My Journal on God's Love - Book Two

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My Journal on God's Love Book Two

by Jocelyn A. Soriano http://itakeoffthemask.com/

“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek

him

the

greatest

adventure;

to

find

him,

greatest human achievement.� - Augustine of Hippo

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the

Table of Contents

Love, Suffering and Humility.........................................................4 Love is More Than a Decision......................................................14 God Truly Loves Us!....................................................................27 God's Love and Hell.....................................................................42 Loving Jesus Through Mary.........................................................55 Revelations to St. Bridget...................................................................................................................56 The World's First Love by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. Part 51........................................................57

Fixing Our Gaze Upon Heaven.....................................................73 Three Reasons We Must Fix Our Gaze Upon Heaven:......................................................................74 Focusing On Jesus Instead of Ourselves............................................................................................74 Remaining in Grace, Peace and Strength...........................................................................................75 Our Thirst for Heaven........................................................................................................................77 The Joys of Our Heavenly Home.......................................................................................................78 Excerpt from Thomas Kempis, The Imitation of Christ:....................................................................79 Visions of St. Faustina........................................................................................................................80 Visions of Blessed Catherine Emmerich............................................................................................81 Excerpt from the Book of Enoch:.......................................................................................................82 Quotes from C.S. Lewis:....................................................................................................................83 Excerpt from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings:..............................................................................87 Quotes from St. Alphonsus:................................................................................................................87 Excerpts from The Four Last Things - DEATH, JUDGMENT, HELL and HEAVEN by Father Martin Von Cochem, O.S.F.C. :..........................................................................................................89 Excerpts from A Story of Love, Fr. Francis Cassilly........................................................................101 BIBLE VERSES ABOUT HEAVEN...............................................................................................109 Quotes from St. Teresa of Avila........................................................................................................118 Quotes from Julian of Norwich........................................................................................................120 Quotes from Fr. Charles Arminjon, The End of This Present World and the Mysteries of the Life to Come.................................................................................................................................................122 Other Quotes About Heaven.............................................................................................................133 All We Have Are Glimpses of Heaven.............................................................................................136 A Prayer of Gratitude........................................................................................................................138

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Love, Suffering and Humility Spiritual life is sweet and easy at the start.

Goodness and beauty attract the heart and we find much happiness in getting to know God more.

Somewhere along the way however, fear and confusion can seep in. Fear of suffering, and fearing of losing everything I have ever gained.

Confusion also because things seem to take a different turn. In the past, I chose what's right because that's what makes sense, that's what's beneficial.

If I do wrong, I suffer from its bad consequences; if I do good, I'm well and happy.

At a certain point however, especially as I read the lives of saints, I learned that to continue in the path of goodness, one must suffer, and it is good to suffer. One must also forget the self, be strict and harsh with oneself while being kind and gentle to others.

It comes to the point when we must not even seek to be happy. Love is not a delight anymore, nor a feeling, but a will to do good and follow God. All the beauty and light I have ever received now becomes obscured as I enter a kind of darkness and emptiness once more.

It isn't that I don't believe anymore. Night is indeed temporary and heavenly rewards far outweigh our passing pain. But true goodness it seems shouldn't even look for that reward nor desire for the night to end.

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It is sufficient that one has surrendered all to God even if one lives in utter pain for all eternity!

Mere imagination takes me to a life of fasting, deprivation, emptiness, darkness and pain with no consolation or tangible hope for relief. I may also as well expect to work tirelessly with no feeling of delight whatsoever in the tasks I do but an utter will to do what is right and good for others.

Yet, is this not what Mother Teresa calls slavery? To work without love?

Why choose such a life? To escape hell? But I can't escape it if my only desire for doing such things is to escape it.

One thing only can remain to be the REASON: LOVE. To love God above all!

Why love? Because there is no other meaning or purpose worthy of the dignity of the human soul.

Without love, all is meaningless and even eternity is a curse. With love, even pain becomes sweet and darkness as bright as the noonday sun!

1 If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all 5

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faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burnt, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing. - 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, WEB

I cannot say that I already understand love well. But here is what I know.

That to live without love is hell itself. All the happiness in the world is bitter compared with all the sufferings we go through with love.

I think it is here that the saints find courage. Not that suffering is to be desired in itself, but that it is a cross so sweet if carried with and for love of God. Indeed, “...my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:30, WEB)

The happiness of the saints far outweigh their sorrows that even their sorrow is turned to joy!

Here St. Teresa of Avila has enlightened me also as to the effect of raptures. In the bliss of the soul, it gains strength to face difficulties and trials. It is also humbled, knowing everything it is able to do is because of the great grace it has received from God.

Therefore I must resolve not to attempt heroic sufferings without first receiving unfathomable grace from God. My focus should be on Jesus, not on my own works. It is my joy in Him that should strengthen me for trials, a joy that far surpasses every pain! Indeed, “...the joy of the LORD is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10, WEBBE) 6

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This joy does not mean that I shall always feel happy. Sometimes, I must be happy in hope and in faith.

This does not mean also that I could never fall. Has Jesus not fallen three times while carrying the cross? In times of trial however, I must resolve to be patient with myself and to trust in God's infinite mercy.

I have also not yet reached that point when I can make every mortification and sacrifice. This is yet too lofty for my weakness. But I must resolve to practice obedience to His will for it is written, “...Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice...” (1 Samuel 15:22, WEB) It is also within my reach to practice charity and works of mercy. “But you go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Matthew 9:13, WEB)

6 “Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? 7 Isn’t it to distribute your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor who are cast out to your house? When you see the naked, that you cover him; and that you not hide yourself from your own flesh? 8 Then your light will break out as the morning, and your healing will appear quickly; then your righteousness shall go before you; and the LORD’s glory will be your rear guard. 9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say, ‘Here I am.' - Isaiah 58:6-9, WEB

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I will resolve to love God in my own capacity.

“The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of it’s scent nor the daisy of its simple charm.

If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.”

-St. Therese of Lisieux

Related Excerpts from the Treatise on the Love of God by St. Francis de Sales:

“Though there are so many degrees of love amongst true lovers, yet is there but one commandment of love, which universally and equally obliges every one, with an exactly like and entirely equal obligation, though it be observed differently and with an infinite variety of perfections; there being perhaps no souls on earth, as there are no angels in heaven, who are perfectly equal to one another in their love. As one star differs from another in brightness, so shall it be with the Blessed in their resurrection, when each one sings a canticle of glory, and receives a name which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it.”

“Now when charity draws some to poverty and withdraws others from it, when she directs some to marriage and others to continence, when she shuts one up in a cloister and makes another quit it, she is not bound to give account thereof to any one: for she has the plenitude of power in Christian laws, as it is written: charity can do all things; she has the perfection of prudence, according to that: charity does nothing wrongly.

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And if any would contest, and demand why she so does, she will boldly make answer: The Lord hath need of it. All is made for charity, and charity for God.”

“To some she will appoint chastity without poverty, to others obedience and not chastity, to others fasting but not alms-deeds, to others alms-deeds and fasting, to others solitude and not the pastoral charge, to others intercourse with men and not solitude. In fine she is a sacred water, by which the garden of the church is fertilized, and though she herself have no colour that can be called colour, yet the flowers which she makes spring have each one its particular colour. She makes Martyrs redder than the rose, Virgins whiter than the lily; some she dyes with the fine violet of mortification, others with the yellow of marriage-cares, variously employing the counsels, for the perfection of the souls who are so happy as to live under her conduct.”

As with the little way of St. Therese of Lisieux, I will resolve to love God with a childlike simplicity.

Remaining little’means—to recognise one’s nothingness, to await everything from the Goodness of God, to avoid being too much troubled at our faults; finally, not to worry over amassing spiritual riches, not to be solicitous about anything. Even amongst the poor, while a child is still small, he is given what is necessary; but, once he is grown up, his father will no longer feed him, and tells him to seek work and support himself.

Well, it was to avoid hearing this, that I have never wished to grow up, for I feel incapable of earning my livelihood, which is Life Eternal. - St. 9

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Therese of Lisieux

As in Psalm 131, I must not concern myself with things too wonderful for me, but I must resolve to be quiet and still like a weaned child with its mother.

LORD, my heart isn’t arrogant, nor my eyes lofty; nor do I concern myself with great matters, or things too wonderful for me.

Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

Israel, hope in the LORD, from this time forward and forever more.

-Psalm 131:1-3, WEBBE

God loves me even if I'm far from being perfect. It is to such an extent that He shows the depths of His mercy.

Excerpts from St. Therese of Lisieux:

“I see clearly that you are mistaking the road, and that you will never arrive at the end of your journey. You want to climb the mountain, whereas 10

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God wishes you to descend it. He is awaiting you in the fruitful valley of humility.”

“Offer to God the sacrifice of never gathering any fruit. If He will that throughout your whole life you should feel a repugnance to suffering and humiliation—if He permit that all the flowers of your desires and of your good will should fall to the ground without any fruit appearing, do not worry. At the hour of death, in the twinkling of an eye, He will cause fair fruits to ripen on the tree of your soul.”

We read in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: ‘There is an inactive man that wanteth help, is very weak in ability, and full of poverty: yet the Eye of God hath looked upon him for good, and hath lifted him up from his low estate , and hath exalted his head: and many have wondered at him, and have glorified God. . . . Trust in God, and stay in thy place. For it is easy in the Eyes of God, on a sudden, to make the poor man rich. The blessing of God maketh haste to reward the just, and in a swift hour His blessing beareth fruit.’"

“When I returned to our cell, I was wondering what Jesus thought, when all at once I remembered His words to the woman taken in adultery: “Hath no man condemned thee?"[ 2] With tears in my eyes, I answered Him: “No one, Lord, . . . neither my little Mother— the image of Thy Mercy— nor Sister N., the image of Thy Justice. I feel that I can go in peace, because neither wilt Thou condemn me.”

“I confess I am much happier because of my weakness than if— sustained 11

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by grace— I had been a model of patience. It does me so much good to see that Jesus is always sweet and tender towards me. Truly it is enough to make me die of grateful love.”

“A certain lender had two debtors. The one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they couldn’t pay, he forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him most?” Simon answered, “He, I suppose, to whom he forgave the most.” He said to him, “You have judged correctly… But one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” -Luke 7:4143,47 WEB

Let this be no reason however to find an excuse to sin, but to have hope in God's infinite mercy and prevent us from despair in times when we fail even if we do our very best to accomplish God's will.

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?”

- Romans 6:1-2, WEB

“For desire is present with me, but I don't find it doing that which is good.

For the good which I desire, I don't do; but the evil which I don't desire, that I practice. But if what I don't desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me.” - Romans 7:18-20, WEB

For you didn't receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" - Romans 8:15, 12

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WEB

HUMILITY FROM SUFFERING 18. I believe that it is our Lord's good pleasure frequently in the beginning, and at times in the end, to send these torments, and many other incidental temptations, to try those who love Him, and to ascertain if they will drink the chalice, [ 6] and help Him to carry the Cross, before He intrusts them with His great treasures. I believe it to be for our good that His Majesty should lead us by this way, so that we may perfectly understand how worthless we are; for the graces which He gives afterwards are of a dignity so great, that He will have us by experience know our wretchedness before He grants them, that it may not be with us as it was with Lucifer. - St. Teresa of Avila

Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair. ― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

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Love is More Than a Decision Love is more than a feeling. But love is also more than making a decision and a commitment.

Consider choosing a husband and taking taking care of one's marriage. Certainly, there will be ups and downs. One will not always feel happy. But one also does not merely pick a random person from the crowd and then decide to marry him. One chooses with very important considerations. We decide because we see something good and beautiful and true that we want to keep forever even when there will be times of trial and suffering ahead.

Consider also the love of a mother for her child. Certainly, she will not always experience comfort and satisfaction. A baby even cries through the night and disturbs the sleep of the mother. But a mother loves the child, a love that is more than a decision to care for her child. It is indeed more than fleeting feelings and comforts. But present indeed is that fondness and delight in her child which never vanishes and beyond all suffering and pain.

Let us never reduce love into a mere addiction where we selfishly desire only feelings of elation even to the detriment of the person loved.

But let us never reduce love into a kind of slavery either where we 14

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boastfully say to the other that we have decided to commit to him and serve him even if we have no feelings whatsoever or appreciation of him.

“The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created

by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for…” - Catechism of the Catholic Church

“You see God created you and I to be happy in this life and the next… He cares for you. He watches your every move. There's no one that loves you can do that.” - Mother Angelica

For this is the reason why our hearts and souls are not in perfect ease, because here we seek rest in this thing which is so little, in which there is no rest, and we do not know our God who is almighty, all wise and all good, for he is true rest. God wishes to be known, and it pleases him that we should rest in him; for everything which is beneath him is not sufficient for us. - Julian of Norwich

“Truth sees God, and wisdom contemplates God, and from these two comes a third, a holy and wonderful delight in God, who is love.” - Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

Oh, that I could clearly explain to your Lordship the peace and quiet my soul has found! for it has so great a certainty of the fruition of God, that it seems to be as if already in possession, though the joy is withheld. I am as 15

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one to whom another has granted by deed a large revenue, into the enjoyment and use of which he is to come at a certain time, but until then has nothing but the right already given him to the revenue. In gratitude for this, my soul would abstain from the joy of it, because it has not deserved it; it wishes only to serve Him, even if in great suffering, and at times it thinks it would be very little if, till the end of the world, it had to serve Him who has given it this right; for, in truth, it is in some measure no longer subject, as before, to the miseries of this world; though it suffers more, it seems as if only the habit were struck, for my soul is, as it were, in a fortress with authority, and accordingly does not lose its peace. - St. Teresa of Avila, The Life of St. Teresa

To make rapid progress and to reach the mansions we wish to enter, it is not so essential to think much as to love much: therefore you must practise whatever most excites you to this. - St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle

As soon as the soul has arrived thus far, it begins to lose the desire of earthly things, and no wonder; for it sees clearly that, even for a moment, this joy is not to be had on earth; that there are no riches, no dominion , no honours, no delights, that can for one instant, even for the twinkling of an eye, minister such a joy; for it is a true satisfaction , and the soul sees that it really does satisfy. Now, we who are on earth, as it seems to me, scarcely ever understand wherein our satisfaction lies, for it is always liable to disappointment; but in this, at that time, there is none. - St. Teresa of Avila, The Life of St. Teresa

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"People are made for happiness. Rightly, then, you thirst for happiness.

Christ has the answer to this desire of yours. But he asks you to trust him."

- Pope John Paul II

“God has created all things for good; all things for their greatest good; everything for its own good. What is the good of one is not the good of another; what makes one man happy would make another unhappy. God has determined, unless I interfere with His plan, that I should reach that which will be my greatest happiness. He looks on me individually, He calls me by my name, He knows what I can do, what I can best be, what is my greatest happiness, and He means to give it me.”- John Henry Newman

Excerpts on Love form the Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis:

Love is a great thing, greatest of all goods, because it alone renders light every burden and bears equally all that is unequal. Because it carries a burden without feeling it, and renders sweet and pleasing every bitterness…

Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing more sublime, nothing more expansive, nothing more joyful, nothing more abundant, nothing more pleasing in Heaven or on earth; because love is born of God, nor can it rest upon created things, but only in God.

The lover flies, runs and rejoices; he is free and nothing can restrain him.

He gives all for all, and has all in all, because above all he rests in that one Sovereign Good from whom all good proceeds and flows. He does not 17

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regard the gifts, but he turns himself, above all goods, to the giver.

Love often knows no measure, but burns beyond all measure.

Love feels no burden, values no labours, would like to do more than it can do, without excusing itself with impossibility, because it believes that it may and can do all things.

In fact, it is ready to do anything, and it performs and effects many things, in which he who does not love faints and succumbs.

Love watches, and, sleeping, slumbers not. When fatigued, it does not become tired; when pressed it does not work through constraint; when threatened it is not disturbed; but like a lively flame and a burning torch, it mounts upwards, and securely overcomes all opposition. Whosoever loves knows well what this voice says. A loud cry in the ears of God is the ardent affection of that soul, which says: O my God, my Love, you are all mine and I am all yours.

There's a love content in Christianity.

And discounting all the irresponsible things people do, there is nevertheless a deep, healing, emotional content in the Christian life. That's why the Bible calls the Church the Bride and Christ the Bridegroom. He means that His people should know His love and that we should feel it and sense it‌ What a 18

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mechanical business marriage would be if there was no love in it! - A.W. TOZER, The Attributes of God

Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus. ''Jesus, looking upon him, loved him" – loved him it seems with an emotion distinguished from that of the Divine Love that loves all things that It has made; loved him for the ideal which he in particular might yet accomplish, more than for the fact that he merely existed as did others of his kind —loved him as I love my own friend, and as he loves me. - Robert Hugh Benson, The Friendship of Christ

1 Corinthians 13:1-13, WEBBE

1 If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burnt, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, 5 doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; 6 doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but 19

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when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with. 11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.

If love is only sacrifice or faith, then it would have sufficed to sacrifice oneself or to decide to do the most noble actions. But here it seemed, that love is more than these things.

Consider also the following Bible verses:

17 The LORD, your God, is amongst you, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will calm you in his love. He will rejoice over you with singing. - Zephaniah 3:17, WEBBE

For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you.

