#12739 How Do I Get to Heaven? Ancestors and Presumption - Jimmy Akin
Catholic Answers Live
Catholic Answers
4.8 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“How do I get to heaven?” This question opens a discussion on the Catholic understanding of salvation, alongside intriguing inquiries about recognizing loved ones in heaven, including those we’ve never met, and the importance of guarding against presumption regarding our eternal destiny.
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Questions Covered:
- 02:20 – How do Catholics get to heaven?
- 20:35 – In heaven how will we know the people in our lives that we never met (like a miscarried child or an ancestor)?
- 40:17 – How do we guard against being presumptuous about going to heaven?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Buying or selling your home, real estate for life can connect you with a pro-life real estate agent. |
| 0:05.2 | When Real Estate for Life receives a referral fee, they donate 65% to Catholic Answers. |
| 0:11.5 | Learn more at realestateforlife.org. Hello and welcome to Catholic Answers live. I'm Cy Kellett, your host. Very happy to be with you on this Friday afternoon. Maybe it's |
| 0:38.1 | a Friday evening or even a Saturday morning where you are, depending on where you're listening in |
| 0:42.5 | the world. But thank you very much for being here with us. And what could be a more important question |
| 0:47.5 | then? How do I get to heaven? How am I saved? How does that happen? What's the process or what's the |
| 0:53.5 | event? What has to happen for me to be saved? That's what we're on about today. You're welcome to call 888-3187-884. If you have questions about salvation, maybe you're one of our Protestant brothers and sisters who wants to know what does the Catholic Church teach about salvation. Maybe you're one of our Catholic brothers and sisters who wants to know what does the Catholic Church teach about salvation? Maybe you're one of our |
| 1:11.3 | Catholic brothers and sisters who wants to know what does the Catholic Church teach about salvation. |
| 1:15.2 | Whatever, you're welcome to call 8883187-884. And who better to discuss this topic than the guy |
| 1:24.7 | who wrote the book, The Drama of Salvation, our very own Jimmy Aiken. |
| 1:28.4 | Hello, Jimmy. |
| 1:30.0 | How do you, Sightell it? |
| 1:31.0 | How are you doing? |
| 1:31.8 | I am very good for a Friday, and I'm kind of looking forward to this conversation. |
| 1:35.3 | I hope lots of people will call with their questions, because this is a big one. |
| 1:39.9 | It is kind of an important thing. |
| 1:41.8 | Yep. |
| 1:42.9 | And some stuff I say may surprise you. So we'll see how surprised you get. Okay. All right. It's not like that never happens. Usually I'm surprised if I get to the end of the show and you haven't surprised me with something. So let's find out what's... Then you get surprised either way. Yeah, that's right. Either I surprise you by surprising you or I surprise you by not. Or I surprise you by not. Okay, well, I'll look forward to surprises today then. 8883187-884. Salvation. How does it happen? You're welcome to call. 8883-187-884. I'll tell you what. How about if I just give you the hard |
| 2:20.1 | question right from the beginning, can you give me the one or two or if you have, you need it three-minute |
| 2:24.4 | summary of according to the Catholic Church, how does the person get to heaven? Well, getting to |
| 2:30.6 | heaven isn't actually the goal. |
| 2:36.1 | Well, now you've surprised me. |
... |
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