685. The ties that connect people in the next life are remarkable. They are like family ties on earth, in that some acknowledge others as parents, as children, as siblings, as blood relatives, and as more distant connections. Their love for one another reflects these different levels of relationship. The varieties come in unlimited number. The way they are communicated and perceived is so exquisite that it cannot be described.
People there pay no attention at all to who was whose parent, child, blood relative, or connection on earth. They do not care what a person's outer identity was like, whether the individual had importance or wealth, and so on. They look only at differences in mutual love and in faith, and at what kind of capacity for welcoming love and faith a person has received from the Lord while living in the world.
