Recollection of and Meditation on Heaven.
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a brilliant light, and was sensible of a most sweet perfume which was so delicious that she acknowledged she never experienced such pleasure in her whole life. Thereupon she declared herself a Christian; she braved the wrath of her tyrannical husband, offered her head to the executioner, and gained for her soul eternal joys. See how powerful is even a dim recollection of heaven.
Exhortation and resolution to think of heaven in all circumstances.
My dear brethren, let us often make use of this medicine, for it is useful, nay, necessary in the prosperous as well as the adverse circumstances of this life in order to keep us faithful to the service of God. “Look upon heaven” in all occurrences, like the mother of the Machabees. Let us raise the eyes of the mind to heaven in prosperity that our hearts may not become attached to worldly goods. Let us raise them thither in trouble and adversity that we may bear everything with patience and courage. Palladius tells us that whenever the Abbot Apollo saw any of his brethren sad and melancholy, he used to speak to him as follows: My dear brother, why should we be sad? Let those give way to sadness who care only for the things of earth and to whom the hope of heaven brings no comfort. Jesus Christ has promised us eternal happiness; our hope does not deceive us, we are going to heaven; what then should we trouble about? The same words I should like to say to every afflicted Christian who is downcast and almost driven to desperation either by poverty, or constant illness, or because he is abandoned by all, or by the loss of temporal goods, or by the trials and annoyances that he has daily to contend with: How is this, dear brother, dear sister? why do you moan and weep? Why are you so downhearted? Is your conscience perhaps not right before God? If so, then weep away, for you have good reason! But if that is not the case; if you are heartily sorry that you have ever offended God; if you have candidly confessed your sins and are determined to serve God faithfully in future, why, then, should you be sad? Only think of the everlasting joys of heaven that will be your inheritance, and you will forget this short-lived sorrow. And these words I shall also apply to myself in future; and that they may recur to my mind all the quicker in every circumstance, I will acquire the holy habit of every day frequently raising my heart to heaven; I will think of it when I rise in the morning, and sigh forth: ah, when will the time come for me to ascend thither in order to see my God? I will