Hunolt Sermons/Volume 10/Sermon 46

by Franz Hunolt

FORTY-SIXTH SERMON.

ON THE JOYFUL ENTRY OF THE ELECT INTO HEAVEN.

Subject.

The triumphal and joyful entry of the elect into heaven, and the description of their journey from the valley of Josaphat into the eternal kingdom.—Preached on the feast of St. John Evangelist.

Text.

Quem diligebat Jesus.—John xxi. 20.

“Whom Jesus loved.”

Introduction.

What happiness for a man to be loved by Jesus, the Son of God! O holy Saint John! even during thy life thou didst enjoy this distinction above the other apostles, for thou wert the disciple “whom Jesus loved.” My dear brethren, all of us can have the same good fortune if we are only in the state of sanctifying grace, and love Jesus truly with our whole hearts; for we have His express promise: “I love them that love Me.”^[1] Greater happiness than this mortal cannot experience—to love God, and to be loved by God. It is in this that the bliss and infinite joy of the elect soul in heaven consists; namely, that for all eternity she shall behold God, love God, and be loved by God, as I shall describe on a future occasion. Yesterday we considered the loving words with which Our Lord shall invite the elect to this happiness on the last day. And what is to follow that invitation? Nothing but the ascent of the elect, body and soul, with Our Lord into heaven. This ascent we shall now represent to our mind’s eye.

Plan of Discourse.

The triumphant and joyful entry of the elect into heaven, and the description of their journey from the valley of Josaphat into the eternal kingdom, such is the whole subject of this meditation.

That our hearts and desires may be turned away from earthly things to heavenly joys, and that we may be encouraged to love God constantly, such is the end and object of the meditation, to attain which we beg the light and grace we stand in need of from Thee, O Holy Ghost! through the intercession of Mary and of our holy guardian angels.

Most men are desirous of seeing and knowing new and wonderful things. Man has naturally a great desire to see and know strange and wonderful things, and there are many whose sole pleasure consists in this, so that they sacrifice everything else as lone as they can gratify their hankering after novelties. Hence so many dangerous journeys are undertaken by land and sea in order to find out something wonderful and unusual. Many who cannot travel or see those things with their own eyes are delighted to hear or read of them, and love to pore over newspapers and books of travel. Others again are not satisfied with what this earth can afford to gratify their curiosity; they go into the very depths of it to see what it contains, and then mount into the heights of the heavens to consider the courses of the stars and planets; they study and read day and night to find out something new. Most of the old philosophers renounced all their earthly possessions so as to be free from the care which they entail, and devote themselves all the better to their studies and investigations. Some of them had themselves walled up; others crept into caves with the idea of separating themselves from the tumult of the world and from the danger of being disturbed; and although they knew well that they thus risked their health find even life itself, they were not deterred by such considerations; the discovery of new and strange things was to them sweeter than health and life.

Shown by examples. Tycho Brahe, one of the most illustrious and richest of the Danish nobles of his time, a young man of great beauty and highly gifted mind, had such a great desire of learning astronomy that he renounced all the privileges and pleasures to which his wealth and nobilitv entitled him. He built himself a castle on a high mountain, and on the top of it had a lofty tower constructed in which there was a chamber of glass. Here he used to sit with those servants who were necessary to his wants, either for the purpose of bringing him food, or else to help him in his studies. Day and night he spent in looking through his glass to see the courses of the stars; neither the heat of the summer, which must have been greatly intensified by the glass that surrounded his room, nor the cold of winter at such an elevation, could disturb or weary him. Never during the night did he lie down to sleep; only now and then during the day was he perforce obliged to take a few hours’ repose; and even then he complained that sleep robbed him of so much precious time that he needed to continue his studies. Thus he spent and wore out his short life, of his own free will robbing himself of all pleasures and recreations, that he might gratify his eagerness to learn all about the heavenly bodies and their movements. It is said of Aristotle, the philosopher, who was so ardent a student of all natural phenomena, that when in spite of all his efforts to understand the ebb and flow of the sea it still remained a mystery to him, he threw himself into the sea in his vexation, and was drowned. So great is man’s desire to see and learn novelties.

