Of the Happiness Reserved in Heaven for the Virtuous

Article III

The consequences which we should draw from these truths

The joys of the saints are incomprehensible and infinite, they are eternal and secure for eternity. The plenitude of the happiness of the elect, the certainty that is interminable, behold in what the perfection of their felicity consists. ‘The recompense of the saints,’ says St. Bernard, ‘is so great that it is impossible to measure it, so copious that it is exhaustless, so precious that it is inestimable.’ ‘No,’ let us now say with St. Jerome, ‘no labour shall appear too painful, nor any time of trial too long, when it has for guerdon an eternal reward.’ In fact, since the glory of the saints is incomprehensible on account of the plenitude of their happiness and the certitude that it shall be eternal, there is nothing that we should not avoid, nothing that we should not do, nothing that we should not suffer, to obtain this happy fate: let us resume these three consequences.

1. We should avoid all that could alienate us from heaven

The felicity of the saints in the possession of God is infinite and eternal. We should be in the disposition, therefore, to avoid all that could alienate us from heaven; we should be ready to sacrifice everything to acquire it, were it even an object more useful than our hand or foot, dearer than our eyes, than our own life. This is an express commandment of the divine Legislator: ‘If thy hand or thy foot scandalise thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee; and if thy eye scandalise thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. It is better for thee to go into p. 404life, maimed and lame, or with one eye, than having two hands, or two feet, or two eyes, to be cast into everlasting fire.’⁵⁴54Matt. xviii. 8. Such is the language of our Head, our Master, Jesus Christ.

And yet, oh, lamentable blindness of the world! and yet the greater number of men, even while confessing this truth, do not hesitate to do evil: they sell and alienate an infinite happiness for a despicable gain; eternal delights for a momentary pleasure; a certain felicity for an uncertain honour; they esteem the eternal Tabernacles less than a house of clay, and they live as though no merit were necessary in order to be admitted to the abode of everlasting bliss!

O Christian! enter into thyself, and open thy soul to the divine light; mortal sin deprives thee of thy right to heaven: thou knowest it, and still thou darest to commit it. Where then is thy faith? O religious! venial sin will insensibly lead thee to mortal, and thus separate thee for ever from the society of the elect; thou art convinced of it, and thou takest no precautions. Where then is thy prudence? O man of the world! this familiarity is dangerous, this state of life in which thou abidest, this employment which thou exercisest, are an obstacle to thy salvation, an occasion of ruin for thy soul, the commencement of its perdition; thou art aware of it, and thou renouncest them not; where then is thy wisdom? O man! ‘grown old in evil days,’⁵⁵55Dan. xv. 52. this guilty habit, for which thou shalt be despoiled of the robe of glory, shall most certainly cast thee into the fire of hell; thou foreseest it and thou correctest it not; what folly! wretched being! already earth opens its jaws, heaven thunders forth, the abysses of hell yawn beneath thy feet, and thou sportest on the brink of the precipice. Already the avenging sword of divine Justice is suspended over thee, it is about to inflict a deadly and unexpected wound upon thee; and reckless of thy soul, thou sleepest in thy bad habits, and instead of being roused by the thunderbolts of divine wrath, thou plungest still deeper into thy mortal lethargy, and yet thou dost not the less aspire to the hope of an eternal repose. Oh, impious and senseless confidence, whose ‘end is devouring flames!’⁵⁶56Heb. vi. 8.