As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you.

-Isaiah 62:5, WEBBE

Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, 20

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with all your soul, and with all your mind.� - Matthew 22:37, WEBBE

Jacob served seven years for Rachel. They seemed to him but a few days, for the love he had for her. - Genesis 29:20, WEBBE

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth; for your love is better than wine.

-Song of Solomon 1:2, WEBBE

3 As the apple tree amongst the trees of the wood, so is my beloved amongst the sons.

I sat down under his shadow with great delight, his fruit was sweet to my taste.

4 He brought me to the banquet hall.

His banner over me is love.

5 Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am faint with love.

6 His left hand is under my head.

His right hand embraces me.

7 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, or by the hinds of the field, that you not stir up, nor awaken love, 21

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until it so desires.

-Song of Solomon 2:3-7, WEBBE

10 My beloved spoke, and said to me, “Rise up, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.

11 For behold, the winter is past.

The rain is over and gone.

12 The flowers appear on the earth.

The time of the singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

13 The fig tree ripens her green figs.

The vines are in blossom.

They give out their fragrance.

Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.”

-Song of Solomon 2:10-13, WEBBE

Listen, daughter, consider, and turn your ear.

Forget your own people, and also your father’s house.

So the king will desire your beauty, honour him, for he is your lord.

-Psalm 45:10-11, WEBBE 22

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“Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

It will be in that day,” says the LORD, “that you will call me ‘my husband,’…”

-Hosea 2:14-16, WEB-BE

How gently and lovingly you wake in my heart, where in secret you dwell alone; and in your sweet breathing, filled with good and glory, how tenderly you swell my heart with love.

-St. John of the Cross

When I Say I Love You 23

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(J. Soriano)

When I say I love you it doesn't mean that I never experience hard times because of you.

It doesn't mean that I always feel elated and blissful and inspired.

It doesn't mean I never get tired.

But when I say I love you it means I could never find another such as you.

I could never find another so beautiful so good and so true, someone who could ever make my life more meaningful 24

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and blessed and worth living for.

When I say I love you it means that every hard and difficult time with you is preferable than all the merry and exciting days with someone else.

It means that though I get tired at times, I shall be refreshed with your love.

It means that life is life only because of your love and that given the choice of dying for you and living for myself, I'd rather die out of love for you, because with you, even death itself is life, and even darkness is light.

With you my love, even the deepest of sorrows become joy, 25

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and even the greatest pains become bearable and sweet!

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God Truly Loves Us! There comes a time when we realize that God truly loves us. God loves us perfectly, endlessly, unconditionally and without fail. God loves us whether we are good or bad, whether we believe or we doubt, whether we are the prodigal son who wastes his inheritance or the elder son who fails to realize his father's love. God has loved us even before we were born, He loves us now and He always will.

The father of the prodigal son never stopped loving him even when he was lost. If he had stopped loving, he would not have waited for him.

I wait for souls, and they are indifferent toward Me. I love them tenderly and sincerely, and they distrust Me. I want to lavish My graces on them, and they do not want to accept them. They treat Me as a dead object, whereas My Heart is full of love and mercy. In order that you may know at least some of My pain, imagine the most tender of mothers who has great love for her children, while those children spurn her love. Consider her pain. No one is in a position to console her. This is but a feeble image and likeness of My love. - Divine Mercy in My Soul 1447

This love does not mean however that we will never suffer because of our sins. The prodigal son suffered much, did he not? He suffered so badly for as long as he chose to be away from his father. But when he 27

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returned, he was welcomed with open arms and loved as though he never sinned at all.

“But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” - Luke 15:20, WEB

With My mercy, I pursue sinners along all their paths, and My Heart rejoices when they return to Me . I forget the bitterness with which they fed My Heart and rejoice at their return… Tell sinners that I am always waiting for them, that I listen intently to the beating of their heart… when will it beat for Me? Write, that I am speaking to them through their remorse of conscience, through their failures and sufferings, through thunderstorms, through the voice of the Church. - Divine Mercy in My Soul 1728

God not only waits. He pursues us!

When Jesus speaks in his parables of the shepherd who goes after the lost sheep, of the woman who looks for the lost coin, of the father who goes to meet and embrace his prodigal son, these are no mere words: they constitute an explanation of his very being and activity. His death on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most radical form. – Deus Caritas Est-Encyclical Letter, Benedict XVI

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THE LOST SHEEP

He told them this parable. “Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance. – LUKE 15:3-7, WEB-BE

THE LOST COIN

Or what woman, if she had ten drachma coins, if she lost one drachma coin, wouldn’t light a lamp, sweep the house, and seek diligently until she found it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I had lost.’ Even so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner repenting.” – LUKE 15:8-10, WEB-BE

“Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

I will give her vineyards from there,

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and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

It will be in that day,” says the LORD, “that you will call me ‘my husband,’ and no longer call me ‘my master.’

-HOSEA 2:14-16, WEB-BE

It’s Jesus’ home and Jesus welcomes [all]. But not only does He welcome, He goes out to see people just as He went out to find this man. And if people are hurt, what does Jesus do? Scold them because they are hurt?

No, He comes and He carries them on His shoulders. – Pope Francis

"We are all sinners. But God heals us with an abundance of grace, mercy and tenderness." - Pope Francis

This does not mean also that God could never get angry. But anger doesn't necessarily mean the absence of love. On the contrary, it could very well be the opposite as when a mother gets angry when a child does something that could harm him!

Tell them, As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn, turn 30

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from your evil ways; for why will you die, house of Israel? - Ezekiel 33:11, WEB

Because God made not death; Neither delights he when the living perish: For he created all things that they might have being: And the generative powers of the world are healthsome, And there is no poison of destruction in them: Nor has Hades royal dominion upon earth, For righteousness is immortal: But ungodly men by their hands and their words called death to them: Deeming him a friend they consumed away, And they made a covenant with him, Because they are worthy to be of his portion.

-WISDOM 1:13-16, WEB-BE

“For a small moment I have forsaken you; but with great mercies will I gather you.

In overflowing wrath I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting loving kindness I will have mercy on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer.

“For this is like the waters of Noah to me; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah will no more go over the earth, 31

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so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you, nor rebuke you.

For the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed; but my loving kindness will not depart from you, and my covenant of peace will not be removed,” says the LORD who has mercy on you.

-ISAIAH 54:7-10, WEB-BE

He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love. - 1 John 4:8

God IS Love. God will always be love and will never cease from being love!

“God loved us before he made us; and his love has never diminished and never shall.” - Julian of Norwich

God loves us… always. God loves us when we repent of our sins, but He loved us and died for us even while we were dead in our sins.

7For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a righteous person someone would even dare to die. 8But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:7-8, WEB

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For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him. - John 3:17, WEB

But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus… – Ephesians 2:4-7, WEB

God's passionate love for his people—for humanity—is at the same time a forgiving love. It is so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice. Here Christians can see a dim prefigurement of the mystery of the Cross: so great is God's love for man that by becoming man he follows him even into death, and so reconciles justice and love. – Deus Caritas Est-Encyclical Letter, Benedict XVI

God is perfect and His love is perfect even when we are not. He always does what is good, both towards the good and the bad.

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, don’t resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 If anyone sues you to take away your coat, let him have your cloak also. 41 Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to him who asks you, and don’t turn away him who desires to borrow from you.

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43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 If you only greet your friends, what more do you do than others? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. - Matthew 5:38-48, WEB

Again this is not to say that God will never render justice, for sin is sin and He never wants us to remain in sin and reap its consequences. But God is patient and gentle even to those who sin. He does everything to save sinners, that they may turn away from evil and return to the right path.

Consider how Jesus treated the woman caught in adultery.

10 Jesus, standing up, saw her and said, “Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?”

11 She said, “No one, Lord.”

Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more.”

-John 8:10-11, WEB

Let us ... remember Peter: three times he denied Jesus, precisely when he should have been closest to him; and when he hits bottom he meets the 34

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gaze of Jesus who patiently, wordlessly, says to him: "Peter, don't be afraid of your weakness, trust in Me." Peter understands, he feels the loving gaze of Jesus and he weeps. How beautiful is this gaze of Jesus — how much tenderness is there! Brothers and sisters, let us never lose trust in the patience and mercy of God! – Pope Francis

“Some of us believe that God is almighty, and can do everything; and that he is all wise, and may do everything; but that he is all love, and will do everything— there we draw back.” - Julian of Norwich It is not because I have been preserved from mortal sin that I lift up my heart to God in trust and love. I feel that even had I on my conscience every crime one could commit, I should lose nothing of my confidence: my heart broken with sorrow, I would throw myself into the Arms of my Saviour. I know that He loves the Prodigal Son, I have heard His words to St. Mary Magdalen, to the woman taken in adultery, and to the woman of Samaria. No one could frighten me, for I know what to believe concerning His Mercy and His Love. And I know that all that multitude of sins would disappear in an instant, even as a drop of water cast into a flaming furnace.

– St. Therese of Lisieux

For the Lord is sweet, his mercy endureth for ever, and his truth to generation and generation. – Psalm 100:5, DRA

He hath not dealt with us according to our sins: nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For according to the height of the heaven above the earth: he hath strengthened his mercy towards them that fear him. – Psalm 35

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103:10-11

But you are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and didn’t forsake them. Yes, when they had made themselves a molten calf, and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed awful blasphemies; yet you in your manifold mercies didn’t forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud didn’t depart from over them by day, to lead them in the way; neither did the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way in which they should go. You gave also your good Spirit to instruct them, and didn’t withhold your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst.

“Yes, forty years you sustained them in the wilderness. They lacked nothing. Their clothes didn’t grow old, and their feet didn’t swell.

Moreover you gave them kingdoms and peoples, which you allotted according to their portions. So they possessed the land of Sihon, even the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan. You also multiplied their children as the stars of the sky, and brought them into the land concerning which you said to their fathers, that they should go in to possess it.

“So the children went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hands, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they pleased. They took fortified cities and a rich land, and possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns dug out, vineyards, and 36

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olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate, were filled, became fat, and delighted themselves in your great goodness.”

-NEHEMIAH 9:17-25, WEB-BE

God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?”

He said, “I am right to be angry, even to death.”

The LORD said, “You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not laboured, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night. Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much livestock?”

-JONAH 4:9-11, WEB-BE

It seems to me that if everyone were to receive such favours God would be feared by none, but loved to excess; that no one would ever commit the least wilful fault—and this through love, not fear. Yet all souls cannot be alike. It is necessary that they should differ from one another in order that each Divine Perfection may receive its special honour. To me, He has given His Infinite Mercy, and it is in this ineffable mirror that I contemplate his other attributes. Therein all appear to me radiant with Love. His Justice, even more perhaps than the rest, seems to me to be clothed with Love. What joy to think that Our Lord is just, that is to say, that He takes our weakness into account, that He knows perfectly the 37

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frailty of our nature! Of what, then, need I be afraid? Will not the God of Infinite Justice, Who deigns so lovingly to pardon the sins of the Prodigal Son, be also just to me "who am always with Him"? - St. Therese of Lisieux

“We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.” (Pope St. John Paul II, World Youth Day 2002, Closing Homily)

“Christ says: I know you through and through – I know everything about you. The very hairs of your head I have numbered. Nothing in your life is unimportant to me, I have followed you through the years, and I have always loved you – even in your wanderings.

I know every one of your problems. I know your need and your worries. And yes, I know all your sins. But I tell you again that I love you – not for what you have or haven’t done – I love you for you, for the beauty and dignity my Father gave you by creating you in his own image.” ― Mother Teresa, The Joy in Loving: A Guide to Daily Living

The Mother of fair love will rid your heart of all scruples and inordinate servile fear. She will open and enlarge it to obey the commandments of her Son with alacrity and with the holy freedom of the children of God. She will fill your heart with pure love of which she is the treasury. You will then cease to act as you did before, out of fear of the God who is love, but rather out of pure love. You will look upon him as a loving Father and endeavour to please him at all times. You will speak trustfully to him as a 38

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child does to its father. If you should have the misfortune to offend him you will abase yourself before him and humbly beg his pardon. You will offer your hand to him with simplicity and lovingly rise from your sin.

Then, peaceful and relaxed and buoyed up with hope you will continue on your way to him. -St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary

You do not have enough trust. You have too much fear before the good God. I can assure you that He is grieved over this. You should not fear Purgatory because of the suffering there, but should instead ask that you not deserve to go there in order to please God, Who so reluctantly imposes this punishment. As soon as you try to please Him in everything and have an unshakable trust He purifies you every moment in His love and He lets no sin remain. And then you can be sure that you will not have to go to Purgatory. – St. Therese of Lisieux

…I received a deeper understanding of divine mercy. Only that soul who wants it will be damned, for God condemns no one. – St. Faustina (Diary, 1452)

Damnation is for the soul who wants to be damned; but for the one who desires salvation, there is the inexhaustible ocean of the Lord’s mercy to draw from. – St. Faustina (Diary, 631)

Love casts out fear. Since I came to love God with my whole being and with all the strength of my heart, fear has left me. Even if I were to hear the most terrifying things about God's justice, I would not fear Him at all, 39

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because I have come to know Him well. God is love, and His Spirit is peace. I see now that my deeds which have flowed from love are more perfect than those which I have done out of fear. – St. Faustina (Diary, 589)

Write this for the benefit of distressed souls: when a soul sees and realizes the gravity of its sins, when the whole abyss of the misery into which it immersed itself is displayed before its eyes, let it not despair, but with trust let it throw itself into the arms of My mercy, as a child into the arms of its beloved mother. These souls have a right of priority to My compassionate Heart, they have first access to My mercy. Tell them that no soul that has called upon My mercy has been disappointed or brought to shame. I delight particularly in a soul which has placed its trust in My goodness. – Jesus (Diary, 1541)

My child, all your sins have not wounded My Heart as painfully as your present lack of trust does that after so many efforts of My love and mercy, you should still doubt My goodness. – Jesus (Diary of Divine Mercy)

Do not lose heart in coming for pardon, for I am always ready to forgive you. As often as you beg for it, you glorify My mercy. – Jesus (Diary of Divine Mercy)

“God is everything that is good, she writes. All life’s pleasures and comforts are sacramental; they are God’s hands touching us.”- Julian of Norwich 40

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The heart of Christ can be seen through the openings of his wounds. For what can prove to me so clearly as your wounds that you, O Lord Jesus, are sweet & mild & plenteous in mercy. – St. Bernard

But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed. – Isaiah 53:5, WEB Love is the light—and in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working.

– Deus Caritas Est-Encyclical Letter, Benedict XVI

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God's Love and Hell God's love and mercy are given even to those who go to hell. He respects our choice. He doesn't send unjust punishment. He even limits the pain one receives.

God does not destroy the soul. For people, annihilation is kinder, but not to God. This is like people's reasoning that a child should be aborted because he will have a defect and experience pain in life.

Utter evil has no substance, utter evil is nothingness. That is why even the damned are not annihilated. There is a trace of goodness in them that God will not allow to perish absolutely. There remains a purpose for their existence, some good that God desires to manifest and keep. Hell is the closest though as it could get to nothingness and separation from God. Maybe that is why it is also called as the abyss.

"For a damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself." - C.S. Lewis

God shows how infinite His mercy and patience is. God awaits for eternity but none of the damned would repent. Amidst all the fire that shows the graveness of their sin, pain that reveals and screams of their error and the consequence of their separation from God, they would not turn back and would rather prefer it than accept God's mercy. The damned keep on 42

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cursing Him and refusing Him yet God does not annihilate them nor show any injustice. God knows all these beforehand yet Jesus still suffered and died for all.

We may not understand it now but hell may yet be the kindest and most loving and just place for those who are damned. Here, their actions are limited. Here they hurt others no more. Here they don't increase in sin and thereby increase their pain and darkness and separation from God. For even if God would allow all the damned to live on earth forever without the fires of hell, they would still suffer much because of their sins, sins that would only increase in malice and darkness. They would even hurt each other more and more and become more and more broken and dead in their soul.

GOD in His Justice and Mercy already gave us the gift of salvation when Jesus paid for our sins. All the we need is to accept His free gift.

And if we do not, what more can God do?

God could never be unjust. If He merely tolerates sin, how could He be loving and merciful to those hurt by evil? Think of a good father who does not punish a child that hurt his brother and would not repent of his sins nor acknowledge the wrong he has done.

Hell is an eternal testimony to the defeat of evil, to justice, mercy and love.

It helps those in heaven in humility, seeing what they deserved for their sins had they not been saved. It gives them gratitude for God's salvation.

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Questions:

1. How can those in heaven be happy knowing some suffer in hell?

Our happiness comes from God and God is everything that is good and beautiful and wise. If God deems this best for the damned, those in heaven will agree with God. They will hate evil and love what is good like God. Here on earth we do not see sin as it is but in heaven we will know how repugnant it really is, how it separates us from God.

2. How can any man choose hell and be apart from God's love?

Maybe they chose pride over love. They refuse to recognize and accept the goodness of God. They have closed themselves from God's love.

Excerpt from Maria Simma, Amazing Secret of the Souls in Purgatory:

-What are the attitudes of heart which can lead us to losing our soul for good, I mean going to Hell?

