would be the sorrow and anxiety caused by the fear of losing it.
This assurance greatly increases their bliss so that in every moment they have the happiness of eternity. But hope, fear, doubt, away with you! there is no room for you in heaven! Its joys shall be eternal, and the blessed shall moreover be eternally certain that their happiness shall never end. We have the infallible words of Our Lord for this: “Your joy no man shall take from you;”[1] and the blessed see clearly in the beatific vision that this assurance is actually fulfilled, and shall be fulfilled most certainly forever; and each of them can say to himself: I am in heaven, and of my kingdom there shall be no end. Truly, if the greatest torment of the damned in hell is their knowledge that their pains shall be eternal and their fire never quenched, so that they in their despair are always cursing and blaspheming God, on the other hand the joys of the elect in heaven must be increased in no mean degree by the certain knowledge they have of the eternity of their happiness, and they are happy, not only on account of the delights they actually enjoy, but also on account of the pleasures that are to come to them during eternity. For as a foreseen sorrow that is to assail me to-morrow already troubles me to-day, so a foreseen good and happiness that is to fall to my lot to-morrow fills me with joy to-day in anticipation. From this it follows that the blessed in heaven, since they are at each and every moment sure of the eternity of their happiness, enjoy during each and every moment of their existence an eternity of joys together, as if all eternity were present at once in their minds.
Shown by a simile. In olden times it was the custom in Germany not to put more than one dish on the table at a time; when that was finished, a second was placed, and then a third, and so on; thus one could not have more than one kind of food at a time. But now they bring everything, or nearly everything on at once, so that the guests can delight their eyes and please their appetites with all the dishes at once. Here on earth, as far as pleasures are concerned, we eat, so to speak, in the old German style; one joy follows the other; if we are to-day gay and cheerful, we know not what may come to-morrow, or the day after, or still later on; thus each time we enjoy only the present pleasure. But in heaven the dishes shall not be brought in one by one, but all together. Since the elect are sure and certain of an undisturbed eternity, they have all the joys of heaven together, the present as well as the future, and so they shall have them forever. Oh,
- ↑ Gaudium vestrum nemo tollet a vobis.—John xvi. 22.