It is painful and difficult, dost thou say, to eradicate one’s habits, correct one’s vices, to fly such and such occasions. But I only ask thee to look up at that magnificent heaven, to contemplate that infinite and eternal beatitude, to consider the sublimity of that throne which is reserved for thee: yield to my entreaties; should this view, this pious thought be less efficacious and less powerful than they were formerly over the youngest of the Machabees? King Antiochus sought by threats and promises to induce the youngest child of this heroic family to abandon the religion of his fathers: his mother, who feared that a boy of such tender years might succumb to weakness, employed no other motive to confirm him in the true faith than that of the hope of heaven. ‘My son,’ said she to him, ‘look up to heaven, I conjure thee.’⁵⁷572 Mach. vii. 28. There it is that thy already victorious brothers await thee; soon thou shalt be associated with them, and thou shalt participate in their happy fate; it is there that the ‘momentary and light tribulations of the present life,’ shall be followed for thee by ‘an eternal weight of glory.’⁵⁸582 Cor. iv. 17. I therefore ask but one thing of thee, my son, that thou look up to heaven, that thou remember heaven, that thou recall to mind the happiness which p. 405awaits thee there. He obeyed, he looked up, he reflected, he remembered heaven. And insultingly addressing the tyrant, and despising his tortures, he followed the example of his brothers; ‘he delivered up his body and his soul,’ to the fury of the executioners, ‘for the defence of the law of his fathers.’

This admirable exhortation of the mother of the Machabees to her son, the Mother of Mercy addresses from heaven to each one of us: ‘My child, look up to heaven, I beseech thee,’ says our sweet Mother Mary to us. When the infernal fowler environs thee with the nets of temptation, when the perfidious flesh incites thee to sensual gratification, when the world seeks to surprise thee by the magic of its seductions, raise thy eyes to this star-bedizened home, behold the crown promised to the victor, weigh in the balance on one side the inexhaustible and eternal delights of paradise, and on the other this pleasure, this gratification, this ephemeral honour which thou covetest, which thou hopest to reap from that sin, that irregular desire, that bad passion, and decide impartially on which side thou oughtest to make the scales incline. I appeal to the tribunal of thy own reason; be thyself the arbiter, decide if a prudent man, a Christian above all, can barter infinite and endless joys for a light and fleeting pleasure. Pause and consider attentively what judgment thy soul will pronounce on this important question at the hour of death. If we regard Symmachus’s abdication of his kingdom for a glass of water as an act of folly, and the conduct of Esau in having ‘sold his birthright for a mess of pottage,’⁵⁹59Gen. xxv. 33. as madness, what insanity is it not to despise, relinquish, sacrifice an incomprehensible glory for a slight p. 406convenience, a trivial advantage, a phantom of honour, and to renounce such untold blessings without sorrow or regret?

Symmachus and Esau renounced only temporal and perishable goods, and yet the one shed tears of regret, and the other ‘roared with a great cry.’⁶⁰60Gen. xxvii. 34. But weep, oh, angels! when a Christian, after having by a deplorable rashness sacrificed his right to an infinite felicity for ‘a little barley, for a morsel of bread,’⁶¹61Ezech. xiii. 19. goes away without giving himself the least concern about the future, to jest with his friends, and seek every kind of amusement, utterly indifferent to the loss he has sustained. Oh, imprudent banker! were thy servant to exchange a priceless diamond for a piece of glass, thou wouldst fly into a passion with him, and yet thou barterest heaven for mud, and thou laughest! But ‘I will go to confession,’ dost thou say, ‘the evil is not irreparable, I shall be able to recover what I have lost by penance?’ Who then has assured thee that thou shalt have the grace and time to perform a serious penance? By one mortal sin thou forfeitest thy right to heaven; this is a certain fact; but whether thou shalt expiate thy sin by sincere sorrow, is but too doubtful. Is it meet, therefore, for a prudent man to allow his eternal felicity to depend on an event so uncertain?

Let us suppose, however, that God in His great mercy should grant thee the grace and time to repent, hast thou received the divine promise that thou wilt avail thyself of this twofold benefit? Grace and time have already been refused to thousands; countless others have had grace and time, they have abused them, and died in their sin. May not what has happened to so many others likewise befall thee?