All the wonders of earth are nothing compared to what the elect shall see. Christians! what have we to be curious about in this miserable vale of tears? Let us keep our curiosity till the last day, when the divine Judge shall call His chosen flock into the heavenly fold. And what wonderful things we shall behold there even in the first quarter of an hour, if we have the good fortune to be among the elect, and to enter on the possession of eternal joys! As far as possible let us try to picture to ourselves merely the procession and entry of the blessed into heaven. Imagine then that you see an almost infinite number of angels and elect. Of the number of angels Daniel says that there are a thousand times a thousand, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand of them who minister at the throne of God. Of the number of the elect David says that they surpass the sands on the sea-shore: “They shall be multiplied above the sand.”^[2] St. John says that there is a countless crowd of them: “After this I saw a great multitude, which no man could number.”^[3] All these glorified bodies, shining like the sun, shall begin to move upwards in the most beautiful order, with Mary, the Queen of heaven, and Jesus Christ, the King of glory. Let us imagine that all of us here present are in the number; such, O good God! is at all events our hope and desire; and our determination is to serve Thee during the short time of our lives that we may be amongst the elect.

When leaving the valley of Josaphat and ascending into the clouds. Now the journey begins, and in the first part of it we arrive at the lower regions of the heavens, where the winds and clouds have their dwelling. There we shall see and understand how those most subtile bodies, the winds, have that wonderful and hitherto incomprehensible power of uprooting the strongest trees with their breath, and overthrowing the most massive towers and buildings. Then we shall see where the rainbow gets its marvellous colors; what the dews are made of that fall on the earth in the early morning, to nourish the grass and the flowers; how it happens that when it rains the water comes down in drops from the clouds; how it is that in winter the water descends in the form of white, cold snow, and even in the hottest summer is changed into hail-stones. Then we shall understand what those alarming and fiery bodies are that we now call comets, that wander about the sky with their blazing tails, and fill people with terror and dismay; where the lightning and the thunder come from—all subjects that the wisest men on earth have been puzzling themselves about to no purpose. These and similar things we shall clearly understand in that triumphal procession.

In the sphere of the moon. But let us not delay long here. All these things are mere trifles compared to what is still to be exhibited to our eyes when we ascend into a higher region, where the moon performs her revolutions. Is that, we shall exclaim with astonishment, the beautiful light that we looked on on earth merely as a white globe? What a wonderful and huge thing it is! Now, while we look at it, the earth seems as small to us as the moon did formerly; it looks like a child’s ball. Now we can see how it is that this vast globe was able to darken the sun in the middle of the day; now we know why the moon changed so often, why it appeared sometimes greater, sometimes less; why we saw sometimes only a half or quarter of it, while at other times the whole orb was visible; why, according to the wind and weather, it changed its color and appearance, being pale or red, troubled or clear. Now we can understand the wonderful influence of this heavenly body on earthly affairs, and why doctors had to attend to it when administering drugs or bleeding their patients, and gardeners in sowing and planting. Oh, how happy would the philosophers of old, who spent their lives studying the moon—how happy would they have been if they had known and seen as much of it as we do now! What do you think, my dear brethren, of the journey we have made so far and in such a short time? And at what distance are we from the valley of Josaphat? If we are to believe mathematicians and astronomers, we are already a hundred and twenty thousand, six hundred and thirty Italian miles, that is, fifty-five thousand, one hundred and eighty-three German miles away from the earth; for such, according to the celebrated mathematician, Christopher Clavius, is the distance of the moon from the earth. But we are still a long way from the region of eternal joys.

