Of the Happiness Reserved in Heaven for the Virtuous

In the third chapter we have shown what peace and tranquillity virtuous souls enjoy during this life, and with what happiness they are inundated at death. But this is not the only reward granted to them, and the following consideration will teach us what felicity is reserved for them beyond the tomb. To the four first motives of labouring for our sanctification, which are faith, fear, hope, and charity, it is just to add the remembrance of the glory which is promised us in heaven, since ‘all our labours become light and easy when we reflect p. 388on the reward they merit for us, the hope of the recompense is at once an alleviation and an encouragement in our labours.’¹1St. Jerome, Lett. to Demetrius. Now I remark that the fate of the elect is infinitely happy on account of the plenitude of their happiness and of the certainty of the eternity of its duration.

Article I

Of the plenitude of the happiness of the saints

1. This happiness is inexpressible

Blessed spirits! lend me your sentiments, inflame me with your ardour while I undertake to extol the plenitude of your happiness; and since it surpasses all human expression, assist me to speak at least less unworthily of that sublime glory with which you are invested, that glory which the profound genius of an Augustine presumed not to fathom, which Paul himself in his ecstasy attempted not to describe, because all our ideas and conceptions could not reach it, because ‘all our words and all the efforts of our imagination are inferior to the beauty, the grace, the glory, the splendour and the majesty of the saints;’ ‘consequently,’ adds St. Augustine, ‘it is easier to express what heavenly felicity is not, than what it really is.’

The doctors of the Church have frequently endeavoured to portray the blessings of paradise to us under different figures, to give us at least some idea, however faint, of them. Thus, according to St. John Chrysostom, the famous banquet prepared by King Assuerus for the nobles of his kingdom, ‘to manifest to them the splendour and riches of his empire, and the glory and extent p. 389of his power,’²2Esther i. 4. is an emblem of the happiness of heaven; for, in Scripture, the heavenly felicity is often expressed under the symbol of a royal banquet.

But all this earthly magnificence, all this exuberance of delights on which the oriental sovereigns prided themselves, is but a shadow of ‘this great feast’³3Luke xiv. 16. which the Monarch of the universe prepares for His saints in the eternal Tabernacles. He Himself, oh admirable condescension! He Himself and not one of the seraphim, not one of His angels, but Himself, the Sovereign Master, debased to the condition of servant, ‘shall gird’ the reins of the elect and ‘shall make them sit down’⁴4Ibid. xii. 57. at His Table ‘that they may rest from their labours.’⁵5Apoc. xiv. 13. ‘He will serve them,’⁶6Luke xii. 37. and will bring all the cares of divine Providence into requisition that they want for nothing.

The Beloved Disciple under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost has given us a much more accurate description of it and one more approaching the reality. He represents heaven to us under the symbol of a magnificent city. ‘The walls thereof are of jasper stone, but the city itself pure gold, like to clear glass. The foundations of the city are of sapphire and emerald, adorned with all manner of precious stones, the twelve gates are twelve pearls, and the streets of the city are pure gold, as it were transparent glass, a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of the Lamb. In the midst of the street, and on both sides of the river is the tree of life, bearing twelve fruits and yielding its fruits every month. The glory of God,’ a thousand times brighter than the sun, continually ‘enlightens the city.’⁷7Apoc. xxi. 18, and xxii. 12. Dispensing rich treasures of p. 390light and felicity, it dispels darkness thence for ever. But this description is, nevertheless, but a faint image, an imperfect sketch far beneath the reality, and which the prophet has only proportioned to the weakness of our understanding. For nothing of these created objects really exists in heaven; everything there is incomparably more beautiful, more excellent, more magnificent: ‘the eye hath not seen, the ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, what God prepares for those who love Him.’⁸81 Cor. ii. 9. There is nothing truer therefore than this thought of St. Augustine: ‘What God has prepared for those who love Him cannot in its fulness either be perceived by faith, embraced by hope, or realised by charity: it is a good superior to our desires and wishes, a good which the soul may long for and acquire without being able to express what it is, or estimate what it is worth!’