-It is when the soul does not want to go towards God, when it actually says: “I do not want.�

Excerpt from St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul: 44

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…I received a deeper understanding of divine mercy. Only that soul who wants it will be damned, for God condemns no one.

Excerpt from St. Bridget, Revelations to St. Bridget:

Then the Lord answered: “If I am so merciful, then, that I do not refuse pardon to anyone asking for it, ask me humbly for mercy yourself, and I will give it to you.” The devil answered him: “That I shall do by no means!

At the time of my fall, a punishment was established for every sin, for every worthless thought or word. Every spirit that has fallen will have his punishment. But rather than bend my knee before you, I would rather swallow all the punishments myself, as long as my mouth can open and shut in punishment and be forever renewed to be punished again.”

Excerpts from C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce:

The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words 'Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.' There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery. There is always something they prefer to joy- that is, to reality. Ye see it easily enough in a spoiled child that would sooner miss its play and its supper than say it was sorry and be friends. Ye call it the Sulks. But in adult life it has a hundred fine namesAchilles ' wrath and Coriolanus' grandeur, Revenge and Injured Merit and Self-Respect and Tragic Greatness and Proper Pride.

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If ye put the question from within Time and are asking about possibilities, the answer is certain. The choice of ways is before you. Neither is closed.

Any man may choose eternal death. Those who choose it will have it…

Time is the very lens through which ye see-small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope -something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality.

3. If hell is not the answer, do we have a better alternative?

None.

4. What about those people who are not Christian?

Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium 16:

Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh.(Rm 9,4-5). “On account of their fathers” this people remains most dear to God, for “God does not repent of the gifts he makes nor of the calls he issues” (Rm 11,28-29). But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.

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Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is he who gives to all men life and breath and all things, (Acts 17, 25-28) and as Savior wills that all men be saved (1Tim 2,4). Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do his will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with his grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel. She knows that it is given by him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have life.

Revelations to St. Bridget:

Now, given that I am so merciful, you might ask why I am not merciful toward pagans and Jews, some of whom, if they were instructed in the true faith, would be ready to lay down their lives for God. My response is that I have mercy on everyone, on pagans as well as Jews, nor is any creature beyond my mercy.

With leniency and mercy I will judge both those people who, learning that their faith is not the true one, fervently long for the true faith, as well as those people who believe the faith they profess to be the best one, because no other faith has ever been preached to them, and who wholeheartedly do 47

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what they can. You see, there is a double judgment, namely the one for those to be condemned and the one for those to be saved. The sentence of condemnation for Christians will have no mercy in it [The phrase “no mercy� here could merely indicate the strictness of judgment, yet even for those in hell God shows mercy as discussed previously]. To them will belong eternal punishment and shadows and a will hardened against God. The sentence for those Christians to be saved will be the vision of God and glorification in God and goodwill toward God. Excluded from these rewards are pagans and Jews as well as bad and false Christians. Although they did not have the right faith, they did have conscience as their judge and believed that the one whom they worshipped and offended was God.

But the ones whose intention and actions were and are for justice and against sin will, along with the less bad Christians, share a punishment of mercy in the midst of sufferings due to their love of justice and their hatred of sin. However, they will not have consolation in the service of glory and of the vision of God. They will not behold him due to their lack of baptism, because some temporal circumstance or some hidden decision of God made them draw back from profitably seeking and obtaining salvation. If there was nothing that held them back from seeking the true God and being baptized, neither fear nor the effort required nor loss of goods or privileges, but only some impediment that overcame their human weakness, then I, who saw Cornelius and the centurion while they were still not baptized, know how to give them a higher and more perfect reward in accordance with their faith.

One thing is the ignorance of sinners, another that of those who are pious but impeded. Likewise, too, one thing is the baptism of water, another that 48

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of blood, another that of wholehearted desire. God, who knows the hearts of all people, knows how to take all of these circumstances into account. I am begotten without beginning, begotten eternally from the beginning. I was born in time at the end of times. From the commencement I have known how to give individual persons the rewards they deserve and I give to each according as he deserves. Not the least little good done for the glory of God will go without its reward. This is why you should give many thanks to God that you were born of Christian parents in the age of salvation, for many people have longed to obtain and see that which is offered to Christians and yet have not obtained it.�

Visions of Blessed Catherine Emmerich:

I next saw our Lord, with his triumphant procession, enter into a species of Purgatory which was filled with those good pagans who, having had a faint glimmering of the truth, had longed for its fulfilment: this Purgatory was very deep, and contained a few demons, as also some of the idols of the pagans. I saw the demons compelled to confess the deception they had practised with regard to these idols, and the souls of the poor pagans cast themselves at the feet of Jesus, and adored him with inexpressible joy...

Excerpt from Divine Mercy in My Soul:

Conversation of God with a Depressed Soul

Jesus: O soul steeped in darkness, do not despair. All is not yet lost. Come 49

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and confide in your God, who is love and mercy.

-But the soul, deaf even to this appeal, wraps itself in darkness.

Jesus calls out again: My child, listen to the voice of your merciful Father.

-In the soul arises this reply: “For me there is no mercy,” and it falls into greater darkness, a despair which is a foretaste of hell and makes it unable to draw near to God.

Jesus calls to the soul a third time, but the soul remains deaf and blind, hardened and despairing. Then the mercy of God begins to exert itself, and, without any co-operation from the soul, God grants it final grace. If this too is spurned, God will leave the soul in this self-chosen disposition for eternity. This grace emerges from the merciful Heart of Jesus and gives the soul a special light by means of which the soul begins to understand God’s effort; but conversion depends on its own will. The soul knows that this, for her, is final grace and, should it show even a flicker of good will, the mercy of God will accomplish the rest.

My omnipotent mercy is active here. Happy the soul that takes advantage of this grace.

580 On a certain occasion, the Lord said to me, I am more deeply wounded by the small imperfections of chosen souls than by the sins of those living 50

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in the world. It made me very sad that chosen souls make Jesus suffer, and Jesus told me, These little imperfections are not all. I will reveal to you a secret of My Heart: what I suffer from chosen souls. Ingratitude in return for so many graces is My Heart's constant food, on the part of [such] a chosen soul. Their love is lukewarm, and My Heart cannot bear it; these souls force Me to reject them. Others distrust My goodness and have no desire to experience that sweet intimacy in their own hearts, but go in search of Me, off in the distance, and do not find Me. This distrust of My goodness hurts Me very much. If My death has not convinced you of My love, what will? Often a soul wounds Me mortally, and then no one can comfort Me. They use My graces to offend Me. There are souls who despise My graces as well as all the proofs of My love. They do not wish to hear My call, but proceed into the abyss of hell. The loss of these souls plunges Me into deadly sorrow. God though I am, I cannot help such a soul because it scorns Me; having a free will, it can spurn Me or love Me. You, who are the dispenser of My mercy, tell all the world about My goodness, and thus you will comfort My Heart.

1698 l often attend upon the dying and through entreaties obtain for them trust in God's mercy, and I implore God for an abundance of divine grace, which is always victorious. God's mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly, it seems as if everything were lost, but it is not so. The soul, illumined by a ray of God's powerful final grace, turns to God in the last moment with such a power of love that, in an instant, it receives from God forgiveness of sin and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things. Oh, how beyond comprehension is God's mercy! But-horror!- there are also souls who voluntarily and consciously reject and scorn this grace!

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Although a person is at the point of death, the merciful God gives the soul that interior vivid moment, so that if the soul is willing, it has the possibility of returning to God. But sometimes, the obduracy in souls is so great that consciously they choose hell; they [thus] make useless all the prayers that other souls offer to God for them and even the efforts of God Himself...

In the end, we get what we desire, either our desire for good or for evil.

Let God's goodness not be an excuse for us however to be reckless. For if we continue to choose evil over and over in our lifetime, how could we expect to choose otherwise in the end?

Knowing that the damned will share a fate similar to fallen angels, they must also carry a sin with similar weight. The living still lack much knowledge that is why we can still be forgiven because we do not know as much. But once we reach the boundary of the next life and after receiving final grace, our final choice would determine what awaits us for eternity.

"I believe it to be for our good that His Majesty should lead us by this way, so that we may perfectly understand how worthless we are; for the graces which He gives afterwards are of a dignity so great, that He will have us by experience know our wretchedness before He grants them, that it may not be with us as it was with Lucifer." - St. Teresa of Avila

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"That which is impossible to thee is not impossible to me: I shall save my word in all things and I shall make all things well." Thus I was taught, by the grace of God, that I should steadfastly hold me in the Faith as I had aforehand understood... For this is the Great Deed that our Lord shall do, in which Deed He shall save His word and He shall make all well that is not well. - Julian of Norwich

Before the Day of Justice, I am sending the Day of Mercy. (Diary1588)

Write this: before I come as the just Judge, I am coming first as the King of Mercy. Before the day of justice arrives, there will be given to people a sign in the Heavens of this sort: All light in the heavens will be extinguished, and there will be great darkness over the whole earth. Then the sign of the Cross will be seen in the sky, and from the openings where the hands and the feet of the Saviour were nailed will come forth great lights which will light up the earth for a period of time. This will take place shortly before the last day. (Diary 83)

Excerpt from the Book of Enoch:

The Glorification and Victory of the Righteous: the Repentance of the Gentiles.

And in those days a change shall take place for the holy and elect, And the light of days shall abide upon them,

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And glory and honour shall turn to the holy,

On the day of affliction on which evil shall have been treasured up against the sinners.

And the righteous shall be victorious in the name of the Lord of Spirits: And He will cause the others to witness (this) That they may repent And forgo the works of their hands.

They shall have no honour through the name of the Lord of Spirits, Yet through His name shall they be saved, And the Lord of Spirits will have compassion on them, For His compassion is great.

And He is righteous also in His judgment, And in the presence of His glory unrighteousness also shall not maintain itself: At His judgment the unrepentant shall perish before Him.

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Loving Jesus Through Mary Who is she who looks forth as the morning, beautiful as the moon, clear as the sun, and awesome as an army with banners? - Song of Solomon 6:10, WEB

It was because the saints loved God so much that they succeeded in doing so much for their neighbor. But who ever loved God more than Mary did? At the very first moment of her life, she loved God more than all the angels and saints did in the whole course of their existence. Compared to it, the ardor of the seraphim is like a fresh, gentle breeze. Therefore, since neither angels nor saints surpass Mary in loving God, so no one, after God, loves us or can love us as much as Mary. And if we were to combine all the love that mothers bear their children, all the love of husbands for their wives, all the love of the angels and saints for their devoted clients, all this would not equal Mary\'s love for a single soul. - St. Alphonsus Liguori

Some people may claim to be able to love Jesus even without knowing His mother. But is it unbelievable to hear of those who are able to love Him more by the love of His dear mother?

Happy, indeed sublimely happy, is the person to whom the Holy Spirit reveals the secret of Mary, thus imparting to him true knowledge of her.

Happy the person to whom the Holy Spirit opens this enclosed garden for him to enter, and to whom the Holy Spirit gives access to this sealed fountain where he can draw water and drink deep draughts of the living 55

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waters of grace. That person will find only grace and no creature in the most lovable Virgin Mary. But he will find that the infinitely holy and exalted God is at the same time infinitely solicitous for him and understands his weaknesses. Since God is everywhere, he can be found everywhere, even in hell. But there is no place where God can be more present to his creature and more sympathetic to human weakness than in Mary. It was indeed for this very purpose that he came down from heaven.

Everywhere else he is the Bread of the strong and the Bread of angels, but living in Mary he is the Bread of children. -The Secret of Mary, Saint Louis Marie de Montfort

Revelations to St. Bridget Mary, the Mother of God spoke to the bride of Christ and said: “My daughter, consider the suffering of my Son, for his limbs were like my own limbs and his heart like my own heart. For just as other children use to be carried in the womb of their mother, so was he in me. But he was conceived through the burning charity of God’s love. Others, however are conceived through the lust of the flesh. Thus, John the evangelist, his cousin, rightly says: ‘The Word was made flesh.’ He came through love and was in me. The Word and love created him in me. He was truly for me like my own heart. For when I gave birth to him, I felt as though half my heart was born and went out of me. And when he endured suffering, it felt like my own heart was suffering. Just as when something is half inside and half outside - the half outside feels pain and suffering, but the inside also feels a similar pain - so it was for me when my Son was scourged and wounded; it was as if my own heart was scourged and wounded.

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I was also the one closest to him at his suffering and I was never separated from him. I stood very near his cross, and just like that which is closest to the heart stings the worst, so his pain was heavier and worse for me than for others. When he looked at me from the cross and I saw him, then tears flowed from my eyes like blood from veins. And when he saw me so stricken with pain and overwhelming sorrow, he felt such a sorrow over my pain that all the pain of his own wounds became as subsided and dead for the sake of the pain he saw in me. I can therefore boldly say that his pain was my pain since his heart was my heart. For just as Adam and Eve sold the world for an apple, so my Son and I bought back the world as with one heart. Consider therefore, my daughter, how I was at the death of my Son, and it will not be hard for you to give up the world and her cares.�

The World's First Love by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. Part 51.

CHAPTER 20 Misery of Soul and the Queen of Mercy

A little parable to illustrate a great truth: every mortal one of us remembers the day when mother said she was going to bake us some cookies. Her plan was that we should enjoy them together. We saw her prepare the eggs, the soda, the flour, milk, sugar, butter, and chocolate. I hope I have left out none of the ingredients. When, finally, the batter was made and was allowed to settle, she told us not to touch it -not because she did not want us to be happy nor because any of the ingredients of the cookies was bad, but because, in her superior wisdom she knew that we could not be happy in anything that was not brought to full perfection.

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But some of us did taste the batter. I know I did and that is when the trouble began. A stomach-ache resulted from the disobedience, and the cookies we were supposed to enjoy with mother were never eaten.

This is, in miniature, what happened at the beginning of human history, and it is being repeated with varying stress, in every soul ever since. God did not say to our first parents: "Some fruit is good, and some is bad. You must not eat of the bad fruit." He did not say this, because all the fruit was good, just as all the ingredients of the cookies were good. But God did say: "You must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." By this He meant: "Do not use things in their imperfect, isolated state, for they are as yet disjointed from their final purpose."

But man decided to use these things in their half-prepared state, and contracted humanity's great stomach-ache which is called original sin. It is probable that some children have accused their mothers of giving them a stomach-ache, just as men, who rebelled against their final purpose, have asked of God: "If He knew I would be so frustrated, why did He make me?" The manufacturers of automobiles give instructions about gas, oil, etc., in order to get the maximum service out of the car, but they do not, thereby, restrain our freedom. So God asks us not to treat the batter as a cookie, earth as Heaven, and the non-God as God. He does this not because he ever wants to put us in chains, but because He wants us to be happy.

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such as making a living, rearing a family, but over and above all, there is his supreme goal, which is to be perfectly happy. This he can be if he has a life without end or pain or death, a truth without error or doubt, and an eternal ecstasy of love without satiety or loss. Now this Eternal Life, Universal Truth, and Heavenly Love is the definition of God. To refuse this final perfect end and to substitute a passing, incomplete, unsatisfying object, such as flesh or ambitious ego, is to create an inner unhappiness that no psychiatrist can heal!

What the stomach-ache is to the body, that a complex is to an adult. A complex is basically a conflict between what we ought to be and what we are; between our ideals or heavenly implanted impulses and our plain, matter-of-fact selves; a complex is an exaggerated tension between the God-summons and the affirmation of our egos. If a razor were endowed with consciousness and were used to cut rock, it would scream with pain, because its life purpose was frustrated. Our inner consciences scream with neuroses and psychoses, too, when we do not freely tend to the supreme goal for which we are made, namely, the Life and Truth and Love which is God.

It is possible to draw a complex. Take a pencil and draw a line from the bottom of the page to the top. That vertical line, which points heavenward, is the symbol of our final destiny. Now, draw another line, across the page, splitting the vertical line. What do you have? A Cross! What a complex is psychologically, that a cross is theologically. The vertical bar represents God's Will; the horizontal bar represents our will, which negates it, contradicts it, and crosses it. Not all, but most, of the curable psychoses and neuroses of modern minds are effects of sin. Patients got themselves 59

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all "crossed up," because they negated their God-given natures. Opening tin cans with pencils breaks pencils and does not open tin cans. Trying to make a god out of the belly, or a god out of the ego of our own will and low standards of life, breaks the mind and does not bring happiness.

Every unhappy soul in the world has a cross embedded in it. The cross was never meant to be on the inside, but only on the outside. When the Israelites were bitten by the serpents, and the poison seeped within, Moses planted a bronze serpent on a stick and all who looked on it were healed.

The bronze serpent was like the serpent which stung them, but it was without poison. So the Son of Man came in the likeness of man, but was without sin, and all who look upon Him on His Cross are saved. In like manner, the inner cross or complex disappears when one catches a vision of the great outer cross on Calvary, with the God-man upon it Who solves the contradiction by making good come from evil, life from death, and victory from defeat.