In that of the sun. Higher still therefore we must go. The other planets that we meet with on the way, although they are much larger than the moon, we shall merely give a glance at, until we come to the sphere of the sun, a region which is, according to Clavius, nine hundred and sixty-four thousand, three hundred and sixty-one German miles from the earth, for if it were nearer to us, it would scorch us up. Here again we have a pleasant surprise awaiting us in the sight and contemplation of such a vast, swift, and beautiful globe of fire, which in the Holy Scripture is called a bridegroom on account of its beauty, and a giant on account of its size; for the sun is a hundred and sixty-six times greater than the earth. Reason indeed shall we have to admire this wonderful masterpiece of the divine omnipotence, which by its rays forms all the metals in the earth, and gives life and increase to trees, plants, flowers, and herbs. We shall say to ourselves with astonishment: how is it possible that such a mighty body runs its whole course in four and twenty hours, as we now know to be the case by our own daily experience, but without wondering at it, for we know not the extent of the sun’s orbit. Those experienced in astronomy tell us that in one hour the sun covers a distance of two hundred and sixty thousand German miles. O infinite power and majesty of God! we shall exclaim; how beautiful and glorious must Thou be in Thyself if a lifeless image of Thee is so glorious and brilliant? Ah, and are we not yet arrived at the place where we shall behold Thee; that place of which Thy servant David said: “The Lord hath built up Sion: and He shall be seen in His glory”?^[4] Are we not yet there? No, my dear brethren; our journey is not yet finished; there are still many things for us to see.

In the firmament among the stars. From the sphere of the sun we ascend into the region of the stars, which is called the firmament, where the fixed stars are that now we can see twinkling pleasantly only during the night. This firmament is at a distance of thirty-eight million, eight hundred and ninety-three thousand and fifty German miles from the earth; so that if an arrow were shot off from here by an impulse such as God alone could give to it, and preserved its original velocity all the way, it would not reach the firmament in less than ninety-two years, supposing it travelled upwards at the rate of two hundred thousand miles an hour; so say astronomers. How we shall gaze and be filled with wonder at the sight of that beautiful sky, so immense in size, and so filled with stars that the Holy Scriptures say they are innumerable; while some of them are thirty-five times greater than the earth, others forty-four times, others seventy-two times, others ninety times, others a hundred and seventy times, and the very smallest eighteen times greater than our earth, although they now appear to us only as small spots of light. Consider, too, how much unoccupied space there is in this vast region; and from that we can form some idea of its immensity. A certain theologian maintains that if God were to turn into a world as large as ours every grain of sand on the sea-shore, those worlds would certainly be innumerable, but even then there would not be enough of them to fill up the heavens. We shall have ocular proof of this when, as we hope, we shall all be on our way together to the city of God; and when we reach that part of our journey we shall almost think in our joy and wonderment that we have already arrived at heaven.

From which the earth is scarcely visible. Let us now stand still a moment and cast a last glance at the place we have come from, the earth. Oh, what a deep abyss! we shall exclaim; and where is the world we lived on during our lives? Where is Europe, that celebrated continent, that was formerly divided into so many kingdoms, duchies, and principalities, for the possession of which so many sovereigns shed torrents of blood and spent years in strife? Where is the town of Treves in which we lived so long? Where is the house in which I passed my life? Ah, we can see nothing of it all! And is that the earth? What a little spot it is compared to the vast place in which we are! It seems no greater than the head of a pin! Oh, what a poor, miserable dwelling we had! In what wretched holes we lived! Good-bye, world! thou art not worth looking at any longer; we have something better to see here. Let us hasten on to the city of God! Are we not there yet? No, incredible as it may seem, we have not yet accomplished the half of our journey; for the firmament where the stars are is as far from the dwelling of the blessed as it is from the earth; and thus from the computations of astronomers we find that if a man were to travel every day eight hundred miles upward from the earth, he could not arrive in heaven under less than eight thousand years. Nay, the distance is so great that all the mathematicians are at fault, and they candidly acknowledge that all their investigations are not enough to enable them to measure the height of heaven. Nevertheless we shall accomplish our journey with the utmost celerity, and without fatigue.