Nor is this astonishing: the joys of heaven are infinite, and as there is no proportion between the finite and the infinite, it is impossible that this ocean of delights should be compressed within the narrow limits of the human mind.

The joys of heaven are infinite

1. Because they deliver us from misfortunes, infinite in their number and their duration. In their number; for God can perpetually draw from His wrath, of which the angels are unable to fathom the abysses, new torments, and pour them on man at every moment; in their duration, since in hell the sinner shall be eternally tormented. Now, the happy condition of the saints preserves them for ever from all these evils. ‘In heaven,’

says St. Augustine, ‘there shall be no more death, nor lassitude, nor infirmity, nor want, nor hunger, nor thirst, nor decay, nor anger, nor sadness, nor envy.’⁹9Bk. iii. on Symb. And St. John assures us ‘there shall be no mourning, nor weeping; God shall wipe away all tears from the eyes of the elect,’¹⁰10Apoc. xxi. 4. ‘and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.’¹¹11Isaias li. 11. There shall be no disorder in the will, nor revolt in the passions, nor irregularity in the imagination, nor darkness in the understanding, nor tyranny in the senses. The cause of this happy state is, that in heaven there is neither a war between the flesh and the spirit, nor a rebellion of our will against reason, nor any revolt of the passions. In a word, sin, the fatal source of all the misfortunes which desolate the universe, has no place in this glorious abode, and consequently unhappiness is unknown there.

2. Because they procure for us infinite goods. After Boëtius, St. Thomas teaches that eternal beatitude is ‘a perfect state’ which combines ‘all goods,’¹²121. 2, q. 3. at the same time. ‘There it is,’ adds St. Augustine, ‘that the happy soul, desiring only the essential Good, possesses all it desires.’¹³13Bk. iii. of Trinity. It possesses God, the Infinite Good and the exhaustless source of all goods; and in possessing Him it enjoys an infinitude of goods and an unalloyed felicity. Behold the high and sublime idea we should conceive of the glory of the elect. Yes; their happiness is not only incomprehensible, but it is also infinite, because it preserves them from infinite evils and ensures to them infinite good.

Rejoice, then, and exult with gladness, thou who unfalteringly tendest to the practice of virtue, for thou p. 391directest thy steps straight to heaven, where perfect unmingled joy shall be thy recompense. ‘O heavenly Jerusalem!’ mayest thou exclaim with the terrestrial angels, ‘Oh, holy city of God! my heart loves thee, my soul pants after thy beauty;’¹⁴14St. Aug. Solil. oh, ‘why am I not already admitted into the choirs of heavenly intelligences, why am I not already united with these blessed spirits at the foot of the throne of God?’¹⁵15St. Greg. Hom. ‘Why must my exile be prolonged?’¹⁶16Ps. cxix. 3. ‘Oh, who will give me the wings of the dove, that I may fly away and be at rest?’¹⁷17Ps. liv. 7.

2. It is communicated to the elect with a perfect plenitude

Jesus Christ Himself teaches us how full and perfect is the happiness of the elect, ‘good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over shall they give into your bosom.’¹⁸18Luke vi. 38. The eternal recompense, it is true, shall be meted and proportioned to our merits, but, nevertheless, ‘the measure shall be full, pressed down, it shall run over.’ ‘It shall be,’ says the holy abbot of Clairveaux, ‘a measure without measure,’ a measure which shall not only be founded on the labours and holy desires of the elect, but which shall equal in some sort the goodness and munificence of God.

God ‘will’ Himself ‘be to our understanding a fulness of light, to our will a fulness of peace,’ to our memory a fulness of consolation. ‘God all truth, God all love,’¹⁹19Serm. on Cant. God the infinite Providence, will inundate us with these three kinds of goods; and from this triple fulness of light, of peace, and of consolation shall result to the saints a superabundance of felicity which shall p. 392fully satiate their souls in all their faculties, according to the promise of the Royal Prophet: ‘I shall be satisfied when Thy glory appears.’²⁰20Ps. xvi. 15.