The child, by making himself wiser than his mother, discovered his stupidity. Man, by making himself a god, discovers the painful agony that he is not God. When the first man made this discovery, Scripture describes him as "naked." Naked, because the man who neglects or rejects God has nothing. He may cover himself for a while with the fig leaves of "Success," "Art," "Science," "Progress" or by rationalizing his conduct, saying that there is no truth. But he knows that these are but inadequate shreds and cannot cover all his wants. This is modern nudity - to be without God!

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What we have successively called a stomach-ache, a complex, a cross, a nakedness is so general that our modern literature is rapidly becoming filled with what may be termed the Theology of Absence. A man without God is not like a cake without raisins; he is like the cake without the flour and milk, he lacks the essential ingredients of happiness. Not knowing God is not like not knowing Homer; it is more like having life and waking up in a tomb. The absence the atheist feels is the negation of a presence, a sense of the absurd, a consciousness of nothingness. White grace is the presence of God in the soul; black grace is the unhappiness of His absence.

The absence may be likened to a widowhood, in that existence seems spoiled because we live in the dark agonizing shadow of what is gone!

All this inner misery comes from two kinds of sin: (1) the sin which takes the Gift and forgets the Giver; (2) the sin which rejects the Giver with his Gift. The first makes God useless; the second drives God from the soul.

Adam sinned in the first way by choosing something else before God, as does the man who sets up his ego, or flesh, or power as the goal of life.

The Crucifixion sinned the second way, being anti-God. The first consists of what might be called the "hot" sins, in the sense that they are inspired by passion; the second consists of the "cold" sins, for example, blasphemy, deliberate attempts to destroy all vestiges of God and morality. Killing a body is not so serious as killing one's soul: "fear him more who has the power to destroy body and soul in hell." (Matt. 10:28) The university professor and the newspaper editor who ridicule the Divine in order to purge it from the hearts, or the radio director who eliminates all prayers and substitutes anti religious poems: these are Satan's fifth column. Here is not just a refusal to acknowledge Goodness, but a pretense that Goodness is badness, or as Nietzsche said: "Evil, be thou my good." Such evil men said of Our Lord: "It is only through the power of Beelzebub, the prince of 61

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devils, that he casts the devils out." (Matt. 12:24) It is not the existence of God they deny, but His Essence, namely, that He is Goodness. The old atheism denied God's existence; the new atheism denies His Essence, and therefore becomes militant against His existence. It is worse to say: "God is evil," than to say: "God is not." To call Love a devil is to reject the very possibility of Love's forgiveness.

Sin, in all its forms, is the deliberate eviction of Love from the soul.

Sin is the enforced absence of Divinity. Hell is that absence of God made permanent by a last act of the will. God does not do anything to the soul to punish it; the soul produces hell out of its very self. If we excluded air from the lungs as we exclude love from the soul, the lungs could not blame God because we got red in the face or fainted, or our lungs collapsed. What the absence of air is to the lungs, that the absence of love in the soul is to the soul. On this earth want of love makes people red; in the next life want of love makes a red hell.

The great problem is now how to save these two groups, those who have taken the Gift and forgotten the Giver, and those who have rejected both Gift and Giver.

The answer is to be found in the attention that a mother would give to her little son with the stomach-ache. It is not in the nature of a mother to abandon those children who hurt themselves by their own folly.

Immediately, she manifests what might be called "the mutual relation between contraries," for example, the rich helping the poor, the healthy nursing the sick, the learned instructing the ignorant, and the sinless 62

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helping the sinful. There is something about motherhood which is synonymous with the maximum of clemency, and which prevents us from being conquered in advance through despair and remorse by giving us hope in the midst of sins. It is the nature of a human mother to be the intercessor for the child before the justice of the father, pleading for her little one, asking that the child be dismissed, or saying that he is not understood, or that he should be given another chance, or that, in the future, he will improve. A mother's heart is always full of pity for the erring and the sinner and the fallen. No child ever offended a father without offending a mother, but the father concentrates more on the crime, the mother on the person.

Now, as a physical mother watches over an ailing child, so does Mary watch over her erring children. The one word never associated with her is Justice. She is only its mirror. As the Mother of the Judge, she can influence His Justice; as Mother of Mercy, she can obtain mercy. Twice in history, kings of power promised half their kingdom to a woman: once when a woman solicited a king by her vice; once when a woman inspired a king by her virtue. King Herod, seeing his stepdaughter Salome dance, and being less intoxicated by the wine than by the lasciviousness of her as a whirling dervish, said: "Ask me whatever you will and I will give it to you, even though it be half of my kingdom." Salome consulted with her mother, Herodias, who, recalling that John the Baptist had condemned her divorce and remarriage, said to her daughter: "Ask for the head of John the Baptist on a dish." Thus John lost his head. But it is always better to lose one's head in John's way than in Herod's!

The other king was Ahasuerus, who had made the dust of the land run red 63

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with the blood of the Jews. Esther, the beautiful Jewish maid, fasted before petitioning him to have mercy on her people; the fasting made her more lovely than before. The cruel tyrant, as cruel as Herod, seeing the loveliness of the woman said: "Ask me whatever you desire and I will give it to you though it be half my Kingdom." Unlike Salome, she asked not for death but for life, and her people were spared. Woman is by nature the temptress. But she can tempt not only toward evil like Salome, but to goodness as did Esther.

Through the centuries the Church Fathers have said that Our Lord keeps for Himself half His regency, which is the Kingdom of Justice, but the other half He gives away to His Mother, and this is the Kingdom of Mercy.

At the Marriage Feast of Cana, Our Lord said that the hour of His Passion was not yet at hand - the hour when Justice would be fulfilled. But His Blessed Mother begged Him not to wait, but to be merciful to those who were in need, and to supply their wants by changing water into wine.

Three years later, when not the water was changed into wine, but the wine into blood, He fulfilled all Justice, but surrendered half His Kingdom by giving to us that which no one else could give, namely, His Mother: "Behold thy Mother." Whatever mothers do for sons, that His Mother would do, and more.

Throughout all history the Blessed Mother has been the link between two contraries: the eternal punishment of hell for sinners and the universal unlimited Redemption of Her Divine Son. These extremes cannot be reconciled except by mercy. Not that Mary pardons - for she cannot - but she intercedes as a mother does in the face of the justice of the father.

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Justice would be vindictive. Mothers obtain pardon and forgiveness for their sons without ever giving them the feeling of "being let off." Justice makes the wrongdoer see the injustice in the violation of a law; mercy makes him see it in the sufferings and misery he caused those who love him deeply.

An evil man who is let off will probably commit the same sin again, but there is no son saved from punishment by his mother's tears who did not resolve never to sin again. Thus, mercy in a mother is never separated from a sense of justice. The blow may not fall, but the effect is the same as if it had.

What mysterious power is it that a mother has over a son that, when he confesses his guilt, she strives to minimize it, even when it shocks her heart at the perversity of the revelation? The impure are rarely tolerant of the pure, but only the pure can understand the impure. The more saintly the soul of a confessor, the less he dwells on the gravity of the offense, and the more on the love of the offender. Goodness always lifts the burden of conscience, and it never throws a stone to add to its weight. There are many sheaves in the field which the priests and sisters and the faithful are unable to gather in. It is Mary's role to follow these reapers to gather the sinners in. As Nathaniel Hawthorne said: "I have always envied the Catholics that sweet, sacred, Virgin Mother who stands between them and the Deity, intercepting somewhat His awful splendor, but permitting His love to stream on the worshipper more intelligibly to human comprehension through the medium of a woman's tenderness."

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Mary will assist us if we but call upon her. There is not a single unhappy soul or sinner in the world who calls upon Mary who is left without mercy.

Anyone who invokes her will have the wounds of his soul healed. Sin is a crime of lese-majeste; but the Blessed Mother is the refuge. St. Anselm said that she "was made the Mother of God more for sinners than for the just" - which could hardly be doubted, since Our Lord Himself said that He came not to save the just, but to call sinners to repent.

St. Ephrem calls the Blessed Mother the "charter of freedom from sin," and even dubs her the protectress of those who are on their way to damnation: Patroncinatrix damnatorum. St. Augustine said of her: "What all the other saints can do with your help, you alone can do without them."

There are some sorrows in life which are peculiar to a woman and which a man cannot understand. That is why, as there was an Adam and an Eve in the fall, there had to be a new Adam and a new Eve in redemption.

Fittingly, therefore, is a Woman summoned to stand at the foot of the Cross where Our Lord redeemed us from our sins. He also redeemed her. Our Lord could feel all agonies mentally, but the agonies and griefs that only woman can feel, Mary could suffer in union with Him. One of these is the shame of the unmarried mother. Not of course that Mary was that, for she was espoused to Joseph; but until the angel told Joseph that she conceived by the Holy Spirit, Mary had to share the bleeding heart of all her sisters who bear within themselves a child born out of wedlock. Mothers whose sons are called to war call on Mary, who also had a Son summoned to the war against the principalities and powers of evil. She even went onto the battlefield with her Son and received a soul-wound.

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Mothers who have children born with an affliction, crippled in body, broken in mind, mute in speech, or who have lengthening shadows of impending death or disaster hanging over them and their children, can take their worries to Mary who lived under an incoming tide of sorrow. She knows what it is to have a child who will be a daily cross. At His Birth, Magi brought myrrh for His burial signifying that He was destined for death. When He was forty days old, the aged Simeon told her that her Son would be a sign to be contradicted, which meant crucifixion, and that the lance that pierced His Heart would pierce her own soul! There is now no excuse. There are some who say they would be "hypocrites" if they came to God. They would be hypocrites, if they said they were prepared to be clean when they intended to go on being dirty. But they would not be hypocrites if they admitted they were sinful, and really wanted to be children of God.

Those whose spirituality is harsh, whose Christianity is cold, who know Christ but who are severe in judgment, with a touch of bigotry and hatred of fellow man, should realize that their condition comes from a lack of Mary's Motherhood. As, in the physical order, a man who grows up without the loving attention of a mother misses something that makes for gentleness and sweetness of character, so in the spiritual order, those who grow up in Christianity without Mary lack a joy and happiness that come to those only who know no mother. Orphans of the Spirit! Your Mother lives!

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sadness, have had recourse to the Blessed Mother to lift them out of the abyss. Typical of this spirit are two modern writers. W. T. Titterton, the poet and essayist, on the occasion of Shaw's death wrote: "Shaw was great friends with a Reverend Mother who prayed daily for his conversion. Once he confessed to her his difficulty: he could not believe in the Divinity of Christ. 'But, he said, patting her shoulder, 'I think His Mother will see me through'." Shaw put his finger on the sublime truth that those who are not yet ready to accept Christ as the mediator between God and man will come to that truth through Mary, who will act as the mediatrix between widowed souls and Christ, until they finally come to His embrace.

Marcel Proust says that when he was a young man he went to his mother and recollected many of the evil things which he had done in his ignorance and passion, and which his own mother could not understand, but to which she listened without understanding. He said that somehow or other she lessened their importance with a gentleness and compassion and lifted the weight of his conscience. But how can Mary know what the un-Christed suffer, or sympathize with the bleeding soul-wounds of the sinners? As the pure lily rests immaculate on a foul pond, so Mary came to know what sin is in a moment which matched, in her love's capacity as a creature, what Our Lord felt on the Cross.

What is sin? Sin is separation from God and an alienation from love. But Mary lost God, too! She lost him not morally but physically, during those seemingly endless three days when Her Divine Son was only twelve years of age. Searching, questioning, knocking from door to door, pleading and begging, Mary came to know something of the despairing emptiness of those who have not yet found Christ. This was the moment of her 68

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widowhood of the soul, when Mary came to know how every sinner feels not because she sinned, but because she felt the effect of sin, namely, the loss of God and the loneliness of the soul. To every soul who is lost, she can still truly address the same words: "Son, we have sought thee sorrowing."

We have no record of it in the Gospels, but I have always believed that Judas, both on the way to betray Our Lord and after the betrayal, going with a halter over his arm to hang himself on an aspen tree, deliberately went out of his way to avoid contact with the Mother of Jesus. Probably no one in the history of the world would Our Blessed Mother more willingly have pardoned than Judas, though he did send her Son to the Cross. When Our Lord gave us half His Kingdom in His Mother, He made it almost impossible for any soul to go to hell who ever pleads to her to intercede to her Divine Son. If Judas is in hell, it is because he deliberately turned his back on Mary when he went out to hang himself. If he is not in hell, it is because in that split second, as he looked from his hill to the Hill of Calvary, he saw there the Mother with her Divine Son and died with this prayer on his lips: "Mother of sinners, pray for me!"

Our Blessed Mother shows mercy to all souls because she has a right to do so. She accepted Motherhood not as a personal title, but as the representative of all humanity. Her consent is, to the new order of grace, what the consent of Eve was to the fallen humanity. Therefore, she had some claim on the redemptive merits of her Son. What is more, her Divine Son affirmed it, for the last act of Our Lord on earth to which He visibly demanded our adherence was his plea to take His Mother as our Mother: "Behold thy Mother." A child may forget a mother, but a mother never 69

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forgets a child. She is not only the Mother of Jesus, she is also the Mother of all whom He redeemed. "Shall a woman forget the child of her womb?"

But beyond all sweet remembrance is the consoling human fact that a mother embraces and fondles that child who falls and hurts himself most often.

With St. Bernard the Church has repeated the prayer to Mary as the Queen of Mercy: "Remember, O Most Gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession, was left unaided." As Christ intercedes for us at the throne of His Father, so Mary intercedes for us to her Divine Son. But this role of mercy she cannot fulfill unless there are those who are miserable.

In her Revelations, St. Bridget quotes the Blessed Mother as saying: "The people of earth have need of a triple mercy: sorrow for their sins, penance to atone for them, and strength to do good." And Mary promised these mercies to all who would call upon her. As the Son shows the Father the Wounds He received in saving man in the Battle of Calvary, so Mary shows the body pierced with seven swords in the same Siege against Sin. No sinner in the world is beyond the hope of redemption; no one is so cursed that he cannot obtain pardon if he but calls on Mary. It is necessary to be in the state of sanctifying grace to be saved, but it is not necessary to be in the state of grace to call on Mary. As she was the representative of sinful humanity who gave consent to the Redemption, so she is still the representative of those who are not yet in the state of friendship with God. It is easy for the brothers of Christ to call on the Father, but it is not easy for the strangers and the enemies. This role Mary plays. She is not only the Mother of those who are in the state of grace, but 70

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the Queen of those who are not. The true name of Satan is "Without Mercy" (Hosea 1:6, 8), one whose nature cannot ask for pardon. He first tries to convince a soul that evil is not evil; then, when evil is done, he tries to convince it that there is no hope. Thus does presumption beget despair. Satan refuses the humiliation of pardon both for himself and for others, but Mary asks pardon even for those who, as agents of Satan, would recrucify Her Son. Her name is the antithesis of Satan: "One who has received Mercy" (Hosea 2:1), and therefore one who dispenses it.

St. Gemma Galgani, of modern times, one day was interceding with Our Lord for the soul of a certain sinner. As Gemma pleaded for mercy, the Saviour recounted one by one his frightful and abnormal sins. After the Saviour had refused three times, St. Gemma Galgani said: "Then I shall ask your Mother." Our Lord answered: "In that case, I cannot refuse." An hour later the sinner in question came to the confessor of the saint and made his full confession.

Sweet girlhood without guile, The extreme of God's creative energy; Sunshiny Peak of human personality; The world's sad aspirations' one Success; Bright Blush, that sav'st our shame from shamelessness; Chief Stone of stumbling; Sign built in the way To set the foolish everywhere a-bray;

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Hem of God's robe, which all who touch are heal'd; To which the outside Many honour yield With a reward and grace Unguess'd by the unwash'd boor that hails Him to His face, Spurning the safe, ingratiant courtesy Of suing Him by thee: Ora pro me!

(Coventry Patmore, "The Child's Purchase," from I Sing of a Maiden)

A great sign was seen in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. Revelation 12:1, WEB

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Fixing Our Gaze Upon Heaven “Heaven is fixing our gaze upon Christ; hell is simply choosing to look the other way.�

There is only one way to gain heaven, it is to look at Jesus without fail.

Only by looking at Him do we find strength, hope and consolation. It is by looking at His gaze that we understand what love is, what true happiness means.

Looking at Jesus, we turn our eyes away from ourselves. We see how lowly we are, but we also see how truly great His mercy is!

Looking at Jesus, we do not despair even amidst the world's many troubles. In Christ, we remember how fleeting they are and how small.

With God's love, all things are possible, and all things work for our good, even our many sufferings.

Indeed, by looking at Jesus, we remember our true home, which is heaven.

Our hearts are filled with visions of its warmth and incomparable bliss.

Jesus is the light that guides our way and enlightens our darkness.

Without Him we instantly fall. With Him, we rise again and are kept safe in His unfailing love.

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Three Reasons We Must Fix Our Gaze Upon Heaven: 1. To guard us from despair and pride that results when we focus too much on ourselves instead of focusing on Christ.

2. To keep us in grace and avoid being entangled by the things of the world that wastes our time, brings us to temptation and weakens our spirit.