Ah, unfortunate man! thou mayest die in sin; yes, ‘oh, sinner! hear and tremble in all thy members, thou mayest die in sin. And if by a just judgment of God this misfortune should befall thee, it is all over with thy soul; it is excluded for ever from paradise, and its loss is irreparable. Thou believest this, and thou dost not fear to commit mortal sin. Fool! thou wouldst not dare to risk the loss of a few pieces of gold, and thou hast the temerity to risk heaven! and it is not an infidel, a barbarian, an idolator who is guilty of this rashness; it is a Christian: a Christian, I say, who knows on the infallible word of God for what blessings he is destined, and who often even teaches it to others in his sermons. Let us then either renounce our faith, or reform our lives; let us relinquish the hope of heaven, or cease to live as we have done up to this. O Sovereign Lord of heaven! Thou hast displayed the might of Thy arm, Thou hast exhausted the treasures of Thy Wisdom, to prepare an eternal happiness for me; Jesus Christ has shed His precious blood in torrents to merit it for me, and I renounce this throne of glory for a mere trifle. But I blush at my folly; henceforward I will avoid, shun, abhor all that could deprive me of these infinite joys, that is to say, all that is sinful, or the occasion of sin. O God, arbiter of my life! grant that I may die this moment, shouldst Thou foresee that I should ever in future offend Thee, the Sovereign Goodness, by mortal sin.

2. We should do all that can lead to heaven

It does not suffice to avoid all that could alienate us from heaven, but we must also perform courageously all that can lead us thither, however painful or difficult it p. 407may be. The happiness of the elect is infinite and eternal; to merit it, therefore, we must adopt all the means, practise all the virtues which lead most surely to it, and accept unfalteringly all the difficulties of so noble an enterprise. Reason and the love which we owe to ourselves imperatively demand that we do so.

In truth, is not he his own worst enemy, who refuses a light and easy labour for the acquisition of inappreciable goods? By a just dispensation of the divine decrees ‘no one shall be crowned except he strives lawfully;’⁶²622 Tim. ii. 5. ‘no one shall receive the crown of life if he has not been proved;’⁶³63James i. 12. ‘only to them who overcome shall it be given to eat of the fruit of the tree of life, which is in paradise;’⁶⁴64Apoc. ii. 7. consequently we are bound to fight, to suffer, and to triumph, to go up ‘into the palm-tree of glory and take hold of the fruit thereof.’⁶⁵65Cant. vii. 8. But the very facility of the labour which acquires such felicity for the saints shall augment their happiness in heaven; for, casting a retrospective glance on their lives, they will perceive that for a slight and short term of labour they have gained ‘an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that cannot fade,’⁶⁶661 Pet. i. 4. that with so little fatigue they have recovered this divine groat, this inestimable diamond, this priceless treasure, for the acquisition of which our Saviour has taught us that we should sell all the rest. In reality, whatever efforts we may make, they are still trifling, considered in themselves, and compared with the difficulties which must be surmounted and overcome, in order to succeed in the world.

They are trifling, considered in themselves. All that is required of us is that we obey the commands of a p. 408Master who loves us devotedly, One who is infinitely good and wise, and who is perfectly aware of our weakness. ‘If thou wouldst enter into life,’ says Jesus Christ, ‘keep My commandments,’⁶⁷67Matt. xix. 17. accept them fearlessly, for ‘My yoke is sweet and My burden light.’ What an assurance is this! and He who gives it to us is that loving Saviour whose condescension has reduced His divine legislation to two precepts only in order that we might not be terrified by their multitude: to love God more than ourselves and our neighbour as ourselves, on ‘these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.’⁶⁸68Ibid. xxii. 40. Judge now, and say whether what is asked of you is too difficult, not only for a Christian daily ‘nourished up in the words of faith,’⁶⁹691 Tim. iv. 6. but even for a man engaged in worldly avocations. Oh, souls created to love! is it then so difficult and disgraceful to bestow a stronger and more enduring love on the incomprehensible Beauty, on infinite Amiability, on the Centre of all perfections, than on a covering of corruption, a haunt of insects, a handful of dust: to absolute nothingness, for all that thou art, O man, whoever thou mayest be? Is it so hard to refrain from inflicting on thy neighbour the evil which thou wouldst not wish to have done to thyself? Once more, does such behaviour exact that a Christian should offer himself too much violence?

