Hunolt Sermons/Volume 10/Sermon 49

by Franz Hunolt

FORTY-NINTH SERMON.

ON THE PLEASURES OF SENSE IN HEAVEN.

Subject.

1. There shall be nothing in the kingdom of heaven to cause the body the least pain; 2. There shall be in the kingdom of heaven everything to give the body pleasure.—Preached on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Text.

Assumpta est Maria in cœlum.—From the Office of the day.

"Mary was assumed into heaven."

Introduction.

There is a great difference between the death of Mary, the Mother of God, and that of other saints. Of the latter we say: he died a happy death; his holy soul is with God in heaven, while the body he has left behind is decaying in the grave, or his bones are kept in honor in the churches. But of Mary the Catholic Church sings with all her heart: "Mary was assumed into heaven." That is, not only does her soul rejoice there, but Mary is raised body and soul to a throne of glory in heaven. And that too with good reason. For it is not seemly that the immaculate body, in which the Holy of holies was conceived and remained for nine months, should stay on this earth, and be so long deprived of the heavenly resting-place due to it. No! Mary was assumed into heaven. On this day the Queen of heaven made her triumphal entry with body and soul into the kingdom of heaven. With what joy and exultation that entry took place I leave to your pious thoughts. My dear brethren, shall we too one day be taken up to heaven in the same manner? Yes, if, as we hope, we die a happy death; but that shall not be the case with us until our bodies, that shall have decayed in the grave, shall rise from the dead on the last day; then with body and soul, accompanied by the whole multitude of the elect, we shall make our joyful entry into the city of God, there to be happy forever together. This entry I have described on a former occasion. But now the question arises: shall the body too have its delights in heaven, those delights that we think so much of on earth? Truly, and that too without measure or end, as I now propose to consider.

Plan of Discourse.

There shall be nothing in the kingdom of heaven to cause the body the least pain; such shall be briefly the subject of the first part. There shall be in the kingdom of heaven everything to give the body pleasure; the second part. Therefore let us now for a short time mortify our bodies in this vale of tears for God’s sake, that when we are called from this earth we may find eternal pleasures in heaven.

Such is the conclusion that we beg of Thy grace, O King of glory! through the merits of the Queen of heaven and of the angels, Mary, of whom we again say with pride and joy of heart: “Mary was assumed into heaven.”

On earth this body of ours is tried by all sorts of afflictions. As far as bodily torments are concerned, we know so much of them by daily experience that it is not necessary to describe them in words: They consist in all those adverse things that occasion trouble, discomfort, and pain to the flesh and the senses; such as disquiet, labor, affliction, heat, cold, hunger, thirst, sickness, old age, sorrow, death, without speaking of the exterior injuries that can happen to us in so many ways. It is from these things, my dear brethren, that the evils come that afflict us in this vale of tears at all times, in all places; this is the unlucky inheritance that has descended to us unfortunate children from the sin of our first parents. There is no one in this world who is altogether free from these evils. Even princes, kings, emperors—all men, no matter who they are, have their share in them, or at least have to live in constant dread of them. The poor and needy who have to suffer hunger and thirst, servants and laborers who have to work from morning till night for their daily bread until their bodies are worn out with fatigue, the rich and prosperous with all their wealth and treasures—all have enough care and trouble to occupy them during the day, and even to interfere with their rest at night. The heat of summer, the cold of winter, the darkness of the night, the harshness of the air, the damp of the rains, the turmoil of the winds, the disagreeable change of the seasons, the increase and decrease of the bodily strength are common to all.