3. To not lose hope and motivation; to remember our true home and happiness.

Focusing On Jesus Instead of Ourselves Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. - Hebrews 12:2, GNT

Set not your eyes on your righteousness, it will lead you to pride, and soon you will fall. Set not your eyes on your weaknesses, it will lead you to despair, and you will lose hope. For it is not upon ourselves that we should set our gaze upon. It is not upon our works or our many sins.

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we think of His Holiness. What then can we boast about?

On the other hand, consider God's Mercy. Shall not our sins be washed away as we repent of them sincerely and seek for God's Compassion?

Set your eyes upon Him alone for in Him is all purity and mercy and truth.

He will lift you up from your weakness. He will guard your heart so you won't fall.

“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.” -Saint Augustine

The soul's true greatness is in loving God and in humbling oneself in His presence, completely forgetting oneself and believing oneself to be nothing; because the Lord is great, but He is well-pleased only with the humble. - St Faustina, Divine Mercy in my Soul

Remaining in Grace, Peace and Strength Peter stepped down ng from the boat, and walked on the waters to come to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was strong, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”

Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand, took hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

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-Matthew 14:29-31, WEBBE

Let us fix our gaze on Jesus. Look to no other. Do not be swayed to turn either to the left or to the right. Do not be disheartened by the many voices that move you to be anxious and afraid. Keep your eyes on Christ for only His loving gaze can help you. - Jocelyn Soriano

Many times, we become tempted to look at things that rob us of courage and take away our peace. We become curious to look back at the things of the world, at the problems that threaten us, and instead of holding on to hope, we become so immersed in it we could hardly turn away.

Never make the mistake of lifting your eyes away from Jesus. Never think that by your own strength you can defeat the foes that surround you or the darkness the looms ahead.

Looking at our troubles often magnifies them and we do not see them for what they really are. But when we look at our Lord, we see how much bigger He is than all our problems and sufferings altogether. We find strength when we look at Christ. In Him is our hope and our peace.

Let us ... remember Peter: three times he denied Jesus, precisely when he should have been closest to him; and when he hits bottom he meets the gaze of Jesus who patiently, wordlessly, says to him: "Peter, don't be afraid of your weakness, trust in Me." Peter understands, he feels the loving gaze of Jesus and he weeps. How beautiful is this gaze of Jesus — how much 76

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tenderness is there! Brothers and sisters, let us never lose trust in the patience and mercy of God! - Pope Francis

Therefore let us also... lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. - Hebrews 12:1-2, WEB

Our Thirst for Heaven I can find nothing on earth that can make me truly happy ; the desires of my heart are too vast, and nothing of what the world calls happiness can satisfy it. Time for me will soon be no more, my thoughts are fixed on Eternity. My heart is full of peace, like a tranquil lake or a cloudless sky. I do not regret this life on earth. I thirst for the waters of Life Eternal. -St. Therese, using the words of the angelic martyr— Théophane Vénard

What draws me to my Heavenly Home is the summons of my Lord, together with the hope that at length I shall love Him as my heart desires, and shall be able to make Him loved by a multitude of souls who will bless Him throughout eternity. -St. Therese of Lisieux

I trust fully that I shall not remain idle in Heaven; my desire is to continue my work for the Church and for souls. I ask this of God, and I am convinced He will hear my prayer. You see that if I quit the battle-field so 77

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soon, it is not from a selfish desire of repose. For a long time now, suffering has been my Heaven here upon earth , and I can hardly conceive how I shall become acclimatised to a land where joy is unmixed with sorrow . Jesus will certainly have to work a complete change in my soul— else I could never support the ecstasies of Paradise.-St. Therese of Lisieux

“I look forward, not to what lies ahead of me in this life and will surely pass away, but to my eternal goal. I am intent upon this one purpose, not distracted by other aims, and with this goal in view I press on, eager for the prize, God's heavenly summons. Then I shall listen to the sound of Your praises and gaze at Your beauty ever present, never future, never past. But now my years are but sighs. You, O Lord, are my only solace.

You, my Father, are eternal. But I am divided between time gone by and time to come, and its course is a mystery to me. My thoughts, the intimate life of my soul, are torn this way and that in the havoc of change. And so it will be until I am purified and melted by the fire of Your love and fused into one with You.” - Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

The Joys of Our Heavenly Home This life is not yet our true home. We must always look forward to heaven, our ultimate goal and reward. It is only there where our hearts can find its true happiness and rest because it is only there where we can see God face to face!

1 I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more. 2 I saw the holy city, New 78

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Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. 3 I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.”

5 He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

-Revelation 21:1-5, WEBBE

Excerpt from Thomas Kempis, The Imitation of Christ:

I know your desire, and I have often heard your sighs. You would be glad to be already in the liberty of the glory of the children of God. You would be pleased to be now at your eternal home, and in your heavenly country filled with joy. But that hour is not yet come: for there is yet another time, a time of war, a time of labour and of probation.

For, in regard to that little of your will which you now willingly forsake, you shall forever have your will in Heaven. For there you shall find all that you will, all that you can desire. There you shall enjoy the possession of every good without fear of losing it... There no one shall resist you, no one shall complain of you, none shall obstruct you, nothing shall stand in your way: but every good that you desire shall be present at the same time, and shall replenish all your affections, and fully satiate them.

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Visions of St. Faustina

" November 27, 1936. Today I was in heaven, in spirit, and I saw its unconceivable beauties and the happiness that awaits us after death. I saw how all creatures give ceaseless praise and glory to God. I saw how great is happiness in God, which spreads to all creatures, making them happy; and then all the glory and praise which springs from this happiness returns to its source; and they enter into the depths of God, contemplating the inner life of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, whom they will never comprehend or fathom. This source of happiness is unchanging in its essence, but it is always new, gushing forth happiness for all creatures.

Now I understand Saint Paul, who said, “Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, not has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him.� And God has given me to understand that there is but one thing that is of infinite value in His eyes, and that is love of God; love, love and once again, love; and nothing can compare with a single act of pure love of God. Oh, with what inconceivable favors God gifts a soul that loves Him sincerely! Oh, how happy is the soul who already here on earth enjoys His special favors! And of such are the little and humble souls. The sight of this great majesty of God, which I came to understand more profoundly and which is worshipped by the heavenly spirits according to their degree of grace and the hierarchies into which they are divided, did not cause my soul to be stricken with terror or fear; no, no, not at all! My soul was filled with peace and love, and the more I come to know the greatness of God, the more joyful I become that He is as He is. And I rejoice immensely in His greatness and am delighted that I am so little because, since I am little, He carries me in His arms and holds me close to His Heart. O my God, how I pity those people who do not believe in 80

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eternal life; how I pray for them that a ray of mercy would envelop them too, and that God would clasp them to His fatherly bosom... " (Diary 777). "...I saw two roads. One was broad, covered with sand and flowers, full of joy, music and all sorts of pleasures. People walked along it, dancing and enjoying themselves. They reached the end without realizing it. And at the end of the road there was a horrible precipice; that is, the abyss of hell.

The souls fell blindly into it; as they walked, so they fell. And their number was so great that it was impossible to count them. And I saw the other road, or rather, a path, for it was narrow and strewn with thorns and rocks; and the people who walked along it had tears in their eyes, and all kinds of suffering befell them. Some fell down upon the rocks, but stood up immediately and went on. At the end of the road there was a magnificent garden filled with all sorts of happiness and all these souls entered there.

At the very first instant they forgot all their sufferings" (Diary 153).

Visions of Blessed Catherine Emmerich

I beheld a bright and beautiful space opposite to Limbo; it was enamelled with flowers, delicious breezes wafted through it; and many souls were placed there before being admitted into Heaven after their deliverance from Purgatory. Limbo, the place where the souls were waiting for the Redemption, was divided into different compartments, and encompassed by a thick foggy atmosphere. Our Lord appeared radiant with light and surrounded by angels, who conducted him triumphantly between two of these compartments; the one on the left containing the patriarchs who lived before the time of Abraham, and that on the right those who lived between the days of Abraham and St. John Baptist. These souls did not at first 81

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recognise Jesus, but were filled nevertheless with sensations of joy and hope. There was not a spot in those narrow confines which did not, as it were, dilate with feelings of happiness. The passage of Jesus might be compared to the wafting of a breath of air, to a sudden flash of light, or to a shower of vivifying dew, but it was swift as a whirlwind. After passing through the two compartments, he reached a dark spot in which Adam and Eve were standing; he spoke to them, they prostrated and adored him in a perfect ecstasy of joy, and they immediately joined the band of angels, and accompanied our Lord to the compartment on the left, which contained the patriarchs who lived before Abraham‌

The form under which the Heavenly Jerusalem is generally represented in my visions is that of a beautiful and well-regulated city, and the different degrees of glory to which the elect are raised are demonstrated by the magnificence of their palaces, or the wonderful fruit and flowers with which the gardens are embellished‌ In the Heavenly Jerusalem all is peace and eternal harmony, the beginning, fulfilment, and end of everything being pure and perfect happiness; the city is filled with splendid buildings, decorated in such a manner as to charm every eye and enrapture every sense; the inhabitants of this delightful abode are overflowing with rapture and exultation, the gardens gay with lovely flowers, and the trees covered with delicious fruits which give eternal life... In Heaven you behold the happiness and peaceful union of the saints.

Excerpt from the Book of Enoch:

The Seven Mountains in the North-West and the Tree of Life.

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'This high mountain which thou hast seen, whose summit is like the throne of God, is His throne, where the Holy Great One, the Lord of Glory, the Eternal King, will sit, when He shall come down to visit the earth with goodness. And as for this fragrant tree no mortal is permitted to touch it till the great judgement, when He shall take vengeance on all and bring (everything) to its consummation for ever. It shall then be given to the righteous and holy. Its fruit shall be for food to the elect: it shall be transplanted to the holy place, to the temple of the Lord, the Eternal King.

Then shall they rejoice with joy and be glad, And into the holy place shall they enter; And its fragrance shall be in their bones, And they shall live a long life on earth, Such as thy fathers lived: And in their days shall no sorrow or plague Or torment or calamity touch them.'

Quotes from C.S. Lewis:

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and 83

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elves — that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which Nature is the image.

That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can't. They tell us that "beauty born of murmuring sound" will pass into human face; but it won't. Or not yet.

“For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy.

At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door.

We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”

"The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with out friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”

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The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle

“Listen, Peter. When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real Narnia.

That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here...” ...

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!” ...

“The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

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The Great Divorce

They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say 'Let me but have this and I'll take the consequences': little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, 'We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,' and the Lost, 'We were always in Hell.' And both will speak truly.

Hell is a state of mind-ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind-is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakable remains.

Mere Christianity

“[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says.

There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it 86

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must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”

Excerpt from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings:

Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder. It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name . All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes , and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful. In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or for spring.

No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lórien there was no stain.

Quotes from St. Alphonsus:

“in Paradise, death and the fear of death are no more: in that place of bliss, there are no sorrows, no infirmities, no poverty, no inconveniences, no vicissitudes of day or night, of cold or of heat. In that kingdom, there is continual day, always serene, a continual spring, always blooming. In Paradise there are no persecutions, no envy; for all love each other with 87

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tenderness, and each rejoices at the happiness of others, as if it were his own. There is no more fear of eternal perdition; for the soul confirmed in grace, can neither sin nor lose God.” ... “there, everything is new; new beauties, new delights, new joys. There, all our desires shall be satisfied.” ...

“But the delights of which we have spoken are the least of the blessings of Paradise. The glory of heaven consists in seeing and loving God face-toface...Here below, God is hidden from our view; we can see him only with the eyes of faith: how great shall be our happiness when the veil shall be raised, and we shall be permitted to behold God face-to-face! We shall then see his beauty, his greatness, his perfection, his amiableness, and his immense love for our souls...the fear of not loving God, and of not being loved by him, is the greatest affliction which souls that love God endure on this earth; but, in heaven, the soul is certain that she loves God, and that he loves her; she sees that the Lord embraces her with infinite love, and that this love shall not be dissolved for all eternity. The knowledge of the love which Jesus Christ has shown her in offering himself in sacrifice for her on the cross, and in making himself her food in the sacrament of the altar, shall increase the ardor of her love. She shall also see clearly all the graces which God has bestowed upon her, all the helps which he has given her, to preserve her from falling into sin, and to draw her to his love. She shall see that all the tribulations, the poverty, infirmities, and persecutions, which she regards as misfortunes, have all proceeded from love, and have been the means employed by divine providence to bring her to glory. She shall see all the lights, loving calls, and mercies which God had granted to her after she had insulted him by her sins...to gain heaven, it would be but 88

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little to endure all the pains of this life...Rejoice then; for all these pains, sorrows, and persecutions shall, if we are saved, be to us a source of neverending joys and delights.�

Excerpts from The Four Last Things - DEATH, JUDGMENT, HELL and HEAVEN by Father Martin Von Cochem, O.S.F.C. :

I. On the Nature of Heaven.

WE must not, as some do, picture to ourselves Heaven as a purely spiritual realm. For Heaven is a definite place, where not only God is, and the Angels now are, but where Christ is also in His sacred humanity, and Our Lady with her human body. There, too, all the blessed will dwell with their glorified bodies after the Last Judgment. If Heaven is a definite locality, it must accordingly be a visible, not a spiritual kingdom ; for a place must in its nature be to some extent conformable to those who abide in it.

Besides, we know that after the Last Judgment he Saints will behold Heaven with their bodily eyes, and consequently it must be a visible kingdom. We are ignorant of what the material structure of Heaven will be composed, we only know that it will be something infinitely superior to and more costly than the matter of which the other spheres, the sun, the moon, and other heavenly bodies, are formed.

For since God has created Heaven for Himself and for His elect, He has made it so beautiful and so glorious that the blessed will never tire of the contemplation of its splendours to all eternity.

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Yet, I repeat, it is not within the power of the writer to describe, nor within that of the reader to comprehend, what it is of which Heaven is actually composed. Something may perhaps be learned concerning this from what St. Teresa writes. Speaking of herself, she says : " The Blessed Mother of God gave me a jewel, and hung around my neck a superb golden chain, to which a cross of priceless value was attached. Both the gold and the precious stones thus given to me are so unlike those which we have here in this world that no comparison can be instituted between them. They are beautiful beyond anything that can be conceived, and the matter whereof they are composed is beyond our knowledge. For what we call gold and precious stones beside them appear dark and lustreless as charcoal."

From these words we may form some idea of the beauty, the rarity, the costly nature of the stones wherewith the walls of Heaven are built. We gather from them that the light of Heaven is so dazzling as not only to eclipse the sun and stars, but to cause all earthly brightness to appear as darkness. We have besides every reason to believe that in the light of Heaven all the colors of the rainbow are seen to flash, giving it an indescribable charm to the eyes of the blessed. Moreover, the bodies of the redeemed are resplendent with light, and the more Saintly their life on earth has been, the more brilliantly do they shine in Heaven.

What must be the glory of that celestial firmament, glittering with the radiance of many thousand stars! Nothing is more pleasing to the eye than light ; how brilliant, how beautiful must the light of Heaven be since, compared with it, the sun s bright rays are but darkness.

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...

Concerning the size of Heaven all we know is that it is immeasurable, inconceivable, incomprehensible.

A learned Divine, speaking on this subject, says : " If God were to make every grain of sand into a new world, all these innumerable spheres would not fill the immensity of Heaven." St. Bernard also says that we are warranted in the belief that every one of the saved will have a place and an inheritance of no narrow limits assigned him in the celestial country.

...

Again : " In My Father’s house there are many mansions." Hence it may be inferred that each one of the redeemed has his separate abode in Heaven.

For as a just and prudent father divides his real and personal property amongst his children, assigning to each one his particular share, so our heavenly Father apportions to each of His elect a part of His celestial treasures, both visible and invisible, giving to each one more or less, according to the amount he deserves to receive.

...

If we may venture to speak of the interior of the celestial realm, we may 91

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assume that the vast, immeasurable space of Heaven does not only contain these heavenly cities, but much more besides, all of which enhances the delights of that blissful land. For as kings and princes on earth have gardens and pleasure grounds laid out beside their palaces, where they amuse themselves in the summer season, so, many theologians assert, there are heavenly paradises, that afford increased delight to the blessed.

For not only the souls of the saved, but their glorified bodies also, will be conducted by the Angels of God into Heaven after the Day of Judgment.

St. Augustine, St. Anselm, and many other Saints do not hesitate to maintain that there are in Heaven real trees, real fruits, and real flowers, indescribably attractive and delightful to the sight, taste, smell, and touch, different from anything we can imagine.

In the revelations of the Saints mention is made of the gardens in Heaven, and the flowers that blossom there ; and we know it is recorded in the legend of St. Dorothea, that she sent to Theophilus by the hands of an Angel a basket of flowers culled in the gardens of the celestial paradise, of such surpassing beauty that the sight of them led him to become a Christian, and lay down his life for the faith of Christ.

We also read in the life of St. Didacus, that on coming to himself after a trance into which he fell shortly before his death, he cried aloud : " O what flowers there are in Paradise ! what flowers there are in paradise ! " Similar incidents are frequently to be met with in the legends of the Saints.

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II. On the Joys of Heaven.

In these glorified and radiant bodies the blessed will be so inexpressibly beautiful, that if a mortal man were now to behold one of these resplendent beings, he would be dazzled by its brilliance and be ready to expire for joy of heart.