1. I say that God, the infinite Providence, will diffuse the fulness of perfect consolation into the memory of the elect; they shall be permitted ‘to enter’ with their whole being ‘into the powers of the Lord;’ they shall be immersed in the boundless ocean of the Divinity; ‘they shall no longer remember anything save His Justice,’ to bless it because it will reward them according to their merits. Uninterruptedly contemplating the adorable Trinity in all its splendour, they shall recall with a lively gratitude that continuity of graces with which the divine tenderness encompassed them; they shall revolve in mind the admirable economy of their salvation, those different events by which the divine Providence has so marvellously conducted them; they shall recall the temptations, the dangers, and even the falls of which the Eternal Wisdom has made use to lead them back to the paths of virtue.

Who could express of what a source of unalloyed happiness, are such reminiscences to the souls of the saints? If the Patriarch Joseph experienced such sweet consolation in recalling to mind the years already elapsed, and that he had attained to the highest dignity of Egypt through the envy of his brothers, the credulity of Putiphar, the sufferings of a prison; what far more solid happiness shall the blessed soul experience in considering in the retrospect the sorrows, the tribulations, the poverty, and the indigence by which it acquired, with the assistance of God, and, almost without thinking of it, these delights, this glory, and these riches with which it is now satiated, in looking down from heaven and in happy security on those perilous rocks so notorious for shipwreck, and which it has fortunately escaped, despite the tempests of the world’s stormy sea?

Oh! with what rapture shall this sole thought fill it: I might have been damned; I might have forfeited the happiness I now enjoy! What danger did I not incur in such a year, in such a place, with such a person! Oh! had I indulged that pleasure, I might have slumbered in tepidity; had I resisted that inspiration, I should not have acquired solid virtue; had a sudden death, oh, fearful thought! surprised me at such a period, alas! I should have perished irretrievably; deprived for ever of heaven, ‘I should now dwell in devouring flames, with everlasting burnings.’²¹21Isaias xxxiii. 14. But, oh, thanks to my God! I have resisted, I have vanquished, I have reached the happy term! I am now happy, and I shall be so eternally. Oh, felicity . . . what a plenitude of joy we taste in Thee! Is it surprising, Lord, that the elect, remembering how good and faithful Thou wert to them during life, ‘should publish the memory of the abundance of Thy sweetness?’²²22Ps. cxiv. 7.

2. God, Truth itself, shall impart equal happiness to the understanding by the light which He shall infuse into it; for in heaven our mind shall behold no longer in the distance, as ‘in a mirror and an enigma, but close, face to face,’²³231 Cor. xiii. 12. with a clear, intuitive view, the perfect beauty of the Divine Essence. It shall contemplate without a cloud the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity and the immensity of its perfections; the veil shall be withdrawn, and the soul, flooded with the purest lights, shall behold with rapture the incomprehensible treasures contained in the person of Jesus Christ; it shall penetrate all the secrets of the Divinity. ‘The happy soul,’ says the holy Patriarch of Venice, ‘vivified by the word of God, united to Him by a clear vision, shall know intuitively in this source all the secrets of God. It shall see God in Himself, God in it, and it in God. It shall see all creatures in God, and God in all creatures: an ineffable and enchanting light shall illumine its gaze.’²⁴24Treatise on Charity.

What sweetness, what delight, what ineffable enjoyment will this fulness of light produce in it! For such is the infinite beauty of God, that were He to allow Himself to be seen by the damned during a space not exceeding the duration of a flash of lightning, all those wretched beings would forget the hatred they bear to their Creator, and instantaneously impelled by a gentle violence, they would conceive for Him a boundless love. They would willingly consent to endure a thousand hells, were it given them to behold this increated Beauty for the twinkling of an eye. The saints in heaven would themselves a thousand times prefer to suffer all that the reprobates endure rather than lose one of those glances with which they incessantly behold the divine Essence, so entrancing, admirable, and perfect is the beauty of this sovereign Majesty! Oh, my soul! the clear vision, the distinct view of this ineffable Beauty, of these inexpressible charms, shall be ‘the portion of our inheritance,’²⁵25Ps. xv. 5. the principle of our eternal beatitude.