All the members of the body are subject to countless defects and diseases. There is no limb of the body that is not subject to its special and even manifold ailments and shortcomings. Galen, the prince of physicians, discovered a hundred and twelve different ailments that attack the eye alone. Pliny is of the opinion that the illnesses that the different members of the body are liable to cannot be counted. Headaches, vertigo, noises in the ears, cancer and polypus in the nose, intolerable toothaches, swellings in the neck, apoplexy, palpitation of the heart, congestion of the liver, aches in the stomach and bowels, spleen, neuralgia, pains in the back and shoulders, gout in the hands and feet, dropsy, jaundice, arthritis, and a host of different fevers that attack the whole body, some of which are ordinary and rooted in the blood, while others come now and then at unforeseen intervals; some of these bring death suddenly, others wear away the body slowly; all of them, no matter what they are, bring discomfort, pain, and sorrow. And even if one is for a time free from all these illnesses, how easy is it not for him to meet with an accident, to stumble and break an arm or leg, and thus be thrown on his bed suffering horrible pain in his whole body? Moreover there are wasps, flies, gnats, and countless other insects that plague and torment us in spite of all our efforts to get rid of them, and, as it were, grow up with us.

Even pleasures may cause discomfort. Nay, even the few small pleasures and joys that this mortal life affords for our recreation and encouragement are themselves very frequently the cause of chagrin and trouble. No matter how carefully and expensively food and drink are prepared, if they are taken in excess they overload the stomach and bring on an attack of illness; rest and sleep, if too long indulged in, make the head heavy and stupid; walking, hunting, dancing, playing, weary the body; carnal pleasures destroy the strength of the body and shorten life; everything else that can give pleasure to the eyes, ears, and other senses, causes only disgust if too long continued. And last of all there is death, the most disagreeable of all to the body and the senses, that dogs our footsteps every moment, and that no man can avoid, although the very thought of it is enough to terrify us. This completely destroys the body, plunders it of every comfort and good that still remained to it on earth, gives it to the worms as their food, causes it to crumble into dust, and fills the survivors with sadness and mourning.

So that it is vain to seek for happiness on earth. Shown by an example. Oh, poor mortals that we are, what a lot is ours after all! Where are we living? With reason does Job sigh forth: “Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries,” even in the brief time of his life. “Who cometh forth like a flower and is destroyed,…and never continueth in the same state.”^[1] And how blind we mortals are still to love this woful and painful prison! Many would think themselves fortunate if they could always escape death and live here forever. And what weeping and wailing there is when a little child dies and is released prematurely out of this vale of tears! We seek our happiness here, but ah, we shall never find it! It will be with us as with St. Maclovius; when he was a simpleminded youth he heard that there was a fortunate island in which no one had to labor or suffer. He embarked in a ship in order to find it. He came to an island, and there found some people of a pale and sickly complexion, who all looked weak and suffering. Then he thought to himself: this must be a very unhealthy place; this cannot be the fortunate island. He went farther and, found an island of which the inhabitants had all clear and beautiful complexions, but their clothes were torn and ragged. Here, he said, the air must be good, but the poverty is great; this cannot be the fortunate island. He goes still farther and comes to a place abounding with riches; but hardly had he set foot on land when he saw that the inhabitants were engaged in a fierce battle in which many were wounded and many lost their lives. How is this? thought he. There is wealth enough here, but it is a very disturbed and turbulent place; it cannot be the happy island. He spent seven years in the search; but in one place he found an excessive heat, in another a piercing cold, in another terrible earthquakes, in a fourth violent storms; here he saw blind people, there cripples and deformed, everywhere sickness, weakness, and death. At the end of the seven years his eyes were opened, and he acknowledged that no place of perfect happiness can be found on this earth, and that therefore all his labor and research were in vain; he then resolved to renounce all earthly things, to shut himself up in a monastery, and there by diligently serving God seek heavenly and eternal happiness. And this resolution he carried into effect.