O Divine Love! Thou lovest man with an eternal, continuous, and purely gratuitous charity; Thou loadest him with benefits: and man, oh, hateful perversity! man endowed with reason, loaded with so many graces, finds it too painful to love Thee more than himself, and to love his neighbour as himself for love of Thee; it seems as though he were unable to refrain from offending and hating thee. How withhold our indignation at such a thought? My God, we love Thee not, we are not solicitous to obtain heaven, and yet the efforts required to merit this happiness are but trifling, considered in themselves.

2. They are also very easy compared with the vigils and fatigues to which worldlings condemn themselves. Look at a father of a family, a merchant, a lawyer, a judge, a courtier, a royal minister: how many sleepless nights do they not spend!—with how many cares do they not embarrass themselves!—to how many vain studies do they not sacrifice their health!—what fears agitate them!—what anxieties torment them!—some to procure a little wealth and honour, others to win the uncertain and fickle favour of princes. Consider even men in the lowest grades of society: for a trivial gain they labour day and night, they endure heat and cold without a murmur. What fatigues and hardships do not soldiers and sailors likewise bear! what dangers do they not face to obtain a petty reward! Let us compare the labours of the children of the world with the trifling efforts which God exacts of us for the acquisition of the kingdom of heaven; let us compare the yoke of the world with the yoke of Jesus Christ, the commands of earthly potentates with the precepts of the Lord of heaven, and we shall own that the latter are a thousand times sweeter and easier than the former. Could the miser discover a considerable treasure, or, better still, a mine of gold, by the avoidance of a mortal sin; could an ambitious or voluptuous man, on the same condition, the one obtain the throne of a mighty empire, the other incessantly enjoy new pleasures, both the one and the other would certainly be vigilantly on their guard against sin. Well, at this price we may acquire the richest of all treasures, an immortal crown, exhaustless delights, and yet we have the cowardice to complain of the severity of the conditions imposed upon us, we will not consent to do for heaven what so many others willingly do for earth!

Angels of peace, weep over the impious blindness of men! Satan cries out to them: ‘Serve me and I will give you hell,’ and they serve him. God conjures them: ‘Love Me and I will give you paradise,’ and they love Him not. They love the world and the flesh, they love trifles; Divine Love alone is not loved, though He promises an entire eternity of infinite happiness to those who love Him. The least effort appears too difficult, the least labour too painful to obtain sovereign felicity; and those who dread so much the little that it is necessary to do for heaven are precisely those who regard the tyrannical slavery in which the world holds them as a light and sweet burden.

If to merit the happiness of the elect we were only to accept the hundredth part of the trials which we willingly endure for the acquisition of riches and honours, the Church would reckon us amongst her greatest saints. But, on the contrary, we toil, we fatigue ourselves, giving ourselves no repose either day or night, and we do but amass fuel for purgatory. Is it not disgraceful that Jews take more trouble to extend their usury than Christians do to serve God; that worldlings do more for their reprobation than the sacred ministers themselves do for their salvation; that soldiers endure more severe hardships to gain some military distinction than religious do to win heaven?

O my God! Thou neglectest nothing to procure eternal life for us; and we, notwithstanding Thy charity, languish in indifference. The demon employs all his artifices to rob us of our patrimony, and we slumber in slothful security. The saints go before us, animating and inviting us to follow them by their example and the splendour of their glory, and we sleep in tepidity. We do not move a hand or foot to endeavour to gain an immortal and unfading crown.

