Don’t go to Heaven alone

When progressing on the path toward Heaven, bring as many people along as you can, including friends and family members.

Sometimes it can be tempting to keep Heaven “for ourselves.” We are content to progress on the path of virtue and perfect our prayer life in a solitary manner.

However, Jesus did not want us to be saints isolated from other people. Jesus commissioned his apostles to, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

Heaven is meant to be a great “party,” where we are reunited with beloved friends and family, sharing in the glories and happiness of the Beatific Vision. This is one of the reasons why we should do all that we can to bring others with us on the journey to Heaven. We want them to share in the joy of Heaven and don’t want to be the only ones.

Fr. Francis Xavier Lasance expressed a similar idea in his early 20th-century My Prayer Book.

Don’t go to Heaven alone! Take somebody with you. Mothers, take your children with you. Pray as long as you have breath in your body — never despair and never give up the hope that your loved ones, no matter how far their footsteps have wandered, will one day stand with you before the Great White Throne.

Even if our friends and family abandon us on account of our faith, we should strive to “take them to Heaven” through prayer and fasting. We can still have an effect on their lives in the spiritual realm, even if we no longer have any contact with them.

Above all, let us not be content to go to Heaven alone, but bring with us as many of our loved ones as possible!