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;”[1] 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.”[2] 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