Jesus Christ assures us that ‘the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and that only the violent bear it away;’⁷⁰70Matt. xi. 12. and yet we flatter our flesh, give free scope to our desires, place no restraint on our senses, seek on every occasion our convenience in diet and clothing, in lodging and sleep; the mere mention of the hair shirt, of abstinence and of the discipline, makes us shudder; nevertheless, we still aspire to quench our thirst one day at the same torrent of delights that inebriates the elect. But are we not aware that there is no medium, that we must necessarily renounce either the joys of heaven or the pleasures of earth, ‘since no one can relish here below the joys of the world and afterwards reign with Jesus Christ?’⁷¹71Imit. b. i. ch. xxiv.

Pause an instant, oh, my soul! consider and decide the choice which thou wilt make. But reflect well beforehand, that every act for which thou subjectest thy spirit, resistest thy senses, mortifiest thy will, repressest thy passions, moderatest thy anger, or practisest any supernatural virtue, merits a new degree of infinite glory. As often, on the contrary, as thou flatterest thy flesh, obeyest thy self-love, allowest the opportunity of offering thyself violence to escape, so often dost thou p. 410irrevocably sacrifice a new eternity of ineffable delights. For, according to Philo, ‘the pleasures of the present life are so many larcenies on the life to come.’

When, for example, we deny our eyes the indulgence of curiosity, we merit by this mortification of the sight a more sublime degree of unending glory: we derive the same fruit from the mortification of the other senses, and the resistance of the irregular movements of the soul. Let us realise this doctrine, and then see afterwards how we are resolved to act in order to acquire the blissful eternity; for, since ‘the house of God is so great, and the place of His possession so vast,’⁷²72Baruch iii. 24. assuredly we should make every effort to deserve to inherit it. Perhaps, like St. Augustine, we are grieved at the prospect of so many sacrifices. ‘Shall I be able to forego these kinds of pleasures?’ do we exclaim, ‘shall such and such an object be interdicted me from this moment?’⁷³73Conf. b. viii. But let us bear well in mind that we are not denied all joy, we are only asked to postpone it. We long for happiness, this is a legitimate desire; but let us wait a little while and we shall enjoy a superabundance of purest delights in our everlasting home. We wish for honours, this is also allowable; but let us have patience, and soon, in the kingdom of His immortal glory, God Himself will be our throne and our crown. We desire riches: this is not censurable; let us consent to a little delay, and in a short time we shall become the possessors of an inexhaustible treasure in heaven. In a word, neither pleasures, nor riches, nor honours are refused to us: they are only deferred in order to substitute infinite and eternal rewards for perishable and fleeting goods.

Should so advantageous an exchange seem p. 411insupportable to us? What! is it not better to gather ripe and abundant fruits later on, than to take them from the tree whilst they are still bitter and almost in the germ? Is it not better and more prudent to wait till autumn to enjoy the sweets of the grape in its maturity than to gather an acid verjuice in midsummer? Since this delay appears to us so rational, why should we not be equally content to await the time for eternal goods? Truly, it is an incomprehensible mystery that we should be so blind when there is question of solid happiness, while we are so clear-sighted concerning what is but smoke and vanity.

3. We should bear everything that can augment our glory in heaven

We should suffer everything to gain the supreme happiness promised to the just. The glory of heaven is eternal and infinite; consequently it deserves that we patiently and willingly endure all adversities to obtain and augment it in us. Does not reason itself proclaim that short and trifling sufferings are not too high a price to pay for everlasting joys? Nevertheless, there are men who will not tolerate any pain, endure any affliction, bear anything for heaven. A sick man unhesitatingly takes the most nauseous draughts and courageously submits to the lance and fire of the physician, whose orders he promptly obeys, in order to prolong this mortal and wretched life for a few years: but a Christian will do nothing to gain an eternal life; everything appears severe and irksome to him, and the mere mention of mortification makes him shudder. Should we not blush at this dastardly and culpable delicacy? Listen, then, pusillanimous souls! you who set so little value on the kingdom of God, listen to what the infallible truth has declared to us, ‘the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us.’⁷⁴74Rom. viii. 18.

