092 Invisible Realities

On Tuesday, June 4, Trey opened with the sacraments and how they are visible signs of invisible realities, or "mysteries". The memory verse that comes to mind for the topic is Heb. 11:1, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." In its fullness, faith requires us to not have seen and, yet, still believe. A good example of this is heaven and the spiritual realm. As finite beings, we can't see heaven or experience it on earth in our physical nature, but we still believe in it. Trey talked about the book Imagine Heaven by John Burke in which there are 100 stories of people's near-death experiences, where they encounter heaven or, on the contrary, hell. Fr. Robert Spitzer's analysis of the book asks why God allows these experiences to happen. He suggests that perhaps it is God trying to get people to not only understand that heaven is real, but that it is so much more magnificent than we could ever imagine. The experiences are so surreal and unthinkable that the people who encounter them have a difficult time explaining them to others. The reality of the invisible realm, or heaven, is actually more realistic than our earthly lives. Trey uses the analogy of humans living in a picture hanging on a wall in a room. When we are in the picture, we only have a finite view of our lives; we can look forward out of the picture frame to a small extent, but we are missing an entirely different reality, the room that the picture is in. It's only when we step out of the picture frame that we encounter the fullness of the room and everything it entails. Enjoy the episode and remember to pray, parent with a purpose, and prepare for God to amaze you!