"And then what?" said her daemon sleepily. "Build what?"

"The Republic of Heaven," said Lyra.

He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.... We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we'll build... The Republic of Heaven.

We have to build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us, there is no elsewhere.

A sense of belonging, a sense of being part of a real and important story, a sense of being connected to other people, to people who are not here any more, to those who have gone before us. And a sense of being connected to the universe itself. All those things were promised and summed up in the phrase, 'The Kingdom of Heaven'. But if the Kingdom is dead, we still need those things. We can't live without those things because it's too bleak, it's too bare and we don't need to. We can find a way of creating them for ourselves if we think in terms of a Republic of Heaven. This is not a Kingdom but a Republic, in which we are all free and equal citizens, with — and this is the important thing — responsibilities. With the responsibility to make this place into a Republic of Heaven for everyone. Not to live in it in a state of perpetual self-indulgence, but to work hard to make this place as good as we possibly can.

Heaven… is the eternal kingdom Christ will inaugurate at His second coming.

Your dæmon can only live its full life in the world it was born in. Elsewhere it will eventually sicken and die. We can travel, if there are openings into other worlds, but we can only live in our own. Lord Asriel’s great enterprise will fail in the end for the same reason: we have to build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us there is no elsewhere.

The Republic is a dream. Nothing happens unless first a dream.

Satan tried to control the world with power but created hell. That power cannot create the ideal world. God has to create the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth by true love, even to liberate hell. Based on true love, not politics or economy, scholars can change their concepts. So far, scholars have supported political authority, but that must change. Economy has supported the reigning political power, which makes for division. Now unity will come by parental love.

This is the Church’s destination: it is, as the Bible says, the “new Jerusalem”, “Paradise”. More than a place, it is a “state” of soul in which our deepest hopes are fulfilled in superabundance and our being, as creatures and as children of God, reach their full maturity. We will finally be clothed in the joy, peace and love of God, completely, without any limit, and we will come face to face with Him! (cf. 1 Cor 13:12). It is beautiful to think of this, to think of Heaven. We will all be there together. It is beautiful, it gives strength to the soul. … At the same time, Sacred Scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this marvellous plan cannot but involve everything that surrounds us and came from the heart and mind of God. The Apostle Paul says it explicitly, when he says that “Creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom 8:21). Other texts utilize the image of a “new heaven” and a “new earth” (cf. 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1), in the sense that the whole universe will be renewed and will be freed once and for all from every trace of evil and from death itself. What lies ahead is the fulfillment of a transformation that in reality is already happening, beginning with the death and resurrection of Christ. Hence, it is the new creation; it is not, therefore, the annihilation of the cosmos and of everything around us, but the bringing of all things into the fullness of being, of truth and of beauty.

Heaven: the Coney Island of the Christian imagination.

Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

The first question is: Recall a time when you experienced Heaven on Earth. What was happening? The second question is: Imagine you have a magic wand and with it you can create Heaven on Earth. What is Heaven on Earth for you? And now the final question: What simple, easy, concrete step(s) will you take in the next twenty-four hours to make Heaven on Earth real? While asking yourself these questions, what words and phrases come to mind? What images do you see? Write them all down. Draw pictures. Record yourself speaking your thoughts if that helps the ideas flow. As you do this, pay attention to your emotional reactions. (Remember: True end goals tend to be feelings.)

Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven.

Pandemonium, the palace of Satan rises, suddenly built of the deep: the infernal peers there sit in council.