In her revelations to St. Bridget, the Blessed Mother of God once said: "The Saints stand around my Son like countless stars, whose glory is not to be compared with any temporal light. Believe me, if the Saints could be seen shining with the glory they now possess, no human eye could endure their light all would turn away, dazzled and blinded."

Think what happiness it will be for thee, when thy body shines like the sun at midday. Everything that lives and moves rejoices in the light and warmth of the sun: it gladdens all the face of nature. In like manner thy body will be a joy and delight to thyself and all around thee in Heaven, because of its beauty and its glory.

The second attribute is impassibility, for the glorified body is incapable of suffering. It will never be sick or infirm, it will not grow old or unsightly.

It will never again be inconvenienced by hunger or thirst, by heat or cold, by draught or dampness. It can nevermore be burned by fire, drowned in water, wounded by the sword or crushed beneath a weight; it will be 93

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immortal, unchangeable, eternally endowed with perfect health and unfailing strength…

The third attribute is agility. The glorified body will be able to traverse the greatest distance with the speed of thought. In one moment it can come down from Heaven to earth; in one moment it can pass from one end of the Heavens to the other, without labour, without fatigue, without difficulty.

We often wish that we could fly like the birds, that we could speed on our way like clouds on the wings of the wind, that we could follow thought in its rapid flight…

The fourth attribute of the glorified body is subtlety, which consists in the faculty of penetrating all matter, of passing in and out wheresoever it will.

No wall is so thick, no iron gate so massive, no mountain so great as to form an obstacle to the glorified body. As the sun s rays pass through glass, so the bodies of the redeemed as they are in Heaven, penetrate all matter, however dense and solid it may be. They can also make themselves visible or invisible at will…

In fact, what can be wanting to the glorified body in Heaven? It is in the enjoyment of perpetual health, perpetual rest, perpetual happiness, so that in the superabundance of joy and satisfaction it can scarce realize how enviable is its condition.

Finally, the redeemed will take very great pleasure in beholding one another, in conversing with one another, in kindly intercourse and friendly communication. Think how beautiful a sight it will be to see hundreds of 94

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thousands of beings in all the splendour of their glorified state. If on earth we esteem it a pleasure to look upon a handsome face, we can appreciate in some slight degree what it will be in Heaven, the lowliest of whose inhabitants is possessed of a beauty far exceeding the personal attractions of any mortal man.

Moreover, the redeemed are united together by the bond of mutual charity, for they love one another more dearly than the most affectionate of brothers and sisters. If they have never met on earth, yet they know one another better than if they had been brought up together. Each one will know the incidents of his earthly career.

Each one will be able to see into the other's heart, and know how great is the affection he feels for him. Each one will rejoice in the other s glory as much as if it were his own; and the lowliest in the kingdom of Heaven exults as much in the glory of the highest as the latter can possibly do. This was explained to St. Augustine by St. John the Baptist in a vision. "Know," he said to him, "that on account of the inexpressible charity that the blessed have towards one another, that each takes no less pleasure in the exaltation of another than if it were his own. Nay, more, he who is greater wishes that the lower were equal to him, and even more honoured than himself ; for in his triumph he, too, would triumph.

"In like manner those who are in a lowly place rejoice in the glory of those who are in the highest place; they do not envy them, far from it. They would not desire the high position if the others had it not; they would rather give them a part of their own glory, were this possible." Hence it 95

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may be seen that the Saints take pleasure in the splendour wherewith their fellows are crowned, and entertain for each and all of them a heartfelt affection. More especially do they love one who has, by word or example, helped them on their way to Heaven; to such a one they know not how they can sufficiently testify their gratitude.

Each one will also feel a particular affection for the Saint whom he chose as his patron upon earth, and whom he honoured with a special devotion; and this affection will be reciprocated by the object of it. Those who stood in this relation to one another will meet together more often; they will converse on holy subjects and mutually relate their experiences on earth, telling how marvellously the providence of God saved them from eternal perdition. In a word, the pleasures afforded to the redeemed by this intercourse will be innumerable, and they will do everything in their power to gratify and show kindness to one another. ‌ With the understanding the blessed will behold all created things in the light of God, and thoroughly penetrate the secrets of nature. It is recorded of King Solomon that "God gave to Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, as the sand that is on the seashore. And the wisdom of Solomon surpassed the wisdom of all the Orientals and of the Egyptians, and he was wiser than all men. He also spoke three thousand parables, and his poems were a thousand and five. And he treated about trees from the cedar that is in Lebanon unto the hyssop that cometh out of the wall ; and he discoursed of beasts, and of fowls, and of creeping things, and of fishes.

And they came from all nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who heard of his wisdom" (3 Kings iv. 29-34).

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We have never heard of wisdom equal to this, nor can we cease to wonder at the wide range and astuteness of this great king s understanding. Yet compared with the wisdom of the least of the Saints in Heaven, it ranks no higher than does the knowledge possessed by a child of three years old beside the erudition and wisdom of the most learned of men. For all the operations of nature, all the powers of the universe are open and revealed to the least of the Saints in Heaven. Nothing is hidden or mysterious in his eyes. He knows all that the Holy Trinity has accomplished from all eternity, in how marvellous a manner the Heavens and the earth were created out of nothing, how wisely all has been ordered and maintained from the beginning to the end of time. He knows how the Son of God was begotten of the Father before all ages; he knows how the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son. He knows how Christ was born of an earthly mother without violation of her virginity; he knows all that Our Lord did and suffered during His whole life, and how each Saint and servant of God lived for God and laboured in His service. All that is mysterious and incomprehensible to us in the Holy Scriptures, the mysteries of religion and of nature, he understands without a moment s reflection. Hadst thou been on earth but a simple, illiterate peasant, on thy entrance into Heaven thy eyes would be opened, and thou wouldst see clearly and understand all things perfectly. What joy, what happiness this knowledge and clear insight will be to thee I What grateful thanks thou wilt render to God for it!

Secondly, in as far as their memory is concerned, the blessed will also find fullness of joy in Heaven, for it will, like the understanding, be enlightened

by God; and all the events of their past life will be as fresh and as distinct to their remembrance as if they beheld them inscribed on tablets before their eyes. Then they perceive by what a marvellous way God led them to 97

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their eternal goal, how mercifully He pardoned their transgressions, how He succoured them in the hour of temptation, and how He made all things work together for their good.

This retrospect will arouse in the heart of each one the holiest gratitude towards God and oft-times they will give expression to it thus: O my God, whom I love above all things, how great are the gifts and graces Thou hast bestowed upon me, how generous Thou hast been towards me, how often Thou hast rescued me from the danger of falling into sin, how mercifully Thou hast preserved me from eternal damnation, and how wonderfully Thou hast guided me in the way of salvation ! How can I sufficiently praise and magnify Thine infinite bounty? How can I sufficiently thank Thee and adore Thee for the benefits Thou hast lavished on me?

Thirdly, the will of each one of the blessed will be crowned with felicity, and kindled with the love of God and of the blessed in whose company he is.

The noblest pleasures a man can enjoy come from his will. A man is happy when all succeeds with him according to his wishes; when he acquires and possesses all that his heart can desire; when he is generally esteemed and praised by his fellow-men; when he loves, and is loved by the object of his affections. This and much more besides is the portion of the blessed, but in the highest degree and in the greatest possible perfection.

The love of God for them, and their love of Him is so profound, that they are inflamed and consumed with Divine charity, that their will resembles a 98

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live coal, glowing with light and heat, until it is absorbed by the fire of which it is a part. So it is with the Saints in Heaven; imbued with Divine charity, they burn and shine in the light of God, and reflect His image more and more. St. John says: "We know that when He shall appear we shall be like to Him, be cause we shall see Him as He is" (i John iii. 2).

In the love of God and in union with Him they find such ineffable delight that, inebriated by the sweetness of Divine charity they lose themselves in Him.

There is no greater happiness upon earth than to love and be loved, and the more tender, pure and ardent this love is, the greater the joy and delight it affords us. Now the love of Heaven, the love of the redeemed for God and for one another, is the most tender, the most pure, the most ardent affection, an affection infinite and boundless; consequently it is a source of immense delight and happiness unspeakable. May the God of all grace make us partakers of this love, and we shall then know by experience that of which words fail to convey an idea. No one will be privileged to partake in this love, unless here below he lives in the love of God, and dies in His friendship. Let us therefore strive to increase within us this Divine charity, that we may be admitted hereafter to the full enjoyment of His love.

The beatific vision of the Divine countenance is a joy above all joys, a delight far surpassing all the celestial pleasures of which we have spoken.

Without this all other joys would lose their savour, they would be changed to bitterness. On one occasion, when the devil was speaking by the mouth of a person who was possessed, he said: "If the whole Heavens were a 99

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sheet of parchment, if the whole ocean were ink, if every blade of grass were pen, and every man on earth a scribe, it would not suffice to describe the intense, immeasurable delight which the vision of God affords to the blessed." And at another time he said that if God would but vouchsafe to grant him the privilege of beholding His Divine countenance for a few moments, he would, if it were possible, gladly bear in his own person all the torments of Hell until the Day of Judgment. This teaches us that if a man spent his whole life in works of most severe penance, and after his death were permitted only for one instant to gaze on the face of God, he would have received an ample recompense for all his mortifications.

Now consider how transcendent must be the bliss which the Saints derive from the contemplation, the enjoyment, the possession of the supreme God! If to gaze on the Divine countenance for one passing moment is a joy beyond all that a life of pleasure offers to the world ling, what rapture will it be to gaze for evermore, with undimmed eyes, on His infinite beauty, what rapture to call this supreme Good one s own for all eternity!

God is a being in whom all that is most admirable and desirable exists in the highest degree. In Him is all that most attracts and fascinates us; clemency, beauty, justice, compassion, wisdom, majesty, every sweet and sublime attribute in its fullest perfection. From God proceeds all grace, all that we need for our spiritual and temporal welfare, all the happiness, the joy, the repose, the consolation, all the benefits and blessings which His creatures enjoy in Heaven and on earth. And when the redeemed enter upon the contemplation of this infinite Good, upon the possession of this source of all that is to be loved and admired and longed for, their joy will indeed be full. What unspeakable delight it will afford them to understand 100

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the mystery of the Incarnation, the mystery of the Holy Eucharist!

What unspeakable delight it will be to them to comprehend how God can be invisible Himself, and yet see everything ; how He can Himself be unmoved, and yet the source of all motion; how He can be Himself immutable, and yet the author of all change. These and many other mysteries will be made clear to the blessed in the light of God, and this fount of knowledge will not be exhausted to all eternity. The more they know God, the more will their desire to know Him better increase, and of this knowledge there will be no limit and no defect.

Thus they will ever hunger, and yet be perfectly satisfied; this rich treasury will ever be open to them, and never will they exhaust all the wealth it contains.

Meditate frequently on this subject, O reader, and excite within thy soul an earnest desire to enjoy God forever and ever.

Excerpts from A Story of Love, Fr. Francis Cassilly

In the consummation of our union with God in heaven, time and space will seem to vanish for us, a moment of this sublimation into companionship with the Deity will lengthen into a century, and a century appear but as a moment. “One day in Thy courts is above thousands .� God forever in me and I in Him. This will be our rapturous state in glory; and it has begun 101

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already, albeit in an imperfect manner. ‌ And what kind of existence has our Friend, Father and Lover reserved for ns beyond the pearly gates in the city whose streets are of transparent gold, where there shall be no night nor darkness, nor weeping nor mourning, but joy and happiness forevermore? What kind of a mansion is Christ preparing for us in the home of His Father ?

When we come to consider the magnificent reward that God has prepared for those who love Him, imagination fails, for no matter how great our anticipations may be they will always fall short of the reality. In our present life seldom do anticipated joys respond fully to expectation. Some unforeseen obstacle prevents our full enjoyment; and even should we attain the object of our heart’s desire we soon tire of it, so that what beforehand we deemed worthy of attainment, seems in the event hardly worth the effort it cost. The opposite, however, is true in regard to the joys of the after life. Paint we them in colors never so glorious, the pictured prospect will be more than realized, since eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what God has prepared for those who love him.

One of the Divine attributes displayed in creation is munificence or liberality. God is prodigal of His; gifts. Economy in man is a virtue, but God knows it not He is a spendthrift in generosity, for His treasures never diminish. He lavishes them on us beyond all our needs. We require a little air to breathe, and God has made an ocean of it sixty or more miles in height, a huge reservoir we can never exhaust. We require perhaps a dozen 102

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articles of diet, and the Creator serves us with thousands and thousands of dishes, varying with soil and climate and season. Our table supplies come from the depth of ocean, from the realm of air, they grow in field and forest, they hang from trees and multiply underground. St. Ignatius had so lively an appreciation of the Divine bounty in this respect that, in returning thanks after meals, his face at times glowed with feelings of gratitude.

How many colors are needed to dye the objects about us? Surely not more than the seven seen in the rainbow or produced by the prism ; and yet these are shaded into an innumerable variety of hues and tints, which in turn are arranged in a multitude of brilliant or sober combinations, each differing from the other, and all harmonious and pleasing to the eye. Look this rich summer morning at yonder prospect of hill and dale, orchard, field and meadow, and count if you can the varied tints of green from light yellowish to deep blue or blackish. You will easily number a hundred shades, each herb and plant and tree, singly and in mass, having its own peculiar tint, which, too, constantly changes at each hour of the day, according to the intensity of the light, the position of the clouds and the angle of view.

This thought we could pursue into never-ending applications. Witness the illimitable expanse of ocean and its unfathomable depths, the unexplored reach of space, sown with suns unnumbered, the almost infinite variety and fecundity of plant and animal life. Who will count the light vibrations of a single candle, or the avalanche of seeds that fall from a maple tree, not one of which perhaps is destined to germinate? And if the hand of Providence is so profuse, almost wasteful, in its gifts to us in exile, what will be its munificence in the place of reward? If the seed-time be so 103

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abounding, what will the harvest be? In this life God must put a constant check and restraint on His liberality, lest He overwhelm us with His beneficence, and make this orb so entrancing that we may forget the Giver in the splendor of His gifts. This world, all in all, is but a presage of the next, and so the Divine munificence displayed in it is at most but an earnest of what we may expect. The untold riches and delights that He has packed away for us into every moment of the endless age to come, are far and away beyond all we can surmise or anticipate. If the antechamber in which we are, says one of the Fathers, is so magnificent, what will the royal throne room be; if the floor of heaven so glistens with its patterns of light, what must the superstructure be?

The great, essential joy of heaven will be the Vision wherein we shall see God face to face, shall know even as we are known, and love as we are loved. Even in this world the greatest pleasure comes from the exercise of our faculties of knowing and loving. To know and understand, this has been the pursuit of sage and philosopher from the dawn of history, and in it they have forgotten all other sublunary things, they have neglected food and sleep and health. They have sacrificed all on the altar of knowledge.

To love and strive for the object of desire is a natural beatitude. But God is infinite perfection, and the knowledge we shall have of Him is direct, face to face, the most intimate possible to creature ; and love in heaven is not merely that of desire, but of fruition, derived from the possession of Him. We love and are loved, we possess and are possessed, we enjoy and are enjoyed, we are united to God, according to the expression of some of the Fathers, as heat to the molten iron, we are lost, dissolved in Him as two pieces of wax fused together. Our faculties, after the trying vicissitudes of life are now at rest. The rest, however, is not of inaction, but of perfectly 104

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poised and balanced activity, it is the slumber of the revolving flywheel not of the discarded and rusting tool, it is a repose from labor not from action.

The joy and happiness of the soul in heaven will be increased by reunion with the glorified body of whose nature and characteristics St. Paul gives us some idea. He compares it to the plant that springs from the seed. And, as the plant is but a germination and development of the seed, so the risen body is not a different body from the one we have on earth, but the same, glorified and spiritualized. The qualities of the plant depend on the nature of the seed that is sown, so, too, will the new qualities of the body in heaven depend on the good works done in the flesh.

We shall arise, then, in the same bodies we possess on earth, but they will be so changed and transfigured as to be unrecognizable. Who could recognize the acorn in the oak, the grub in the butterfly? And yet the one is but the development of the other. The Apostle tells us the body ‘ ‘is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption.� It is sown or planted in the grave when corrupted in death; and all through life the body tends in a way toward corruption. There is a constant disintegration going on in it, a steady sapping of its vitality, which require a perennial renewal of strength and force. It is ever subject to hunger and thirst and sickness. But in heaven it will have the gifts of impassibility and immortality. No more will death like a gaunt spectre threaten it with extinction; no more shall there be hunger, thirst, or suffering from heat and cold. The exhausting struggle of life will be done, the conflict with penury and 105

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want, with sickness and labor will be over, as well as the tense watch and guard against our enemies. They will have disappeared and with them fear and the sound of alarums. Peace and tranquillity will be our portion, and existence will be one long holiday without care or anxiety. We shall be forever happy children of a loving and all-powerful Father.

