this world of sorrow. My dear brethren, St. John Chrysostom, considering the words of the Apostle, “Rejoice in the Lord always: again, I say, rejoice,”[1] makes this remark quite appositely to our subject: “But if here on earth, where there is sickness, disturbance, premature death, persecution, envy, anger, ceaseless plotting, daily care and trouble, and one misfortune after the other to afflict us: if even here Paul tells us that we must always rejoice, what will it be when we have left this earth, when we shall be freed from all evil, and shall have exchanged the vale of tears for the city of God, the kingdom of heaven?” Yes; truly, great Saint! well may you ask what sort of joy shall we have! Ah, if you could only describe it to us and explain it to us! Here I could wish to have for one hour the knowledge that St. Paul had of the joys of heaven, which he saw when he was rapt to the third heaven. But the wish is vain; if I had the knowledge I should not dare to reveal anything of it any more than St. Paul did. Faith alone should and must be enough for us; and it tells us that the joy of the elect in heaven is incomprehensibly great, because heaven is the place of all imaginable delights, both of soul and body. We shall begin to-day by considering the happiness of the soul, since that is the nobler part, and shall make what use we may of what the holy doctors of the Church, specially enlightened by God, and the Holy Scriptures teach on the subject. I say then:
Plan of Discourse.
The souls of the elect shall be filled with joy, even from what they shall possess outside of God. Such is the whole subject. Let us serve God with all our soul and all our strength, that we may possess this joy forever, such should be the conclusion made by each one of us.
Help us hereto, O Creator of all joys! through the intercession of Mary, the Queen of heaven, and of our holy guardian angels.
Every faculty of the soul shall be filled with joy in heaven. The soul of man consists of three powers, namely, the memory, the understanding, and the reasoning will. By the memory it recalls past things; by the understanding it knows and grasps what it sees and is conscious of in the present; and by the will it desires or fears, loves or hates, feels sorrow or joy. Now if all these powers have a consoling and pleasant object presented to them, the whole soul is completely happy. And that it is
- ↑ Gaudete in Domino semper: iteram dico, gaudete.—Philipp. iv. 4.
