, of course.
Instead, I’ll just give a hearty second to Ann Olivier’s suggestion, what a lovely response!
People in Hell are all fifteen years old. And they torment each other.
(No offense to the many lovely 15 year olds out there. Being fifteen was just hell for me. :-)
Claire –
Archbishop Dolan and experts to whom he refers prophesy polygamy next if New York’s recent assault on civilization and marriage prevails. Thus, it seemed prudent to make sure the record was accurate at this stage before life gets more complicated. For clarity, I should have said “This morning, my first and only wife reminded me that it was fifty years ago today that we agreed….” Sorry for the imaginary challenge.
As to eternal age, I like Ann O.’s approach – It depends on what’s on the schedule that day.
In the movie What Dreams May Come some people in heaven were the age they were when they died and others were older, younger (and some even different people altogether) — whatever they chose. If I have a choice, I’d pick early twenties. That seems to be the age I always am in my dreams. I guess that’s what they referred to in The Matrix as residual self-mage :)
I’m enjoying these responses so much. Thanks, Cathy.
Actually, I’m very Thomistic about Heaven. While I’m convinced it will include our bodies and some sort of place(s), in the end Heaven will be knowing God and knowing His love for us that will be the best of it. I believe that Thomas is right — God is so outlandishly good that we cannot even begin to imagine what He/She will be like. And in Heaven, being eternal, we’ll have ample time to be with all those people we already love, but also everybody else who has made it. And we’ll know the angels too. And best of all, Jesus, but there will be a very long line wating to meet Him, no doubt.
What I don’t think Heaven is, is some sort of merging of our own teensie identities with that of God. No matter how intimate my relationships will be with Him, I ain’t HIm. Becoming the godhead has never made any sense to me at all. If I AM God, how is Heaven any sort of improvement over this life? Besides, I think David is right abouut persons and relationships -= to be fully human we need relationships. (But that doesn’t mean we’re nothing if we lack them.) Ah, the metaphysics of being human.
So we’ve jettisoned a body-torturing hell but are stuck on a body-glorifying heaven? Weird.
Actually I think not having bodies makes more sense in the afterlife. The bodies we have now are made to survive here – digestive tracts, secondary sexual characteristics, etc. — but why would we need them in heaven?
Well, of course there’s the point that our bodies determine who we are. We perceive reality only through our physical senses, so all our philosophy, theology, ratonality, spirituality – everything we feel and know – is body centered. Any reality that isn’t body centered would be entirely different from the reality we know. Then there’s that thing about physical reincarnation (tautological?). Is that dogma? Sigh.
David S. ==
It would help, maybe, if you found out what philosophy and theology really can lead to.
Maybe, Ann, but I don’t think so. I have a fairly clear sense of the limits of language. Obviously, it’s very different from yours, but we work with what we have. That’s all we can do. We took different paths in that yellow wood :o)
“What I don’t think Heaven is, is some sort of merging of our own teensie identities with that of God.”
Growing up as a small Unitarian child, we were discouraged from thinking about heaven and hell except as metaphors for the human condition, but what notions there were were exactly this kind of heaven. It’s very hard to shake that notion of heaven as a kind of state where the best of you gets sucked back up into the Godhead, and the rest sort of blows away like chaff in the cosmic wind.
The Catholic afterlife strikes me as somewhat grueling–the endless millennia in Purgatory for sins known and unknown, the wearisome eternal sunshine in heaven (in a perfect body at a perfect age or not) in heaven, having to delight endlessly in people who drive me nuts down here.
Jean,
You made me think of Rita Rudner’s remark about labor: “One of my friends told me she was in labor for 36 hours. I don’t even want to do anything that feels good for 36 hours.”
David, if we’re hanging out with the babies at Whole Foods or at St. Francis’s Holy Ranch for Deceased Cats, maybe it won’t be so bad.
“having to delight endlessly in people who drive me nuts down here.”
In my Heaven, I’m going to take up smoking again. The people I dislike are all non-smokers, so none of them will be hanging out in the smoking section. It all works out perfectly in Heaven.
I think the first person I would like to meet again in Heaven is my grandmother. And a few good (and some bad) dogs I had.
Irene, in the movie “Millions” the saints appear frequently to a little boy who has lost his mother. St. Claire of Assisi casually lights a cigarette. The kid asks, “Can you smoke?” She says, “Oh, you can do whatever you want up there! It’s down here you have to make the effort.”
I’m not sure it really works that way, but it’s a very charming movie. I often think how I’d like to pop a long-neck Molson and light up a Winston Light 100. Often while I’m reading this blog! But those things are gone forever in this life.
Early on, my mother explained to me that you have to love your neighbor but that doesn’t mean you have to like him. That solved some earthly problems at the time. Jean R.’s “having to delight endlessly in people who drive me nuts down here” sounds as if it brings that problem back again and as a long-term one. I could happily go with Irene’s smoking discriminator provided there are no environmental regulations that require you to step outside every time you want to enjoy it.
I guess in heaven, we’ll love everybody’s second-hand smoke and those idiots who talk loud on cell phones in restaurants. Or restaurants where they play the TV too loud.
I’m sure the fact that I’m not high on certain general ideas about heaven is a pretty good indication I’m not headed there.
Frankly, if the afterlife is just a long and dreamless, painless sleep, that’s fine by me. Maybe in heaven you get to catch up on your sleep and in hell you keep waking up from the nightmares.
The first things I’d like to do if and when I get to Heaven will be to touch Christ, hear his voice, and see God’s face. I know I supposedly would enjoy Heaven already if I could see Him here and now when looking at the people around me, but it’s much simpler to wait for the “real thing”, isn’t it? Less work. And if what I see when I get there are just the same old people again, and if I am then told that that’s the real thing – well, I’d be pretty disappointed.
Claire, you are brutally honest, and I appreciate it.