They shall see far more wonderful things in the forecourts of heaven. And thus we come to another heaven called the crystalline. The learned are not agreed as to the matter of which this sphere is formed, but that does not concern us; whatever it be made of, we know that it must be most beautiful, and that it far surpasses all the inferior heavens in brilliancy and glory; for it is nearer to the place of eternal joys, and is, as it were, the first floor, the foundation on which the city of God is built. At last, after having travelled many millions of miles, we arrive at the forecourt of the heaven we so desire, and for which the Prophet David sighed so ardently: “How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts: my soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord. For better is one day in Thy courts above thousands;”^[5] one day there is better than a thousand spent in the pleasures of this world. What a wonderful place! we shall exclaim; we have seen nothing, as it were, till now. Oh, how beautiful and magnificent heaven itself must be if the vestibule to it is so grand! What must not the city of God itself be, since its very foundations are so magnificent? If the place that we now have under our feet, and that we regard only as the hut of a poor peasant, is so splendidly appointed, what must be the edifice in which we shall live with God forever?

Until they come at length to heaven Rejoice, dear souls! Lift up your eyes! Look! we are close to it now; there is the heaven of heavens which on account of its brightness is called the empyrean heaven! There is the place itself, the home of the blessed, the beauty of which is indescribable. of rest for which we sighed so eagerly when on earth. There is our eternal fatherland at which we, formerly poor pilgrims in the vale of tears, have arrived. This is the heaven that God has made as the dwelling-place of His elect; this is the residence of the sovereign Monarch, the court of the King of kings, the palace of the Eternal Father, the temple of His infinite majesty, the heavenly paradise, the place of joys! O heaven! who will give us words and thoughts to describe thy vastness and immensity, thy beauty and glory! When St. Fulgentius saw the city of Rome for the first time, and remarked the number of beautiful buildings that adorn it, he cried out in astonishment: Oh, how magnificent must not be the heavenly Jerusalem, that God Himself has built as a dwelling of joy for Himself and His elect! Ah, palaces and buildings of the kings of this earth! why should I speak of you? You are only miserable huts compared to heaven! But here our words and ideas are at fault, for as the Apostle says, no eye has seen, nor can heart conceive what delights God has prepared in His kingdom for those who love Him truly.

It is inadequately described by St. John. St. John in the Apocalypse gives some sort of an idea of the glory of the kingdom of heaven. I was, he says, taken up in spirit by an angel, and “he showed me the holy city Jerusalem. And the building of the wall thereof was of jasper-stone; but the city itself pure gold, like to clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all manner of precious stones. And the twelve gates are twelve pearls,…and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And the city hath no need of the sun, nor of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God hath enlightened it, and the Lamb is the lamp thereof.”^[6] But, my dear brethren, let St. John say what he pleases about this city and its gold, and crystal, and precious stones, and pearls; he has only given us a poor idea, a most inadequate sketch of it taken from what we look on as most precious on earth; but he is still a long way from the exact truth. We cannot form any picture of it in our minds until we have accomplished the long journey and seen it ourselves in its beauty and glory; it will be the city of the endless joys and glory of the almighty God. Into this city of beauty and delight then we shall make our triumphal entry with Jesus Christ. “Lift up your gates, O ye princes! and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates! and the King of glory shall enter in”^[7] with His chosen flock. Then we shall be led before the throne of the Eternal Father, and a place shall be appointed for each one according to his merits. “And so shall we be always with the Lord,”^[8] as the Apostle says, and rejoice with Him forever. O joy! O exultation! O infinite delight! I can no further picture to myself what thou art!

