Sunday, November 22, 2009

Heaven

Tom was saying something about heaven needing to include whatever you need to be happy. It reminds me of a story about Cardinal George in Chicago. Shortly after he came to Chicago to become archbishop, he was giving a lecture at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago in a large lecture hall decorated with wooden angels on roof beams. Each angel held a book. When I was working for the Lumen Christi Institute at the U of C, many of our programs were held in this room.

The Cardinal began his talk on that occasion -- it may even have been for a Lumen Christi program -- by saying that, as a philosopher, he needed to point out that the angels do not read in heaven because they do not need to do so. I said later that if there were no reading in heaven, I wasn't sure I wanted to go.

2 comments:

Sunny said...

Oh AMEN to that Michael....altho I'm not sure my "trashy romance novels" would be considered appropriate reading material, either!!

Michael Dodd said...

Sunny,
I guess I would have to wonder if the books I have written are appropriate reading material, but I think they might pass muster.