In heaven there will be nothing of the kind to fear. Christian faith, give us the same light! Open our eves, show us the place where a far different, better, and truly happy life awaits us! Raise our hearts to heaven, for the possession of which after death we are all created! There alone is the truly happy country in which not the least of the evils enumerated can be found or feared. “They shall no more hunger nor thirst,” says St. John in the Apocalypse, speaking of the inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem, as they were described to him by the infallible word of God Himself, “neither shall the sun fall on them, nor any heat.”^[2] There shall be no cold or harsh weather there to annoy them, for summer, winter, spring, autumn., and the other changes of the seasons find no place in the city of God. There will be no darkness or night there, because that heavenly sun is no movable body that hides the light now and then and disappears behind a cloud, marking by its rising and setting the day and night, as we now experience on earth; but it will shine by an invariable light and will make one everlasting and most joyful day. “Nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more;…death shall be no more;”^[3] no fear of death shall ever trouble the elect, for they shall enjoy an everlasting life, and that too a life free from all discomfort and sickness, a life without, change, without chagrin and old age; in a word, a life in which not the least thing can be found to cause pain, sorrow, or annoyance. “You know not what you ask,”^[4] such is the reproof given by Our Lord to the mother and sons of Zebedee, who were asking Him for a seat in His kingdom. But was not their request a reasonable one? Otherwise were they wrong in desiring to attain glory before drinking the chalice of suffering? Yes; that was one reason why they were reproved; but St. Anthony of Padua gives another; they had asked to be allowed to sit, one at the right, the other at the left hand of Our Lord, and therein they showed their great ignorance in thinking that there would be a left side in heaven, “for there is no left side where there is neither adversity nor diminution of happiness.”^[5]

Comfort for the repentant, the afflicted, and those who are heavily laden. Courage, then, pious souls, who spend your days in the constant mortification of your bodies and in works of penance, or who have to earn your bread according to the decrees of Providence in a lowly state, with labor and trouble, and in the sweat of your brows; and you too, poor, oppressed mortals, who through a similar decree of the Almighty are overwhelmed with poverty, sickness, and weakness, persecuted by others, and surrounded on all sides by trials, crosses, and afflictions! Leave to the world its false joys; let it afford its vain pity for your seemingly hapless condition; do you only raise your eyes to heaven, where you will be free from all your miseries. Think to yourselves: here in this vale of tears, in this place of suffering, we are indeed in a miserable state; but it will not be for long. If I now suffer with a good conscience for God’s sake, and bear my cross with patience and resignation to His holy will, I shall have an eternal inheritance in heaven, where all my tears shall be wiped away. Then all that can now afflict and cause me pain shall be banished forever; then there will be an end to all labor, trouble, and suffering, and in their place I shall have endless joy and happiness. So it is, my dear brethren; in heaven, not only will there be nothing that can in the least afflict the body (and if we had that to say on earth we should think ourselves in a heaven of bliss), but in heaven there will be everything that, can delight our bodies and make them most perfectly happy, as we shall see in the

Second Part.

In heaven the body shall have all imagi- The pleasures of the body consist in the things that please and refresh the five outward senses, namely, in hearing and seeing agreeable things, in smelling sweet perfumes, in enjoying good nable pleasures. food and drink, and in agreeable sensations. If all the senses have their full enjoyment at once,—and that rarely happens on this earth,—then the happiness of the body is complete. Imagine now, my dear brethren, as well as you can, each and everything that can delight eyes, ears, smell, taste, and touch in a lawful manner, and raise that delight to the highest degree that the mind of man can conceive in this life, even then you will have only an imperfect sketch of the pleasures we shall enjoy in heaven. So speaks the mellifluous doctor, St. Bernard: “that happiness exceeds all thought and all desire.”^[6] And truly that the body with its senses shall have its pleasures and delights in heaven, besides the bliss that shall inundate the soul in the vision of God, is infallibly certain from the Holy Scriptures, the Fathers of the Church, and the very name itself of eternal happiness. For what is happiness? According to theologians with Boetius, “it is a state made perfect by the aggregation of every possible good;”^[7] it is the seat and safe dwelling of all desirable pleasures, and therefore nothing can be wanting to it which is good and can serve to delight; hence since the pleasures of sense belong thereto, they also must necessarily be found in heaven.

