St Peter says “Tom, you were a fine man! Faithful at work and in marriage; why you never even looked sideways at another woman. So here are the keys to your heavenly Rolls-Royce.”  

Tom hoons off happy. Next St Peter says to Dick “Now Dick, you were mostly good, but you did have a wandering eye unfortunately, so here are the keys to your BMW.

Finally St Peter comes to Harry “Harry, I’m sorry, but your life made Errol Flynn look like a choirboy! Here are the keys to your Ford.”

So Dick and Harry are hooning along the highways of heaven when they see Tom’s Rolls-Royce pulled over and Tom sitting in the gutter bawling his eyes out. Dick and Harry say to Tom “Thomo! What’s wrong mate?” 

“I just drove past my wife on the highway.” says Tom.

Dick and Harry explain “Don’t be upset Thomo, that’s great news mate!” Tom looks up teary and says “She was riding a scooter.”

It’s almost impossible for anyone to tell us that our image of heaven is wrong.

Jesus confirmed there’s a heaven but doesn’t tell us what’s in it. 

Nobody can tell us “there won’t be animals or trees or fidget spinners in heaven” because they simply don’t know.  

What we do know about heaven through faith is that, whatever we need to be perfectly fulfilled, will be there.

My favourite image of heaven is a reunion. If we have someone we love, we have certain things that remind us of them; a song, a memory, a scent, a place.

I believe these joyous things that touch our soul will be once again present in heaven, with those we love, to whom we attribute these things.

The word “reunion” comes from the Latin word runire "to unite".

God clearly desires unity and for us to play an active role in making this a reality with those we love and those we find it hard to let ourselves love.

I don’t think it’s an accident that most funerals are paradoxically a reunion; a foretaste of heaven.

When we go to a reunion we see people we want to impress, so we try make ourselves look better, have a decent career, etc.

 Why not improve our virtues and soul now so we can present them better at “the reunion”? 

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Words of Wisdom with Father Brendan Lee is written weekly for The Area News.