But we have likewise as securities for this truth the illustrious choirs of apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and the innumerable army of the elect who, with loud acclaim, cry out to us from heaven: ‘Yes, mortals! all the pains, all the calamities, all the sufferings, all the trials of this life bear no proportion with that glory which shall one day be revealed in you. They are but a light and momentary tribulation compared with the eternal weight of glory which they have already wrought in us.’⁷⁵752 Cor. iv. 17. This is a dogma of faith which no one can doubt without sin.

Oh! how the elect now rejoice at the labours, afflictions, sufferings of all kinds which they have endured during life! How the holy penitents congratulate themselves on the voluntary mortifications and violence they have imposed on themselves! With what consolation the martyrs recall their chains, gridirons, racks, wounds! With what love the apostles contemplate the instruments of their torture and martyrdom!

Happy afflictions, happy sufferings! do the glorious inhabitants of heaven exclaim. Oh, griefs, humiliations, poverty, blessed, a thousand times blessed are you, since you have wrought in us such happiness! To you we are indebted for the sublime rank to which we are exalted: but for you we should have perished: you have been the ladder by which we ascended to this throne of glory. Very far from regretting their humble, penitent, mortified life, they cry out in transports of joy: ‘We rejoice for p. 412the days in which Thou hast humbled us, for the years in which we have seen evils.’⁷⁶76Ps. lxxxix. 15.

Were they capable of experiencing any grief, their one regret would be that they had not suffered more; for they would assuredly accept the torments of the damned could they thus merit one single degree of greater glory. Nay, the demons themselves would, as they have often been forced to admit, willingly endure the flames which consume them till the day of judgment, were it afterwards granted them to behold for one moment the infinite beauty and amiability of God.

O God! wert Thou, as the price of the happiness which Thou promisest us, to command us to sacrifice all our wealth, to pluck out an eye, to cut off a hand or a foot, to endure all kinds of tortures and most excruciating diseases, Thou wouldst not demand too much, since the reward infinitely transcends all that can be done or suffered to merit it. And, nevertheless, according to the testimony of Thy apostle, Thou only imposest ‘a momentary and light tribulation’ on us. For all that we suffer is light in comparison with the eternal weight of glory which is its guerdon. All that we endure is equally short and transient, since our whole life, compared with eternity, is but a fleeting moment. But, alas! this brief and light affliction still seems to us hard and insupportable. Sensual that we are! ‘it was necessary that Christ should suffer in order to enter into His glory,’⁷⁷77Luke xxiv. 26. Christ, ‘who did no sin and’ in whose ‘mouth guile was not.’⁷⁸781 Pet. ii. 22. It was necessary that He should suffer torments unheard of for their intensity, terrible for their variety, inconceivable for their number. And we, sinners, whose iniquities exceed in number the hairs of our head,’⁷⁹79Ps. xxix. 13. we p. 413will not submit to bear anything for a happy eternity! We expect to arrive there by a different route than that of the royal road of the Cross! But in vain ‘hath iniquity lied against itself.’⁸⁰80Ps. xxvi. 18. The decree is pronounced; we must either suffer or forfeit heaven; whoever refuses to suffer shall never arrive there. It is a divine and immutable decree that ‘through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God.’⁸¹81Acts xiv. 21. From this truth, the joys of heaven are infinite and eternal, necessarily flow these moral consequences: we must shun all that could alienate us from heaven; we must do all that can lead us there; we must endure all that can increase our glory therein. Let us listen, then, oh, my soul! to the wise admonition of Thomas à Kempis: ‘Write, read, sing the praises of God, keep silence, pray, suffer adversity with courage: eternal life is worthy all these combats and many more.’⁸²82Imit. b. iii. ch. iv.