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