And, as Christ’s body shone in the resurrection so will ours, for His rising is a type of ours. In heaven there will be no need of sun or moon, for the Lamb shall be the light thereof, and each glorified body will be a light to itself. At set of sun the windows in the east reflect back its glory until countless suns are beaming with borrowed light. And the bodies of the jusf in heaven will be refulgent with the reflected glory of God and the overflow of splendor and beauty from the soul. We have Christ’s own word for it that “the just shall shine as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father .” Night and darkness then will be things of the past, to be remembered but as the shadows of an earthly existence. Here we possess ideals of human beauty, of its varying types, suitable to youth and manhood and age, but seldom do we meet one who is perfect in form, in vigor, grace and complexion. And the most perfect of human bodies is so defiled with natural defects, with the exudations, secretions and effluvia of its animal nature, that it cannot but be repulsive to a fastidious taste. But all this will be changed in heaven.

Whatever is repellent, disgusting in the body will disappear, for, according to St. Paul, it will no longer be an animal body but a spiritual body. Not that our body will cease to be material and become entirely spiritual, for man, being essentially a compound of matter and spirit, can never cease to have a bodily nature, can never become a pure spirit as the angels are. But 106

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the animal body we now possess shall be so purified and sublimated, so purged and refined of what is gross and vile and offensive as to resemble a spiritual nature. The mere animal operations of eating, drinking and sleeping, of growth and decay, of generation shall disappear. Jesus rebuked the Sadducees who denied the resurrection, chiding them for not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God, since in heaven there shall be no marrying nor giving in marriage, but men shall be like the angels of God .

One of the arguments used by the Fathers for the fittingness of the resurrection is, that as the body of man shared in the conflicts and victories of his earthly probation, so also it should participate in the reward. But how is the body to be rewarded? On earth the pleasure of the body comes directly through the senses, nor is it all of a crass nature. Consider the delight of the eye in beholding light, motion and color, the wide-extending plain and ocean, greening hills and silver streams, the star-studded canopy above, the human countenance and form divine. And all this is but an excess and redundance of the pleasure of sight, not necessary or needful for the ordinary purposes of life. And how the ear is charmed by the harmony of the winds, the dulcet tones and inflections of the human voice, by song and canticle and chorus! Nor are these musical qualities of sound vibration required to convey thought by words, for which a monotonous succession of vowel and consonant sounds would have been sufficient, like the uniform, marshalled lines on a page of print. Now, since eye and ear are susceptible of such elevating pleasure on earth will they have less in Heaven? Coarse pleasure, arising from the gross material needs of our animal nature, will be replaced by that which is suitable to the spiritualized condition of the glorified body. St. John, rapt in vision, saw wondrous sights of beauty in Heaven, and he heard canticles sung by the saints and angels, of which he preserved for us some of the words and refrains. And 107

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we know that even the angels themselves can descend to earthly melody, as was shown in the hymn they sang on the first Christmas night.

Power and strength will be characteristics of the risen body. Its senses and members will be quick and vigorous, ready to respond to the impulse and behest of the soul. It will be endowed with celerity of motion, enabling it to transport itself with the speed of thought from place to place and to penetrate solid objects at will. Christ “will reform the body of our lowness” and make it like to His glorified body. There will be a new heaven and a new earth, according to St. John and St. Peter, and so our bodies will be remade, reformed, to suit the new manner of existence. We shall not be bound to the laws of space and gravity, since St. Thomas tells us that a corporeal place or habitation will not be necessary for our happiness, though we shall have it as an accidental adjunct and an additional pleasure of glory .

Even the friendship of others, which is so needful to us on earth, will be but an accidental joy in heaven. The vision of God will so entirely satisfy us and fill all our faculties to repletion, that we shall feel no need of solace, or refreshment from the companionship of angels and saints. At the same time, while we shall be dependent upon no creature for our essential beatitude, there can be no doubt that close intercourse with the blessed will give us greater added enjoyment than any earthly friendship can bestow.

Friends, who loved each other in charity so intense that their existences were bound up one in the other, will not be severed, but will rejoice a hundredfold in each other’s beatitude and gifts. And we shall have not two or three friends, but each one of all the hosts of the blessed will be to us a brother or sister in whose beauty and perfection we shall rejoice as though 108

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they were our own.

These are some of the ineffable delights that God has prepared for those who love and serve him. Every morning on earth is, as it were, a new creation of loveliness, a call to new life, energy and activity; and heaven will be but one long day of happiness with a dawn but no setting ; each moment of it bringing new pleasures, a renewal of intensest action, a further plunging and immersing into the infinite perfections of God, a deeper and more perfect appropriation and appreciation of Him and the wondrous works of His hands.

The angel in the Apocalypse swore by Him Who created heaven and earth “That time shall be no more.” And to the angels and saints of heaven, who live in closest brotherhood with one another and with Christ, their elder Brother, one day shall appear as thousands and thousands as but one, for all shall be rapt in ecstacy and love, beholding God as He is, world without end, Amen. …

BIBLE VERSES ABOUT HEAVEN

1 I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more. 2 I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride 109

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adorned for her husband. 3 I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.”

5 He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

-Revelation 21:1-5, WEBBE

1 He showed me a* river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 There will be no curse any more. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no night, and they need no lamp light or sun light; for the Lord God will illuminate them. They will reign forever and ever.

-Revelation 22:1-5, WEBBE

1 “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also. 4 You know where I go, and you know the way.”

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

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6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him, and have seen him.”

-John 14:1-7, WEBBE

1 If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory. Colossians 3:1-4, WEBBE

9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could count, out of every nation and of all tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands. 10 They cried with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation be to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

11 All the angels were standing around the throne, the elders, and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before his throne, and worshipped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honour, power, and might, be to our God forever and ever!

Amen.”

13 One of the elders answered, saying to me, “These who are arrayed in the white robes, who are they, and where did they come from?”

14 I told him, “My lord, you know.”

He said to me, “These are those who came out of the great suffering.*They 111

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washed their robes, and made them white in the Lamb’s blood. 15 Therefore they are before the throne of God, they serve him day and night in his temple. He who sits on the throne will spread his tabernacle over them. 16 They will never be hungry or thirsty any more. The sun won’t beat on them, nor any heat; 17 for the Lamb who is in the middle of the throne shepherds them and leads them to springs of life-giving waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

-Revelation 7:9-17, WEBBE

29 But Jesus answered them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like God’s angels in heaven. 31 But concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven’t you read that which was spoken to you by God, saying, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” - Matthew 22:29-32, WEBBE

6 We speak wisdom, however, amongst those who are full grown, yet a wisdom not of this world nor of the rulers of this world who are coming to nothing. 7 But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written, “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.”

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-1 Corinthians 2:6-9, WEBBE

20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself. Philippians 3:20-21, WEBBE

35 But someone will say, “How are the dead raised?” and, “With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not made alive unless it dies. 37 That which you sow, you don’t sow the body that will be, but a bare grain, maybe of wheat, or of some other kind. 38 But God gives it a body even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its own. 39 All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. 40 There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial differs from that of the terrestrial. 41 There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. 42 So also is the resurrection of the dead.

The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.

44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body.

-1 Corinthians 15:35-44, WEBBE

45 So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” ✡ 113

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The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However that which is spiritual isn’t first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. 47 The first man is of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As is the one made of dust, such are those who are also made of dust; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.

49 As we have borne the image of those made of dust, let’s* also bear the image of the heavenly. 50 Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood can’t inherit God’s Kingdom; neither does the perishable inherit imperishable. - 1 Corinthians 15:45-50, WEBBE

51 Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this perishable body will have become imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will happen: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

55 “Death, where is your sting?

Hades, where is your victory?”

-1 Corinthians 15:51-55, WEBBE

15 For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first, 17 then we who are alive, who are left, will be 114

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caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words. - 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18, WEBBE

19 “Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves don’t break through and steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. - Matthew 6:19-21, WEBBE

2 Beloved, now we are children of God. It is not yet revealed what we will be; but we know that when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is. 3 Everyone who has this hope set on him purifies himself, even as he is pure. - 1 John 3:2-3, WEBBE 14 For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. 15 If indeed they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had enough time to return. 16 But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. - Hebrews 11:14-16, WEBBE

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burnt up. 11 Therefore since all these things will be destroyed like this, what kind of people ought you to be in holy living and godliness, 12 looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, which 115

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will cause the burning heavens to be dissolved, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? 13 But, according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. - 2 Peter 3:10-13, WEBBE

For we don’t have here an enduring city, but we seek that which is to come. - Hebrews 13:14, WEBBE

1 For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. 2 For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, 3 if indeed being clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened, not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit. - 2 Corinthians 5:1-5, WEBBE

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. - Matthew 13:43, WEBBE

44 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in the field, which a man found, and hid. In his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.

45 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls, 46 who having found one pearl of great price, he went 116

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and sold all that he had, and bought it. - Matthew 13:44-45, WEBBE

34 Then the King will tell those on his right hand, ‘Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry, and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in. 36 I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.’ - Matthew 25:34-36, WEBBE

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of my God. - Revelation 2:7, WEBBE

17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.

To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows but he who receives it.- Revelation 2:17, WEBBE

40 But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Don’t you even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 He said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

43 Jesus said to him, “Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

-Luke 23:40-43, WEBBE 117

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“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. 26 Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. John 11:25-26, WEBBE

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts… – Ecclesiastes 3:11, WEBBE

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. - Matthew 5:8, WEBBE

Therefore you now have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. - John 16:22, WEB

Mercy and truth meet together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs out of the earth. Righteousness has looked down from heaven. Yes, Yahweh will give that which is good. Our land will yield its increase. Righteousness goes before him, And prepares the way for his steps. - Psalms 85:10-13, WEB

Quotes from St. Teresa of Avila

Rouse yourselves, my sisters, and since some foretaste of heaven may be had on earth, beg our Lord to give us grace not to miss it through our own 118

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fault. Ask Him to show us where to find it—ask Him to give us strength of soul to dig until we find this hidden treasure, which lies buried within our hearts, as I wish to show you if it please God to enable me. I said 'strength of soul 'that you might understand that strength of body is not indispensable when our Lord God chooses to withhold it. He makes it impossible for no one to gain these riches. - The Mansions

“Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes.

Patience obtains all things.

Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.”

Oh, that I could clearly explain to your Lordship the peace and quiet my soul has found! for it has so great a certainty of the fruition of God, that it seems to be as if already in possession, though the joy is withheld. I am as one to whom another has granted by deed a large revenue, into the enjoyment and use of which he is to come at a certain time, but until then has nothing but the right already given him to the revenue. In gratitude for this, my soul would abstain from the joy of it, because it has not deserved it; it wishes only to serve Him, even if in great suffering, and at times it thinks it would be very little if, till the end of the world, it had to serve Him who has given it this right; for, in truth, it is in some measure no longer subject, as before, to the miseries of this world; though it suffers 119

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more, it seems as if only the habit were struck, for my soul is, as it were, in a fortress with authority, and accordingly does not lose its peace. - The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus

Quotes from Julian of Norwich

And ever the more clearly that the soul seeth this Blissful Cheer by grace of loving, the more it longeth to see it in fulness. For notwithstanding that our Lord God dwelleth in us and is here with us, and albeit He claspeth us and encloseth us for tender love that He may never leave us, and is more near to us than tongue can tell or heart can think, yet may we never stint of moaning nor of weeping nor of longing till when we see Him clearly in His Blissful Countenance. For in that precious blissful sight there may no woe abide, nor any weal fail‌ Thus is that Blissful Sight [the] end of all manner of pain to the loving soul, and the fulfilling of all manner of joy and bliss. - Revelations of Divine Love

See! I am God: see! I am in all thing: see! I do all thing: see! I lift never mine hands off my works, nor ever shall, without end: see! I lead all thing to the end I ordained it to from without beginning, by the same Might, Wisdom and Love whereby I made it. How should any thing be amiss? Revelations of Divine Love

ONE time our good Lord said: All thing shall be well; and another time he said: Thou shalt see thyself that all MANNER [of] thing shall be well; and in these two [sayings] the soul took sundry understandings. One was that He willeth we know that not only He taketh heed to noble things and to 120

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great, but also to little and to small, to low and to simple, to one and to other. And so meaneth He in that He saith: ALL MANNER OF THINGS shall be well. For He willeth we know that the least thing shall not be forgotten. Another understanding is this, that there be deeds evil done in our sight, and so great harms taken, that it seemeth to us that it were impossible that ever it should come to good end. And upon this we look, sorrowing and mourning therefor, so that we cannot resign us unto the blissful beholding of God as we should do. And the cause of this is that the use of our reason is now so blind, so low, and so simple, that we cannot know that high marvellous Wisdom, the Might and the Goodness of the blissful Trinity. And thus signifieth He when He saith: THOU SHALT SEE THYSELF if all manner of things shall be well. As if He said: Take now heed faithfully and trustingly, and at the last end thou shalt verily see it in fulness of joy. And thus in these same five words aforesaid: I may make all things well, etc., I understand a mighty comfort of all the works of our Lord God that are yet to come. There is a Deed the which the blessed Trinity shall do in the last Day, as to my sight, and when the Deed shall be, and how it shall be done, is unknown of all creatures that are beneath Christ, and shall be till when it is done‌ This is that Great Deed ordained of our Lord God from without beginning, treasured and hid in His blessed breast, only known to Himself: by which He shall make all things well.

For like as the blissful Trinity made all things of nought, right so the same blessed Trinity shall make well all that is not well.- Revelations of Divine Love

"That which is impossible to thee is not impossible to me: I shall save my word in all things and I shall make all things well." Thus I was taught, by the grace of God, that I should steadfastly hold me in the Faith as I had aforehand understood... For this is the Great Deed that our Lord shall do, 121

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in which Deed He shall save His word and He shall make all well that is not well. - Revelations of Divine Love

Quotes from Fr. Charles Arminjon, The End of This Present World and the Mysteries of the Life to Come

“Our destiny is the possession of God and eternal life- to live in that abode from which all evil is absent and Where we enjoy a multitude and abundance of every good, a place which is commonly called Heaven.”

“That is really what Heaven is: all our riches, beauties and concords, but infinitely more than these. When . you describe the elect in Heaven as being subtle, immortal, impassible and clothed in a sweet light or, rather, in a divine glory which dwells in them and penetrates them more subtly than the sun penetrates the purest crystal, you are not being deceived by some illusion. Heaven is that, too; it is our subtleties, our lights and our glory, but infinitely more than these. Lastly, when you compare the future bliss to the sweetest and most intoxicating transports of the soul, to a joy ever new, freed from all disquiet and passion and maintaining its intensity and strength through all eternity, you do not feed us with false hopes; for Heaven is our transports and all our joys, but raised beyond all calculation, expression and comparison. The eye of man has not seen, nor the ear heard, anything comparable or close to it. The reason is that the good things which God prepares for us surpass all that our senses can perceive, all that our experience is capable of acquiring, all the thoughts of our minds and the desires that will ever arise in our hearts.”

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“St. Bernard, in his Sermon 4 On Christmas Eve , says: "Never has man seen the inaccessible light, never has his ear heard the inexhaustible symphonies, nor his heart tasted that incomprehensible peace." "There," adds St. Augustine, "shines a light which no place can contain, there resound praises and song which are unlimited in duration. There are fragrances which the air does not blow away, savours that never fade, goods and sweet joys unaccompanied by any distaste or surfeit. There, God is Contemplated continuously, is known without any error of apprehension, and praised without weariness or diminution."

“The plan and the whole ordinance of the Incarnation requires that the state of bliss, which is its end fruit, should be of a more perfect order and beyond all natural happiness, such as, outside the divine order of grace, would have been the recompense for morally good works accomplished in the" pure state of innocence. When, at the time of the six days, the Creator willed to establish the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, adorning it with everything that could make it precious and attractive, He spoke just one word: Dixit et facta sunt; but, when He willed to construct the city of God, He brought to bear all the treasures of His wisdom, chose His own Son as architect, bade Him work with His own hands at this important task and not to spare His blood, sweat or tears in His labour. He tells us that nothing defiled shall enter the sanctuary of all justice. He desires that the guests at the eternal banquet should feed on His flesh, wash in His blood, transform themselves and raise the powers and capacities of their souls by becoming, even in this life, as one divine nature and disposition. In short, in the construction of the immortal dwelling-place, He deigns to take infinite pains, exhausts the depths of His knowledge and carries preparation to the extreme. He wishes this incomparable abode to be truly His house, the highest manifestation of His attributes and glory, so 123

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that on the last day, when He contemplates His supreme work, this great God, so jealous of His honour, may be able in all truth to say: It is well. I have brought the greatest of my designs to its perfection; beyond it, I see no kingship, no greatness, that can be bestowed upon the creature whom I have destined to reign with Me through all eternity. I am satisfied, I have achieved My ideal and obtained My repose: Complevitque Deus opus suum quod fecerat, et requievit ab universo opere quod patrarat - And God ended His work which He had made, and He rested from all His work which He had done.”

“Heaven is God's ideal, the repose of His intellect. Let us add:.it is the repose of His heart. The heart goes further than the mind. It has aspirations and impulses, unknown to genius, which go beyond all the bounds of inspiration and thought. Thus, a mother sees her son rich and honoured; the most brilliant crowns glitter on his head; the mother cannot conceive of any new fortunes or new empires for her child. Her reason says: Enough!