Let us take courage, then, we who are born for heaven! Let us rejoice in anticipation, for we have all reason to do so, since we are all destined ‘to see God as He is.’²⁶261 John iii. 2. It is the Beloved Disciple who promises and guarantees p. 394it to us. ‘Listen then, all you who fear God,’²⁷27Ps. lxv. 16. and give free scope to your hopes: you shall behold this infinite Power, Fidelity, Wisdom, Justice, Goodness, inexhaustible Mercy, this Immutability, Providence, Eternity, such as He is, and in Him you shall behold all things. For, says St. Gregory, ‘what shall they not see who shall behold Him who sees all!’ We shall see Him, I say, most perfectly. According to the great Bishop of Hippo, ‘we shall possess in ourselves without labour and without even the shadow of error, the knowledge of all things, because we shall inebriate ourselves in their proper source with the waters of the Wisdom of God.’²⁸28City of God.

Oh, blissful abode! oh, source of purest delights! ‘How lovely are Thy Tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord,’²⁹29Ps. lxxxiii. 5. by the ardour of its desires. ‘Oh, joy above all joy!’ does it exclaim with St. Augustine, ‘when shall I be admitted into thee, that I may see my God in His Glory, such as He is? When shall that day of joy and jubilation arrive when I shall enter into the house of God and satiate my desires by beholding Him face to face who beholds me?’³⁰30St. Aug. Solil.

O sanctity! who can live without loving and desiring thee? since thou art the mysterious ladder which enables us to ascend by the practice of the theological and moral virtues, as by so many steps, to the perfect light of which God, the Infinite Truth, is the source!

3. Not only shall we see God as He is, but we shall love Him; we shall love Him with all our strength, without any diminution. From this sentiment of love a plenitude of peace will flow into our will, diffused there by Him who is charity itself. For this intuitive vision will not resemble those imperfect lights by which we know God on earth, without being thereby impelled to love Him. This knowledge will be active, it will make us taste what we shall feel, love what we shall see; it will inflame us with a burning ardour, and, by an enchanting violence, it will transport us into the bosom of our Beloved.

Thus, not only shall the understanding see clearly this infinite Beauty and Amiability, which is the source of all beauty, and the happy term of all affections, but the will shall love Him with the most ardent love. This sight and this love will produce in the soul an unspeakable joy; for what happiness for the heart to love so amiable a Good, and to love Him so perfectly; to attain, by the understanding and the will, to this centre of all glory and of all beatitude; to be intimately united to Him by the bond of charity; to possess Him absolutely and entirely, and to be like iron in a furnace, completely transformed into this divine fire!

Could we only aspire to the measure of felicity which is due to the angels by the condition of their nature, this would of itself be a great favour; what is it, then, to have a right to the happiness which Jesus Christ Himself enjoys? What do I say, to the happiness of Jesus Christ? We are destined, we worms of the earth—O heavens! be astonished and adore the incomprehensible prodigality of the Divine Goodness!—we are destined to share in the very felicity of the most Holy Trinity itself! Yes; really and in its own substance, the riches, the majesty, the joy with which the Creator is rich, great and happy, shall also be our riches, our dignity, and our joy.

Oh, word full of inexpressible consolation! Thou shalt be, O my God, Thou shalt be our beatitude, our sufficiency, our property! Yes, we shall be happy in heaven with the happiness with which God is happy, though in a different degree. The same essential good which from all eternity has been the food and life of this Being of beings, shall also be the principle of our perfect contentment. That truth, that goodness, which inebriates the divine nature, shall likewise inebriate our soul. Our understanding shall receive no other lights, our will shall experience no other wishes, our heart shall possess no other ardours than those of God: His bosom shall be our throne, His crown our diadem, His glory our vesture, His immensity our riches, His wisdom our knowledge, His will our wish, and His power our strength. We shall be seated on His throne, we shall eat at His table, we shall reign in His kingdom which He ‘has prepared’ for us ‘from the beginning of the world.’³¹31Matt. xxv. 34.