And the body has a right to this, because it too has worked for heaven. Justice, too, and equity demand this. He who labors, as the old saying goes, must eat; and he who helps to earn must have his wages. A general would act unjustly if after having won a battle or captured a town he kept all the spoils for himself alone, and his soldiers who helped him to victory by shedding their blood and fighting for him would have good reason to complain if there were no share of the booty for them. It is true that the human soul, which alone is endowed with reason, has the chief and greatest part here in this life in serving God and gaining heaven; it must command and keep the members and senses of the body in order, and urge them on to fight and labor in order to keep the commandments of God. But what could the soul do if the body with its senses did not help it? This latter, like the common soldiers in a battle, has the heaviest part of the work to do in the observance of the commandments: the eyes must often mortify themselves so as not to see; the ears so as not to hear; the hands so as not to touch anything that could inflame the passions; the taste must fast, or against its inclination often abstain from forbidden food or from excess in eating or drinking; the flesh is chastised to prevent it from wantonly giving way to those desires to which it is constantly and violently inclined by a perverse nature; the whole body is burdened heavily by having to bear all kinds of sickness, pain, discomfort, and other inconveniences; and hence it would not be just if it too had not its share of reward.

For God is as just in rewarding the good as in punishing the wicked. Besides, if this were not the case we should have to say that God is more severe in punishing the wicked than good in rewarding the just, which is altogether opposed to the infinite goodness of His nature. In hell the reprobate suffer, not only in their souls, but also in all the senses and members of their bodies. Terrible darkness and hideous phantoms torment the eyes, clamorous howlings and noises afflict the ears, an intolerable stench fills the nostrils, the taste is tortured by hunger and thirst, by the gall of asps and serpents, while the whole body burns in fire forever. And this punishment is just, because during life the body helped in the enjoyment of various sinful pleasures. And it cannot be less right and just that the body, which has mortified itself and its senses in different ways here on earth for God’s sake, should hereafter in a happy eternity receive different kinds of enjoyments from that God whose mercy and generosity are manifested in all His works. Truly there cannot be a doubt of this!

And since God is a great Lord, those pleasures shall be almost infinite. But it is equally certain that the pleasures of the body and its senses in heaven shall be infinitely greater than those we enjoy in this vale of tears, if we only consider the Person who will confer those pleasures as a reward for service truly rendered Him. When a great lord on earth gives a public festival, it must correspond to the greatness and magnificence of the giver. Ham and sausage, wine and beer, a fiddle or a bagpipe to make a little music would do well enough for a peasant’s wedding feast; but if an emperor or a king has a gala day far more pomp and splendor are required.

Shown by a simile from Scripture. Not without reason has the Holy Scripture described so minutely the feast that King Assuerus gave the princes and nobles of his kingdom. Read the first chapter of the Book of Esther and you will be amazed at it. The banquet lasted a hundred and eighty days; the place where it was held was an earthly paradise. “In the court of the garden, and of the wood, which was planted by the care and the hand of the king. And there were hung up on every side sky-colored and green and violet hangings, fastened with cords of silk and of purple, which were put into rings of ivory, and were held up with marble pillars. The beds also were of gold and silver, placed in order upon a floor paved with porphyry and white marble, which was embellished with painting of wonderful variety.” Wine too was there in abundance, as suited the magnificence of the king, and it was of the best quality, while the attendants were the chief ministers of the king himself. And to what end all this profusion? “That he might show the riches of the glory of his kingdom, and the greatness and boasting of his power.”^[8] Great and infinite God! wilt Thou then hereafter yield to Thy poor creatures, who can do nothing without Thee, in glory and magnificence? If Thy earthly vassals, who with all their pomp can only give us a dim idea of Thy heavenly splendor, if they in this vale of tears can afford such pleasures and delights to the senses according to the insignificant dignity of their persons, what wilt Thou do? What shall we have to see, to hear, to taste, to feel in Thy palace, where Thou wilt prepare a joyful and splendid feast for Thy dearest friends and children, to show the infinite, immense glory of Thy kingdom of heaven and the greatness of Thy divine power? Truly, my dear brethren, any effort of the imagination we can make here must fall far short of the reality. It is a God, the King and Monarch of all monarchs, of whose greatness there is neither end nor measure, who will in heaven display His splendor and magnificence, especially in the rewarding of His just servants. “I am…thy reward exceeding great.”^[9] He says Himself. From this alone we can form some idea of the superabundance of the delights of the body in heaven. They must be joys beseeming and befitting the infinite majesty of God and the state of perfect happiness, and therefore joys with which no earthly pleasures can be compared; joys that shall delight the senses and feelings in the most perfect manner.

