UNKNOWN

This book offers an intelligent but accessible recovery of the Christian hope for heaven and the resurrected life. Our ideas of heaven often need rescuing from the well-meaning but often empty sense of a "better-place." It is more fruitful, the author argues, to orientate ourselves by St. Paul's words: "For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come." Each of us desires Eden while struggling to make good out of evil. The things we cherish have their goodness diluted and drained of life. Through it all, we cannot quite picture heaven and our eternal happiness. It feels remote and unreal. Yet the recovery of paradise in our hearts and minds is the crucial act of our lives. Through it we can understand the meaning behind the greatest commandment: "Love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."

Caitlin Smith Gilson is professor of philosophy at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Florida, and visiting professor of philosophy at Pontificia Università della Santa Croce in Rome. Dr. Gilson is associate editor of The New Ressourcement and author of numerous books of philosophical theology and poetry.

Carol Scott is professor emeritus of art at University of Holy Cross, New Orleans, receiving several endowed professorships. She is a gallery artist at Gallery 600 Julia in the prestigious Arts District of New Orleans. The City of New Orleans selected her work for their permanent collection. Carol served as vice president of the Women's Caucus for Art. She has had numerous one-person shows, exhibited in galleries and museums, won awards, and is collected nationally and internationally.


Daniel Fitzpatrick is the editor of Joie de Vivre and a teacher at Jesuit high school in New Orleans. He is the author of the novel Only the Lover Sings, a verse translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, and Restoring the Lord's Day.