Heaven's Gate

Here you stand, proudly presented before the gates of glorious heaven where the words of God will walk your soul out into the sunshine and separate it from its earthly trappings. Time, temperature, tones and tickling breezes are but distant memories that will no longer be mentioned here in this expansive space of absolute attainment and perfection. The term Heaven has typically been used to refer to the plane of existence of an afterlife. In various religions and spiritual philosophies it is often described as the holiest possible place, accessible by people according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith or other virtues. The Catholic Church teaches that "heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness. Heaven is considered a state, a condition of existence, rather than a particular place somewhere in the cosmos. Pope John Paul II declared: "The 'heaven' or 'happiness' in which we will find ourselves is neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but a living, personal relationship with the Holy Trinity."