‘Answer now, O mortals,’ says St. Bernard, ‘what is happier than this beatitude?—more enchanting than this felicity?—more enviable than such a fate?—more sweet than to live with God, and to live of God, than to be with God and in God, who shall be all to us in all things?’³²32Serm. on Ascen. What more perfect plenitude of consolation, of light, and of peace can we desire than that which God, infinite Providence; God, essential Truth; God, all Love, diffuses, preserves, and augments without measure in the memory, the understanding, and the will of the elect? Oh, ineffable satiety! whoever hears thee spoken of without longing after his heavenly country is more irrational than the brute, more insensible than the rock!

‘O Fountain of Life! O source of living waters!’ shall I exclaim with St. Augustine; ‘when shall I quit this desert, uncultivated, sterile earth, in order to behold p. 396Thy glory and Thy power, and to quench my thirst in the copious waters of Thy mercy?’³³33St. Aug. Solil. O happy moment! wherein I shall be admitted to a happiness insomuch the more perfect and incomparable, as it is more incomprehensible, more complete, in a word, infinite. O yearned-for moment! wherein I shall delightfully repose in Thee, my God, and Thou in me in the sweet embraces of a mutual love. O amiable path of virtue which leads me to such happiness! who would not be anxious to enter thee to win so abundant a recompense?—a recompense which is increased instead of being diminished, as the number is increased of those who are called to participate in it.

4. For, as St. Augustine observes, ‘the inheritance of Jesus Christ, of which we are all coheirs, is not diminished by the number of those who possess it; and the number of those who participate in it does not lessen the portion of each: this inheritance is as abundant for a great multitude as for a small number, and it can be as fully possessed by each one as by all.’³⁴34On Ps. xlix. Elsewhere the holy doctor resumes this thought: ‘The kingdom of God,’ says he, ‘is possessed in its entirety equally by all and by each one. The kingdom is not diminished by the number of those who share in it, because it is invisible. It preserves its integrity for each one of the elect because all possess it conjointly with each other.’

Besides, this society and innumerable multitude of the elect, far from diminishing their joy, increases the abundance of their delight a hundred-fold. For, according to the thought of St. Augustine, there shall be as many additional joys in heaven as there shall be saints, as many blessed eternities as there are friends of God, since each of the saints shall shine with an admirable beauty, each one shall also possess as much of paradise as he can contemplate companions of his glory.

This superabundance of delights shall not even experience any diminution from the fact that the saints shall be placed in different degrees of glory. For although ‘one shall have the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, and another the glory of the stars; although star differeth from star in glory,’³⁵35Homil. on Gospel. still, St. Augustine assures us, ‘this difference of glory shall not excite jealousy, because union and charity shall reign over all wills.’ All the saints, according to the comparison of the apostle, shall be cemented together as the living stones of the same edifice, supported one upon the other, all resting on the same foundation, and forming collectively that magnificent Temple in which ‘the sacrifice of praise’ is perpetually offered to the divine Majesty. Each one shall be perfectly content with his lot. There shall be no opposition of desires, thoughts, advice, or will amongst them. There shall be neither enmities nor suspicions; they shall all live happy, animated by the same spirit; and, notwithstanding their multitude and the difference of their glory, all shall enjoy the plenitude of happiness.

Oh, heavens! who shall be able on earth to comprehend the inexpressible sweetness with which the elect shall be satiated in heaven?—not only shall they possess all they desire, but beyond it, so that nothing more shall remain for them to wish for. Their heart shall be full, their mind satisfied, their soul satiated; and yet ‘this satiety,’ says St. Gregory, ‘shall leave a holy avidity, and the avidity shall produce satiety.’ ‘They shall be p. 397always replenished with delights,’ adds St. Augustine, ‘and always desirous;’ because ‘the desire is not a painful privation, and the abundance does not induce disgust.’³⁶36City of God.

