Anchored in hope. Pope Francis in n.21 looks at the question of what happens to us after death and this leads on to asking about what happiness is.
n.21 “What, then, will become of us after death? With Jesus, beyond this threshold we will find eternal life, consisting in full communion with God as we forever contemplate and share in his infinite love. All that we now experience in hope, we shall then see in reality. We are reminded of the words of Saint Augustine: “When I am one with you in all my being, there will be no more pain and toil; my life shall be true life, a life wholly filled by you”. What will characterize this fullness of communion? Being happy. Happiness is our human vocation, a goal to which all aspire.
But what is happiness? What is the happiness that we await and desire? Not some fleeting pleasure, a momentary satisfaction that, once experienced, keeps us longing for more, in a desperate quest that leaves our hearts unsated and increasingly empty. We aspire to a happiness that is definitively found in the one thing that can bring us fulfilment, which is love. Thus, we will be able to say even now: I am loved, therefore I exist; and I will live forever in the love that does not disappoint, the love from which nothing can ever separate me. Let us listen once more to the words of the Apostle: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39). As Pope Francis points out, true happiness is way more than mere pleasure. Pleasure, he says, is fleeting. It is something that is a momentary satisfaction. He links true happiness to the true love that is our foundation. Pope Francis says, “I am loved, therefore I exist; and I will live forever in the love that does not disappoint, the love from which nothing can ever separate me. This is based on St. Paul’s comment to the Romans that is often used when we pray for our dead and is quoted by Pope Francis.