Folly of man in loving earthly things and forgetting heaven. Ah, I am forced to exclaim, with my holy Father Ignatius, as a consequence of this meditation, “how vile the earth seems to me when I look up to heaven,”^[9] and consider the eternal dwelling of the elect. Poor mortals that we are in this vale of tears! We crawl about like ants in a heap of mud, and moil and toil for a handful of earth, and think so little of our heavenly country! “How ridiculous are the bounds of mortals!”^[10] such are the terms in which even the heathen philosopher Seneca laughs at our vain cares and occupations. Do you know where you are, and for what you are working so hard? You are on the earth; and even if you made the whole of it your own, what better would you be? It is only a little point when compared to the heavenly sphere. Yet this point is divided amongst the people by fire and sword; for the sake of it we fight with each other, and are ready to tear one another to pieces for a garden, or farm, or vineyard, or piece of ground. We go to law for a hand’s breadth of land, or a handful of clay, as if all heaven depended on it, and meanwhile we forget heaven completely. On this little point we strut about and are puffed up with pride, and try to make ourselves great people. In this place of wretchedness we allow ourselves to be befooled by mortal beauty, so that to possess it we renounce all the beauty we could see and enjoy hereafter in heaven. For this handful of earth, this empty smoke, we bo often sell the place of everlasting joy. If there is question of choosing between a piece of money and heaven; between the point of honor and heaven; between a momentary pleasure, the love and society of a creature, and heaven; between revenge and anger, and heaven; away with heaven, we say, as often as we sin; the gold, the honor, the pleasure, that person, vengeance, and self-gratification are dearer to me. O blind mortals that we are! “Glorious things are said of thee, O city of God;”^[11] but fool that I am, I think so little of thee that I often barter thee for a most wretched thing!

Conclusion and exhortation often to think of heaven. Ah, dear Christians, we have now made that joyful journey to the heavenly paradise only in imagination; ah, let us live so during the short time that still remains to us in this vale of tears, and so serve the great God, that what we have been imagining may be one day realized, and that we may make that triumphal entry together into the city of God! We are still on earth and many millions of miles away from our eternal dwelling; but let us lift up our hearts and desires thither daily. “Let us look at the heavens,” says St. Chrysostom, “when there is no cloud in our way, and the whole sky is clear and bright, and let us remain a while in the contemplation of its beauty.”^[12] Look at the sky when it is clear, either by day when the sun is shining, or by night when the stars are twinkling, or between day and night, when we can see the morning aurora or the evening twilight. Can anything be more beautiful? Is there any palace on earth to be compared with it? Gold, silver, precious stones are as nothing before it. Let us remain a while in the contemplation of this beautiful object, and say then to ourselves: still this is not heaven, but only the footstool of God and His saints. And then we can go farther in thought, and say: if the vestibule, the footstool is so grand, what must be the beauty and magnificence of the dwelling itself? How glorious must be the home of the angels, of the Blessed Virgin, of Our Lord Himself? How splendid the throne on which is seated the supreme majesty of God? Whenever we say “Our Father, who art in heaven,” let us recall to our minds with a lively faith that place of joy where our heavenly Father reigns in glory awaiting His children, and that recollection will detach our hearts more and more from the insipid things of earth, and urge us to be more zealous in the divine service. “Thy kingdom come!” Let us say these words to ourselves with a sigh of holy desire. Ah, would we were there! When will the wished-for hour come when I shall ascend thither? “My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord.”