God will not present them the delicious wine of heavenly pleasures drop by drop, but ‘He will steep them in a torrent of delights.’ Not only shall they be satiated, but ‘they shall be inebriated with the plenty of God’s House.’³⁷37Ps. xxxv. 9. The joy of the Lord shall not enter into their heart, because the space is too narrow, it would be compressed there; but they ‘shall enter’ themselves ‘into the joy of the Lord.’³⁸38Matt. xxv. 21. Their whole being shall be submerged in this ocean of all delights; God will miraculously dilate the hearts of His servants, in order that they may have sufficient capacity to receive the plenitude of the divine joys. Their beatitude shall be so full and perfect that the infinite wisdom of God knows no felicity greater as to its essence, and His Omnipotence cannot grant us a happiness preferable to that which He confers on His elect in giving them Himself: ‘I shall Myself be thy reward.’³⁹39Gen. xv. 1. God exhausts, so to speak, all the treasures of the Divinity to render us perfectly and eternally happy; perfectly and eternally! O rapturous words! you are the two poles on which all the glory of the saints revolves. David styles the joy of the elect, now a torrent, now a fountain of life: a torrent to signify the abundance of the delights which inundate the heart, a fountain to express their ever limpid, ever exhaustless course. So that the felicity of a faithful soul is infinite and inexplicable, not only on account of the plenitude of the happiness in which it consists, but also on account of the p. 398certainty of its eternity, which forms the climax of this celestial beatitude.

Article II

Of the eternity of the happiness of the saints, and of the certainty which they possess of never losing it

1. The happiness of the saints shall be eternal

Souls destined for heaven, yield yourselves up to transports of gratitude and gladness; for the joys, the delights which are prepared for you shall last for ever. Yes, the delights which await the just shall be lasting, perpetual, eternal. In this happy kingdom no cause shall ever be able to effect the destruction of the spiritual soul, no sin shall ever necessitate its expulsion from paradise; and the motive which shall cause it to desire its preservation shall exist eternally. This motive is the happiness of seeing, loving, and possessing God; and since God, by the necessity of His nature, cannot cease to be, so also no event shall ever be able to make a soul cease to desire its own preservation. It shall then be immortal, and its happiness shall be interminable in the possession of God.

The glory prepared for the saints can be eternal, because the power of God has no limits: it is meet that it should be eternal, because the infinite love of God and His munificence in rewarding require it; it must be eternal, otherwise it would not equal the price at which Jesus Christ purchased it for us. For, to acquire this heavenly inheritance for us, He has paid His Father a ransom of infinite value, by shedding His blood and suffering death on the cross. Consequently, in order that there should be a proportion between the labour and the stipend, between the price and the object acquired, it is necessary that the joys of paradise should be infinite, if not in their intensity at least in their duration; they must then be eternal.

But we have other proofs still of this truth. God is infinitely faithful in His promises, He is omnipotent to accomplish those which He has made: now, He has a thousand times reiterated with an oath in the Old and the New Law, the engagement of giving an eternal recompense to the elect: ‘the just shall live for evermore,’⁴⁰40Wisd. v. 16. ‘everlasting joy shall be upon their heads,’⁴¹41Isaias xxxv. 10. ‘they shall shine as stars for all eternity,’⁴²42Dan. xii. 3. ‘they shall reign for ever and ever.’⁴³43Apoc. xxii. 5. From these consoling testimonies I confidently conclude that the eternity of the recompense of heaven is one of the principal dogmas of our faith, the truth of which it would be heresy to doubt. St. Augustine, unable to restrain his rapture at the thought of heaven, cries out: ‘Oh, kingdom of a blessed eternity, where the flower of youth never fades, where charity never suffers diminution, where health is always incorruptible, and joy unalloyed, where life has no longer a term,’ I believe in thee with an utter certitude, I hope in thee firmly, I love thee ardently! Oh, when shall the hapless vicissitudes and inconstancy of my soul be fixed in thy immutable stability?

The glory of the world expires little by little, until at length it is buried with man in the same tomb. All those gods of the earth, all those monarchs of the universe, whose courtiers formerly worshipped them as so many divinities, now despoiled of their majesty and power, scarcely fill with their ashes the funereal urn. Formerly the terror of the world, they are now but a p. 399magnificent nothing which the darkness of oblivion envelops. During some brief moments their name made a noise; but because their time was limited ‘their memory hath perished with’ all ‘the noise’⁴⁴44Ps. ix. 7. of their pride. How many great men and heroes of antiquity are there not of whom the memory is altogether lost, who are never spoken of, never thought of? All the glory and splendour of their name has vanished like lightning or smoke.