Indescribable shall be the pleasure of the eyes. And in the first place, besides the brightness and beauty of the heavenly palace, the eternal dwelling of God, and the proper home of happiness, which we have already often had as the subject of our meditations, oh, what beautiful and pleasing objects shall there be presented to the view! Many are of the opinion that we shall see the divine nature itself, not only with the mind, but also with the eyes of the body, which shall be supernaturally strengthened for the purpose of enabling them to behold a pure spirit; and this opinion is founded on the words of the Prophet Job by which he consoles himself in his misfortune seated on the dunghill: “I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God. Whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold.”^[10] Be that as it may, theologians will take a long time to decide the question. Let us be satisfied then with this undoubted fact: that the whole divinity shall be manifested to the soul alone. In any case the eyes of the body shall find a heaven of pleasure quite enough to satisfy them when they see their companions in glory, who will then be most pure and beautiful beings. The soldiers of Holofernes were struck with astonishment when they saw the great beauty of Judith: “Their eyes were amazed, for they wondered exceedingly at her beauty.” Holofernes himself was quite captivated at the first sight of her: “And when she was come into his presence, forthwith Holofernes was caught by his eyes.”^[11] Now if such an effect can be produced by a changeable beauty that must soon become the food of worms (and experience teaches that bodily comeliness almost bewitches and fascinates the beholders), how pleasing must it not then be to have continually before the eyes countless beauties in immortal and glorified bodies, who love each other most tenderly and are beloved in return! What joy and inexpressible bliss it will be for you, O eyes! to see the Queen of angels, the greatest Lady of the world, the most beautiful of mere creatures, the Virgin Mother of the Sovereign God, Mary herself in all her glory and majesty! When St. Denis saw her on earth, before she had put on the attributes of glory, if faitli had not kept him back, he would have adored her as God; so he wrote to St. Paul the apostle. And what a joyful sight shall be presented to our eyes in the glorified humanity of Jesus Christ, Our Saviour! Holy St. Chrysostom! the great object of thy wishes was to see “Rome flourishing, Paul preaching, and Christ in His mortal flesh.”^[12] Oh, more than happy shall I be if one day with thee I shall behold in eternity the heavenly city Jerusalem with all its joys, Paul and the other apostles on their thrones, and Christ, my Saviour, in His glory! Then shall I cry out with Peter: “Lord, it is good for us to be here.”^[13] Here we wish to remain forever! If there was no other pleasure in heaven than this, it would be enough to make a heaven of itself.

Of the ears. Besides, how the ears of the elect shall be delighted when they hear the sweet music and* the delicious harmony that so many millions of angels offer their God, as St. John tells us in the fifth and fourteenth chapters of the Apocalypse, according to what he heard himself: “And I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the living creatures and the ancients: and the number of them was thousands of thousands.…And the voice which I heard was as the voice of harpers harping on their harps. And they sung, as it were, a new canticle.”^[14] Then I heard the voices of a great multitude in heaven crying out: Alleluia! O my God! what singers, and voices, and melodies shall be heard at Thy throne! Let all musicians of earth be still before that harmony. A single note of the violin that an angel played for the seraphic St. Francis in his illness sounded so wonderfully sweet that the saint thought he was already in heaven, and was on the point of expiring for happiness. We read the same in the Lives of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, of St. Martin, of the Blessed Servulus, and of other servants of God who heard the song of the angels before their death; the effect of that was to fill them with such a great desire of getting to that place of joys, a drop of which had fallen on them, that they were filled with disgust of this earthly life.