And to despise everything on earth, that we may one day ascend into heaven. Farewell, O earth! Thou hast nothing which can satisfy me; my desires are centred in heaven! Eyes, why should you stare any more at the creatures of this nether world? What you behold here is only vanity. Mortify yourselves now, and put a slight check on your curiosity; there, in the country to which we are travelling, you shall have more beautiful and pleasant things to admire. O my God! let me only arrive there; let me not be excluded from that dwelling; anything else, no matter bow hard and difficult it may be, I readily submit to, if at the end I can only be an inhabitant of Thy house and heavenly palace! Let me be poor for a time; it does not matter. Rich ladies and gentlemen of the world! I do not envy you; if I only get to heaven I shall be wealthy enough! Let me be for a time the lowliest and most despicable of men; what matters it? I do not grudge others the honors they enjoy, provided only I get to heaven. Let me be troubled and oppressed here for a time; O worldlings! I do not envy you your pleasures; it is all nothing to me if I only get to heaven. Let me be sick and suffering for a time; it matters not if I only get to heaven. Let all those in whom I have hitherto placed my affections die prematurely, it matters not; I congratulate you, dear children and friends, who have been taken from me by death, if you are with God in heaven, and if I can see you there one day! For once for all I have resolved that I will go to heaven; I will be with that blessed company which is one day to ascend body and soul in triumph into paradise, and therefore I will serve my God truly, constantly, and with all my strength. Meanwhile before that happy time comes, and as long as I am in this vale of tears, I shall rejoice in the remembrance of thee, O blissful city of God! and with St. Augustine I will say to thee: O heaven! with pleasure do I speak of thee, hear about thee, write and read about thee! Thou art my comfort in sorrow, an alleviation to my pains, an encouragement in difficulties, strength in temptations to sin, hope in sadness, the reward of my labor, the end and object of all my desires. For thee alone do I sigh, thee alone do I desire, in thee alone do I find joy, until my wish shall be fulfilled and I see thee with my own eyes and in thee the God of my love, and rejoice with all the elect forever. Amen.

Another introduction to the same sermon for the second Sunday of Advent.

Text.

Mortui resurgunt.—Matt. xi. 5.

“The dead rise again.”

Introduction.

The dead rise again? Yes. If that is ever by a miracle the case on earth, they come to life indeed, but it is only to die again.

“The dead rise again.” When this happens to us all on the last day, we shall rise to eternal life or to eternal torments. We have already considered the twofold sentence. “Depart from Me, you cursed,” shall be said to the wicked; “Come, ye blessed of My Father,” shall be the sentence pronounced on the just. The latter is joyful as the former is terrible, as we have seen already. The execution of the former we have taken as the subject of one of our meditations: “And these shall go into everlasting punishment.”^[13] “But the just into life everlasting.”^[14] This latter we shall now consider. Plan of discourse as above.

1. Ego diligentes me diligo.—Prov. viii. 17.
2. Super arenam multiplicabuntur.—Ps. cxxxviii. 18.
3. Post hæc vidi turbam magnam, quam dinumerare nemo poterat—Apoc. vii. 9.
4. Ædificavit Dominus Sion, et videbitur in gloria sua.—Ps. ci. 17.
5. Quam dilecta tabernacula tua Domine virtutem: concupiscit et deficit anima mea in atria Domini. Quia melior est dies una in atriis tuis super millia.—Ps. clxxxiii. 2, 3, 11.
6. Et ostendit mihi civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. Erat structura muri ejus ex lapide jaspide, ipsa vero civitas aurum mundum simile vitro mundo. Fundamenta muri civitatis omni lapide pretioso ornata. Et duodecim portæ duodecim margaritæ sunt;…et platea civitatis aurum mundum tanquam vitrum perlucidum. Et civitas non eget sole, neque luna ut luceant in ea; nam claritas Dei illuminavit eam, et lucerna ejus est Agnus.—Apoc. xxi. 10, 18, 19, 21, 23.
7. Attollite portas principes vestras, et elevamini portæ æternales, et introtbit rex gloriæ.—Ps. xxiii. 7.
8. Et sic semper cum Domino erimus.—I. Thess. iv. 16.
9. Quam sordet mihi terra, dum cœlum aspicio.
10. Quam ridiculi sunt mortalium termini!
11. Gloriosa dicta sunt de te, civitas Dei—Ps. lxxxvi. 3.
12. Suspiciamus cœlum, quando nulla se interponit nubes, et clara est omuis ejus corona; deinde ad pulcnritudinem aspectus ejus aliquantulum temporis perduremus.—S. Chrys. in Heb. 3. Hom. 6.
13. Ibunt hi in supplicium æternum.—Matt. xxv. 46.
14. Justi autem in vitam æternam.—Ibid.