But console thyself, faithful soul! the glory granted to the just in the regions of bliss shall never perish. As long as God shall be God, their name shall be blessed: ‘the just shall be in everlasting remembrance.’⁴⁵45Ibid. cxi. 16. This whole universe shall be subverted and destroyed; after this general subversion, thousands of thousands of years shall elapse, and millions and millions of years shall also flow on, and the duration of the blessed eternity shall not have diminished even by a moment; as many thousands of ages shall elapse as there are leaves on the trees, and the happiness of the saints shall appear to be but at its commencement. Nay, after this immense chain of years and centuries, new centuries as numerous as the atoms in the air, grains of sand upon the earth, shall likewise pass, and the blessed shall be still happy, still in felicity and in the zenith of beatitude.

If ‘one day in Thy courts, O Lord, is better above a thousand days,’⁴⁶46Ibid. lxxxiii. 11. than a thousand years spent in the most seductive delights and the greatest honours of this world, what must it be to enjoy such a happiness eternally? If one single day, one single hour, in the heavenly country is sweeter and more delightful than p. 400long years spent here below under the happiest auspices, what must it be to live centuries, a million, a thousand million centuries, submerged in this ocean of divine joys?

And, nevertheless, after all these centuries, beyond all these ages, not only do we not reach eternity’s term, but we are still at its commencement; for its measure is not time, it is God Himself whose existence has no measure and knows neither commencement, nor middle, nor end. Oh, blessed eternity, endless circumference, whose radii are, ever, never, whose centre is the complement of all goods, thou shalt henceforward be the object of my desires, the rule of my actions; thou shalt be a continual spur to me to tend to perfection. The hope of obtaining thee shall facilitate all that is difficult, sweeten all that is bitter, lighten all that is painful in the path of virtue.

2. The saints shall possess their happiness without fear of losing it

What completes the happiness of the saints is the security with which they possess their heavenly life, and the certainty they possess of never losing it. This assurance is the climax of their infinite and eternal beatitude; for the most precious diamond in the crown of the elect is the knowledge that their lot shall be eternal, is to be as certain of this truth as of the immutability of God Himself. Now the foundation stone on which this truth rests, is the authority of the word of Him who can neither deceive nor be deceived; and who, with an oath, has promised eternal happiness to those who love Him. All the evangelists, the apostles, and the prophets are witnesses and guarantees of this sacred engagement entered into by God Himself: inspired by the Holy Ghost they have published it throughout the earth in their writings and sermons. But the Blessed shall see the solidity of this promise in the essence of God, as in a faithful mirror, with a clear and distinct vision.

It would be equally preposterous and impious to suppose that the infinitely perfect Being cannot or will not observe promises which He has so solemnly given; the absurdity of such a proposition will appear to the elect beyond all dispute, because they shall know both the infinite power of God by which He will always be able to accomplish what He has promised, and His immutable fidelity, by which He will always wish to do so. They shall see that these two perfections, power and fidelity, are infinite and essential to the divine nature, and this view will impart to their conscience a clear proof of the eternity of their happiness.

And besides, could they doubt of this truth, they would cease to be perfectly happy. For, says St. Augustine, ‘there is no real felicity, once we can foresee a term to it.’⁴⁷47City of God. The fear of losing this happiness, of being one day deprived of beholding so admirable a Beauty, and of loving so perfect an Amiability, would be a drop of gall capable of embittering all their joys, a sting which would continually inflict new wounds on the soul, a worm which would consume their vesture of glory; in a word, heaven would cease to be heaven, were not the inhabitants certain of its eternity; and ‘the recompense would no longer be superabundant,’⁴⁸48Gen. xv. were it to have an end.

Far from us, O Infinite Goodness; far from us be a suspicion so unworthy Thy exhaustless liberality. The p. 401elect shall possess Thee without any fear of losing Thee, their lot shall be eternally happy on account of the assurance that it shall last for ever. This consoling thought shall be constantly present to their memory: I am happy; I am in heaven; I shall be there eternally: my heart swims in an ocean of the purest delights; it shall do so for ever! I possess a perfect and inexpressible happiness, and I shall possess it eternally! Oh, what sweetness, what joy, what abundance of peace!