Of the smell. And what are we to say of the pleasures of smell in that heavenly garden where there are so many glorified bodies of the saints, of whom the Church sings: “They shall be before Thee as the odor of balsam”?^[15] The world knows by experience that the bodies of many saints gave forth a most sweet odor after their death, and what is still more wonderful, that a sweet perfume came frequently from their bones, a perfume such as could not be found in any earthly spices. Baronius writes that even during their lives the martyrs, when they were brought out of the foul prisons in which they had been confined, filled the air with such an agreeable aroma that the heathens, astonished at the sweetness thereof, imagined them to have been anointed with some precious balsam. How will it then be in the land of the living, in the land of glory, when in this sojourn of death bodies destined to corruption can emit such sweet odors?

Of the taste. And, O King of glory, Jesus Christ! how Thou wilt delight our sense of taste and satiate it in that marriage-feast, in that great supper, to which Thou hast so often invited us in the Gospel, and by the promise of which Thou didst console Thy sorrowing disciples before Thy departure from this world! “I dispose to you, as My Father hath disposed to Me, a kingdom, that yon may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom.”^[16] How well that new wine shall taste, of which Thou saidst to Thy disciples at the Last Supper: “I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father.”^[17] Then shall we rejoice with Thee, not merely for a hundred and eighty days as in the festival of King Assuerus, but that heavenly supper shall last for all eternity. Then no princes of this world, but Thou Thyself, O Lord! in Thy infinite glory and magnificence, shalt be our attendant, according to Thy own promise: “Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching: Amen I say to you, that He will gird Himself, and make thein sit down to meat, and passing will minister unto them.”^[18] Not otherwise than a loving grandfather who assembles all his children and children’s children at his table, and serves each one himself, rejoicing exceedingly to see his dear ones making merry with each other. Then shall the prophecy of David be fulfilled: “They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Thy house: and Thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of Thy pleasure.”^[19]

Of the touch. Finally, as in hell the bodies of the damned shall be tormented excessively by fire in the sense of touch, so this sense shall experience the greatest pleasure in heaven. Sometimes if you ask a sick man how he is, he can only answer: I am aching all over; all my limbs are filled with pains. If one were to ask a saint in heaven how it is with his glorified body, his only answer could be: it is well with me all over. For like a fish surrounded with water, he swims in an ocean of delights and pleasures: when he enters into heaven he hears the words: “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord,”^[20] so as to he completely immersed therein. Thus all the senses have their own special and perfect satisfaction; and hence the pleasures of the body in heaven are so complete that nothing better can be desired. There is nothing there that can cause the least discomfort to the bodies of the blessed; there is everything, and that too in abundance, that can give them delight and pleasure in the highest degree.

Conclusion and resolution to mortify the senses here, that they may enjoy the delights of heaven hereafter. Christians! who is there who would not be inflamed with desire and longing for such a place of joys? I have not the least doubt that all of us here present unanimously wish to get there. But hear what St. Gregory says: “One cannot attain a great reward unless by great labor.”^[21] The senses, to which endless delights are promised in heaven, must now be mortified and kept in restraint, that they May earn the reward of eternal joys; the senses, I repeat, that are now the greatest enemies of our souls, that do the most to keep us out of heaven if we concede too much to their wanton desires; for it is from them that almost all sin and the material of eternal damnation come. Ah, let us think, whenever they try to lead us to forbidden or dangerous things: is this short-lived, miserable pleasure worth sacrificing the eternal joys of heaven for? Let us think, whenever we find it hard to restrain them: is it not worth my while to bear a slight mortification for the sake of the eternal joys of heaven? Let us think when our bodies are tormented and oppressed by hard labor, cold, heat, or sickness: is it not worth my while to bear this and much more for God’s sake in order to gain the everlasting joys of heaven? When one invites a good friend to table, and sees him eating too eagerly of some inferior dish, one is wont to say: leave a little room; there is something better to come. The pleasures of sense that God allows us in this world are, so to speak, only coarse, inferior food placed before us at first; therefore if my senses are apt to fall upon them too greedily I will say to them: wait a while; something better and more agreeable is coming; we shall have, when we are in heaven, greater pleasures and delights than all that you could desire or wish for on earth. And much more earnestly shall I say that, if they try to lead me into something contrary to the will of God. Eyes, I shall say, why should you wish to see what you may not have? Keep your curiosity for something better and more beautiful; in heaven I will gratify you to the top of your bent. Ears, why should you wish to hear conversation or stories that will disturb my conscience? Wait a while; there is something better coining; something far more agreeable in heaven that will delight you forever. Excessive eating and drinking, you are not permitted me! I will keep my appetite for a better feast; in heaven my taste shall be fully gratified. Away with all impure, carnal lusts! I do not wish even to think of you! Everything shall be banished and renounced once for all that could give the least occasion to you! Better, purer, holier, and immense joys await me in my heavenly country; these I will seek in prosperity and adversity; for them I will strive with all my might; for their sake I will cheerfully bear every cross and suffering, as long as and in whatever degree it pleases God. With the assured hope of possessing them one day I will console myself for the present in this vale of tears, until I shall enjoy them in the land of the living in heaven. Amen.