Yet her heart calls out: More! The happiness of my child is greater than all the dreams in which my mind can indulge; it does not come up to the limits and presentiments of my love, nor attain my heart's ambition. [270] Romans 6:23. [271] Genesis 2:2. -142- As no mother ever loved her dearest son, o the Lord loves His predestinate. He is 3 ealous of His dignity, and could not permit Himself to be outdone by His creature on the score of fidelity and generosity.”

“The Lord cannot forget that the saints, when they once lived on earth, paid homage to Him by the total donation of their repose, their happiness and their whole being; that they would have liked to have an ^exhaustible flow of blood in their veins, in order to shed it as a living and imperishable 124

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pledge of their faith; that they would'have desired a thousand hearts in their breasts so as to consume them in the unquenchable, fires of.their ? ove, and to possess a thousand bodies, in order that they might deliver them to martyrdom, like ™*^J " nc £ aB £ g iJ renewed In His gratitude, God exclaims: Now it is My turn? The saints have made Me the gift of themselves: can I respona other than by giving Myself, without resmction or measure? If I place in their hands the sceptre of SeatTon, if I surround them with the torrents of My light, that is a great deal; it is going beyond their highest hopes and aspirations, but it is not the.utmost endeavour of My Heart. I owe them more th an paradise, more than the treasures of My knowledge; I owe them My life, My nature, My eternal, infinite substance.

If l bring My servants and friends into My house, if I console them'and make them thrill with joy by e^ 1 .^^^ the embrace of My charity, this satisfies their thirst and their desires superabundantly, and is more than the perfect repose oftheir hearts requires; but it is not enough for the gratification of My divine Heart, for the repletion and perfect satisfaction of My love I must be the soul of their souls, I must penetrate and imbue them with My Divinity as fire penetrates iron; I must unite Myself to I face to face, eternally, by showing Myself to their spirits undisguised and unveiled, without the intervention of the senses. My glory must illuminate them, exude and radiate through all the pores of their being, o that, "knowing Me as I know them, they may become Gods them selves."

“God is at an infinite distance from men and angels, and is invisible in Himself. Nevertheless it is of faith that man will one day see God, as He is, in the brightness of His essence. [276] Jesus Christ has said: "He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father; and I will love him and make myself manifest to him. "[277] God said to Abraham: "I will be thy reward exceeding great - Ego ero merces tua magna nimis." The vision of God, as 125

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described by St. Paul, has ever been the object of the desires and the expectation of all the Patriarchs and Prophets, an expectation which God could not disappoint without derogating from His wisdom and His justice.

[278] "Every soul free from sin, says the Council of Florence, "is immediately admitted to Heaven and sees God in His Trinity, as He is, according to the degree of his merit, one in a more perfect another in a less perfect manner."[279] The Holy Council adds: "This vision of God in no way comes from the forces of nature. It does not correspond to any desire or any necessity of our hearts. Set apart from revelation, the human mind could not have conceived the slightest suspicion of it, nee in cor hominis ascendit - neither hath it entered into the heart of man. (1 Corinthians 2:9) Eternal life is the highest miracle, the most sublime mystery; it is the flower in full bloom or, better still, the fruit of grace, the seed and root of which the incarnate Word, by the power of the Holy Ghost, has implanted in the centre of humanity; and, so that we may attain eternal life, God required to imprint a new form in our minds, and superimpose a new faculty.�

“Man will see God face to face; but how will this vision take place? It is of faith that we shall not see Him by representation, by an image formed in our minds. It is also of faith that we shall not rise to the knowledge of Him by the aid of reasoning, or by way of demonstration, in the manner whereby we apprehend universal and abstract truths rin this world. It is likewise certain that we shall not see Him partially and dimly like distant objects, of which we cannot discern all the features, but which we see only imperfectly and on certain sides. God will not be seen^ in this way. He is a single being, not made of parts. He is in the blade of- grass and in the atom integrally. When we say that He is present in every sphere and in all places, our mind leads us astray: God is not in any place, but all spheres 126

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and places are in Him. He does not live in any time, but His eternity consists of an indivisible instant, in which all time is contained. So we shall see Him as He is in His simplicity, in His threefold personality and in the same way as we see the face of a man in this world.�

“This vision will operate by an immediate impression of the divine essence in the souls with the aid of a supernatural light called the light of glory.

Suarez defines it thus: "A created quality and a supernatural, intellectual capacity, infused into the soul, which will give it the aptitude and the power to see God." This light of glory will transform man, says St. Dionysius; it will deify him by imprinting in him the seal and likeness of celestial beauty, and make him the image of the Father; it will expand and augment the soul's capacity for knowledge to such an extent that it will become able to apprehend immense and boundless good. Just as, by means of the light of the sun, the eye can see the variety of tangible things and, so to speak, comprehend the whole extent of the universe; just as, aided by the light of reason, it knows the reason for its own existence, and the intellectual truths; so, immersed in the light of glory, it will have infinity as its domain, and, in a sense, will comprehend God Himself. Scripture teaches us that the light of glory is the light of God: In lumine tuo videbimus lumen. By it our souls will be so immersed in the light of the divine presence that we may say, with St. Augustine, that, in a sense, they will no longer know through their own knowledge,, but from the very knowledge of God, and that they will no longer see with their so weak and limited eyes, but with the very eyes of God: Erit intellectui plenitudo lucis.

The transports which the divine vision will arouse in the elect will make their hearts super-abound in the most unutterable joys; it will be a flood of delights and raptures, life in it inexhaustible richness and the very source of all good and all life. [281] It will be, as St. Augustine goes on to say, 127

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like a donation from God of His own heart, so that we may love and rejoice with all the energy of the love and joys of God Himself.”

“Eternal life, says St. Paul, is like a weight, like being overwhelmed with all delights, intoxications and transports: aeternum gloriae pondus; a weight which, by refreshing man rather than annihilating him, will inexhaus tibly renew his youth and vigour. It is a source, forever fertile, where the soul will drink in abundance of substance and life. It is a marriage, in which the soul will clasp its Creator in an eternal embrace without ever feeling any diminution of the rapture it felt on that day when, for the first time, it was united to Him and pressed Him to its bosom.”

“God is incomprehensible to all created beings." We shall see God as He is, some more, others less, according to our dispositions and merits.

Nevertheless, we could not teach theologically that the Immaculate Virgin herself, who sees God more clearly and perfectly than all the angels and all the saints together, can attain an adequate vision and knowledge of God. God is infinite, and all that can be said is that the creature sees Him, sees Him as He is, sicuti est, entire, in integro , and yet does not see Him, in this iiHse that, wFat he succeeds m discovering of His per fections is nothing compared with what the eternal Being Himself contemplates, in the splendour of His Word and in union with the Holy Ghost.”

“Accordinqly, contemplation of God will not mean immobility but, above all, activity, an ever-ascending progression, where movement and repose will be bound together in ineffable harmony.”

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“...let us imagine a scholar who has been given wings by nature; he would have the power of traversing all the regions of the stars and the firmament; he would be enabled to explore all the hidden marvels in the countless groups of constellations, and this scholar would go from one sphere to another, from one planet to the next. As he advanced further into the immensity, he would meet one surprise after another, thrill upon thrill, seeing richer spectacles appear ceaselessly, opening up vaster and more radiant horizons to his qaze. However, a moment would come when he reached the limits. But infinity has no limits, no bottom or shore. The happy mariners of that fortunate abode will never cry, like Christopher Columbus: Land! Land! They will say: God, God always, God yet more.

There will forever be new perfections, which they will seek to gain; forever purer and more intoxicating delights which they will aspire to taste. They will go from glory to glory, ]oy to joy; for, as St. Gregory of Nyssa says, "The infinite Good has no limits, the desire which He arouses is immeasurable.”

“The vision and knowledge of God are sufficient for the fullness and perfection of man's happiness; the knowledge he will have of contingent being, and of visible, eternal nature is the accompaniment and accidental part of his happiness.”

“Nevertheless, the sight of the divine essence will not engross the saints so much as to make them forget the external marvels of the visible world, or prevent their relationship with the other elect. In this life, when we concentrate one of our faculties upon an object, our other faculties are left weak and inactive; but the vision of God, far from paralyzing the exercise of our intellectual and sensitive' powers, will increase a hundredfold their 129

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energy and penetration. Thus God made man saw clearly the divine essence, and yet conversed familiarly with men, sat at their table and freely adopted all the habits of ordinary life. The angels, confirmed in grace, enjoy perfect bliss, and unceasingly see the face of their Father Who is in heaven. Nevertheless, they dispose and co-ordinate the material elements, preside over the movement of the stars, and are not distracted from the presence of God when they lend us their assistance during our pilgrimage, or when they enlighten us with their inspirations.�

“What we teach as certain is that in Heaven we shall see and recognize one another. Such is the testimony and the constant voice of tradition. In Africa St. Cyprian, who was born in heathendom and, after his conversion, raised to the see of Carthage, feeling that he was destined to die a martyr, exhorted the faithful to face death undaunted like him, and spoke to them of it as a gift and a blessing _ from Heaven. "Let us then hasten," he said, "and run to* see our fatherland, and greet our brethren, for we are awaited by a large number of people who are dear to us; we are desired by a multitude of relatives, brothers and children, who, assured henceforth of their immortality, are still solicitous for our salvation. Let us go to see them, let us go to embrace them. . . And what joy for all of us, for them and for me!" Among the Greeks at Constantinople, St. Theodore of Studium, an illustrious confessor of the Faith, often consoled bereaved families. He wrote to a father whose sons were all dead: "Your children are not lost, but remain safe and sound for you and as soon as you have reached the end of this temporal life you will see them again, full of joy and gladness." He wrote to a man who had just lost his wife: "You have sent a most worthy spouse before you, into the presence of God. What should you seek now? You should try to meet her again in Heaven, at the time desired by P rovidence. . . "Without doubt, in Heaven the spouses 130

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who have come from earth will themselves be like angels... they will taste the ever-pure pleasures of the spirit, and, as they were one in flesh during their earthly exile, so in glory they will form one single heart and soul, in the delights of another union which will have no end.�

“In Heaven, we shall see and recognize one another; and we shall love one another. It is true that, in this happy abode, faith will disappear amidst the splendour of the great realities; that the inhabitants of the celestial Jerusalem, in possession of their final end, will no longer require to be sustained by the wings of hope. But charity, in its full development, will shine forth like a great queen, in its power and in all its perfection.[289] All the objects and causes which captivate our hearts and arouse love in this world will act with an intensity a thousand times greater, and without encountering any obstacle, on the hearts of the elect. Thus, in this life, our hearts are fascinated by beauty, by outstanding qualities of mind and heart; the intensity of the feeling which urges us to unite ourselves with a beloved one lessens when we discover his defects and faults. In Heaven, however, we shall find our friends spotless, and their features will be more radiant than the clearest sky; they will be endowed with a gracefulness and charm which will perforce attract our hearts for ever. In this life, love is still the consequence of gratitude, and our hearts glow at the memory of benefits and servxces rendered. It is only in Heaven that we shall recognize the extent and the cost of the graces of every kind which our benefactors have showered upon us. Then 1. will read all the treasures of grace, solicitude and tenderness enclosed in the heart of his mother. He will know that, next to God, it was the tears, prayers and sighs erf that mother which brought about his salvation. 0 mother, he will exclaim, "I used to love you because You... an earthly life, and provided for my food and my childhood needs; now I love you a thousand times more tenderly, 131

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because of the eternal life which I have received, and without which the first would have been a fatal gift, a source of calamities and torture for me." 0 new and happy Monicas, how great your triumphs and joys will be, when vou see yourselves surrounded by a whole circle of children whose glory you have secured after having brought them into existence! Then, Christian fathers, your sacrifices, courage and heroic constancy m strengthening your sons by profitable examples, and in rearing them by noble, laborious training, will no longer be unknown.”

“O friend, the story will be told of your zeal, your pious artifices to detach a friend from vice and irreligion, and to catch unawares a soul, the object of your holy yearning, by means of innocuous allurements. Then we shall bless you, we shall rekindle the vividness of our memories with outpourings of love, we shall redeem -the debt of our hearts in eternal thanksgiving. Lastly, the love aroused^ in our hearts by the memory of favours received, or the congenial attraction of natural qualities, is usually sustained and renewed by familiarity and the mutual exchange of impressions and thoughts. How, then, shall I describe the ineffable intercourse in which the elect will open their hearts to one another, that fraternal, intimate conversation in which, at every moment, in their celestial language they will convey to each other the captivating emotions of their hearts.”

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Other Quotes About Heaven

“To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.” - Karen Sunde

“Knowing heaven is what heals us on earth.”

-Mitch Albom, The First Phone Call from Heaven

“In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.”J.R.R. Tolkien

When God separated light from darkness, heaven was defined as it has never been defined before.

From then on, heaven is no longer the absence of evil but the triumph of good over evil, of light over all darkness.

-Jocelyn Soriano

Imagine all your needs being taken care of Imagine all your prayers being answered even before you’ve uttered them.

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Imagine there’s someone who knows you,

knows you through and through, and loves you just the same.

Imagine being led from one joyous moment to the next.

Imagine being surprised, finding gifts of love here and there with no expectations of anything in return except that you receive them, with a joyful heart.

Now open your eyes and see – You need not imagine anymore, for God has been with you all along!

HEAVEN. -Jocelyn Soriano

“I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I don’t know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will NOT ask, How many good things have you done in your life?, rather he will ask, How much LOVE did you put into what you did?” – Mother Teresa

“Each prayer is more beautiful than the others. I cannot recite them all and 134

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not knowing which to choose, I do like children who do not know how to read, I say very simply to God what I wish to say, without composing beautiful sentences, and He always understands me. For me, prayer is an aspiration of the heart, it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus.” – Therese of Lisieux

“One who has hope lives differently.” ― Pope Benedict XVI

We are born into eternity, and we shall never die.

- Chiara Corbella Petrillo, A Witness to Joy

The fact that Jesus Christ is in Heaven tells you that you are a child of God. What Satan does not let you see is eternity, which comes after. He obscures your view, so that you see solely this world; he does not speak to you of God but of a half god. He has deceived you. - Chiara Corbella Petrillo, A Witness to Joy

For the little I have understood during these years, I can tell you only that Love is the center of our life. Because we are born from an act of love, we live in order to love and in order to be loved, and we die in order to know the true love of God. The goal of our life is to love and to be always ready to learn how to love others as only God is able to teach you. Love consumes you, but it is beautiful to die consumed precisely as a candle that goes out only after it reaches its goal. Whatever you do will have sense 135

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only if you see it in terms of eternal life. - Chiara Corbella Petrillo, A Witness to Joy

“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” – Simone Weil

The Cherubim were placed at the gate of the earthly paradise with their flaming sword, to teach us that no one shall enter into the heavenly paradise who is not pierced through with the sword of love. - Treatise on the Love of God

All We Have Are Glimpses of Heaven

What is heaven like? If you’ve ever been in love, you’d have known the feeling, the bliss. You’d have known magic, you’d have trusted eternity.

For a few seconds of your life, God has allowed you to catch a glimpse of heaven, and secretly you wished it could never end.

How marvelous to always feel in love! How blessed to always have your beloved with you, never ever to part, never ever to lose the love you’ve found.

If such a bliss could really last, would you ever look for anything more?

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Would the word boredom mean anything to you at all? Surely not. You could hold each other’s hands for all eternity and it would still seem like the very first day you’ve met. Time is not for those who love, for the only time there could ever be is the present moment. Such is heaven. Such is perfection. Such is the full blessedness of love.

Here on earth however, all we could hope for are glimpses of heaven that God sends our way now and then. A kiss. A warm embrace. A young baby to hold in your arms. A few rays of light come our way, and then comes the evening and we need to rest, or then comes time to work and we need to leave the hands that touched our hearts.

Even if we be allowed to live a thousand years on earth, we would still long for heaven, for it is not the length of our stay here that rewards us, but the love we wish to carry forever in our souls.

The shortness of our days on earth is a blessing, for if it be too long, we may not be able to bear it, not with the present state of our physical frailty nor with the woundedness of our souls.

There is a heaven that awaits us, and for now we are blessed with glimpses of its glory to give us hope.

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A Prayer of Gratitude

“If I can only keep one true moment of love, I'd have enough to live in joy for all eternity.�

I thank you Lord, for all the moments filled with love that you have blessed me with throughout my lifetime. Thank you for filling my heart with incomparable happiness. Thank you for allowing me to see what's truly beautiful and pure.

I have not yet reached heaven, but even here, you have given me a glimpse of my true home. You have allowed me to see a reflection of your face.

You have loved me, and you gave me a chance to love you back. May I never waste a single moment of grace, and may I always treasure all your gifts within my heart.

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Wouldst thou learn thy Lord’s meaning in this thing? Learn it well: Love was His meaning. Who shewed it thee? Love. What shewed He thee? Love. Wherefore shewed it He? For Love... Love was our Lord’s meaning… He loved us; which love was never slacked, nor ever shall be. And in this love He hath done all His works; and in this love He hath made all things profitable to us; and in this love our life is everlasting. -Julian of Norwich Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace. - St. Augustine

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