From all these reasons let us conclude, what we have undertaken to prove, that the glory of the saints after death is incomprehensible and infinite, not only on account of the fulness of the happiness they enjoy, but, also on account of the certainty of its eternal duration.

Since such is the case, let us exert all our powers to attain the perfection of virtue, thus to insure to ourselves a larger share in these infinite joys. Incited by the hope of so magnificent a reward, let us despise all difficulties; let us walk fearless of the thorns which may wound the feet of those who follow the rugged road of perfection. How foolish are those who deprive themselves of as many degrees of this eternal beatitude as they omit acts of virtue, and squander graces! How inimical to their own best interest are those who expose themselves to the irreparable loss of so many precious pearls with which they might have adorned their crown, as they let pass opportunities of increasing their number! No; since the beauty of the heavenly courts is so enchanting, they are unworthy of it who do not vigilantly guard against all that could estrange them therefrom, who do not courageously do and suffer all that could lead them to it and augment its joys.

O mortals! raise, I conjure you, your eyes on high: p. 402paradise is offered to you; it has been created for you. The joys of this desirable abode are infinite and eternal; they are assured to us if we will it. The price required for its acquisition is but little, for the Sovereign Lord ‘shall save us for nothing.’ It is the God, faithful and true, who has promised it in Scripture. What then are our dispositions? We confess this dogma of faith with the lips; do we seriously believe it in our hearts? Alas! our conduct renders it but too doubtful.

For what then is this faith which believes the wonders that are related of the Holy City, and which leaves us oblivious and reckless of heaven? What is this belief which confesses that ‘the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us,’⁴⁹49Rom. viii. 18. and which, terrified by the least difficulty, shamefully abandons the narrow way which leads to heaven! Fools that we are, we spend our lives complaining of the miseries of this world, and are indifferent to the happiness of heaven: like the dog of the fable, we pursue the shadow of a good which flies from us, and we neglect to drink at the source of sovereign Goodness. We amass earthly riches by dint of fatigue, and we concern ourselves but little about winning ‘for heaven the’ only ‘treasure which faileth not.’⁵⁰50Luke xii. 33. What lamentable folly! What do I say? The greater number of men have reached such a degree of folly that they are not ashamed to barter this kingdom of true felicity to the devil for a fleeting pleasure, a bauble, a little dust, a phantom of honour! There are Christians who have the hardihood to abandon their rights to their heavenly inheritance, though they know that the goods are infinite and eternal, and that they cannot lose them without incurring eternal damnation; they renounce them, alas! I blush to say it, for an ephemeral gratification. Let us not be surprised, therefore, if ‘hell opens her mouth’ to swallow up these impious men, and if ‘fire and brimstone, and storms of wind, shall be the portion of their cup.’⁵¹51Ps. xv. 11.

O Lord! terrified at the danger of incurring so dire a misfortune, ‘I will light my candle and sweep my house,’ that is my conscience, and, replenished with the desire of the heavenly beatitude, I will seek until I shall have found this inestimable Groat.⁵²52Luke xv. 8. I believe that if during life I serve Thee faithfully, if I attach myself to the practice of solid virtue, after death I shall enjoy an eternal happiness, I shall enter into the abode of Thy glory, where ‘Thou wilt fill me with joy with Thy countenance,’⁵³53Ps. xv. 11. where I shall find all that I desire, whence I shall be removed from all that could inspire me with fear, where there shall be a joy unmixed with grief, a peace without war, a rest without disquietude, a life without death; where, in a word, there shall be the plenitude of happiness, the certainty of eternity. I hope, O my God! that I shall see in Thee all that is beautiful, that I shall love all that is good, that I shall taste all that is delicious, that I shall hear all that is charming. I desire to see Thee, to love Thee, to possess Thee, to enjoy Thee with all the saints, to see the first Truth, to love the essential Beauty, to possess the sovereign Goodness, to enjoy the eternal Felicity. Oh! when shall I enter into the place where Thy Tabernacle reposes?