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1. Homo natus de muliere, brevi vivens tempore, repletur multis miseris. Qui quasi flos egreditur et conteritur,…et nunquam in eodem statu permanet.—Job xiv. 1, 2.
2. Non esurient, neque sitient amplius; nec cadet super illos sol, neque ullus æstus.—Apoc. vii. 16.
3. Neque luctus, neque clamor, neque dolor erit ultra;…mors ultra non erit.—Ibid. xxi. 4.
4. Nescitis quid petatis.—Matt. xx. 22.
5. Ibi non erit sinistra, quia nec adversitas, nec gaudium diminutum.
6. Excedit cogitatum omnem, desiderium omne exsuperat illa felicitas.—S. Bern. Serm. de verb. Petri. Ecce nos.
7. Status omnium bonorum aggregatione perfectus.
8. In vestibulo hortis et nemoris, quod regio cultu et manu consitum erat. Et pendebant cx omni parte tentoria ærei coloris, et carbasini, ac hyacinthini, sustentata funibus byssinis atque purpureis, qui eburneis circulis inserti erant, et columnis marmoreis fulciebantur. Lectuli quoque aurei et argentei super pavimentum smaragdino et pario stratum lapide, disposti erant, quod mira varietate picturra decorabat. Ut ostenderet di vitias gloriæ regni sui, ac magnitudinem atque jactantiam potentiæ suæ.—Esth. i. 5, 6, 4.
9. Ego merces tua magna nimis.—Gen. xv. 1.
10. Rursum circumdabor pelle mea, et in carne mea videbo Deum meum. Quem visurus sum ego ipse, et oculi mei conspecturi sunt.—Job xix. 26. 27.
11. Erat in oculis eorum stupor, quoniam pulchritudinem ejus mirabantur nimis. Cumque intrasset ante faciem ejus, statim captus est in suis oculis Holofernes.—Judith x. 14, 17.
12. Romam in flore, Paulum in ore, Christum in carne.
13. Domine, bonum est nos hic esse.—Matt. xvii. 4.
14. Et audivi vocem angelorum multorum in circuitu throni, et animalium et seniorum; et erat numerus eorum illia millium.…Et vocem quam audivi sicut citharædorum citharizantium in citharis suis. Et cantabant quasi canticum novum.—Apoc. v. 11; xiv. 2, 3.
15. Sicut odor balsami erunt ante te.
16. Dispono vobis, sicut disposuit mihi Pater meus, regnum, ut edatis et bibatis super mensam meam in regno meo.—Luke xxii. 29, 30.
17. Non bibam amodo de hoc genimine vitis, usque in diem illum, cum illud bibam vobiscum novum in regno Patris mei.—Matt. xxvi. 29.
18. Beati servi illi quos cum venerit Dominus, invenerit vigilantes: amen dico vobis, quod præcinget se, et faciet illos discumbere, et transiens ministrabit illis.—Luke xii. 37.
19. Inebriabuntur ab ubertate domus tuæ: et torrente voluptatis tuæ potabis eos.—Ps. xxxv. 9.
20. Intra in gaudium Domini tui.—Matt. xxv. 21.
21. Ad magna præmia pervenire non potest, nisi per magnos labores.