think of it when I retire to rest in the evening; in heaven I shall find eternal rest! I will think of it when dressing or undressing; ah, I must be careful not to lose the wedding-garment of sanctifying grace, that I may one day be adorned with the garment of glory in heaven. I will think of it when eating or drinking. I shall be satiated, O Lord! when I shall see Thy glory in heaven. I will think of it in trouble or affliction; by this I can earn heaven as a reward. In cold and heat, in hunger and thirst I will think: I shall have nothing of this to suffer in heaven. When I hear or see anything pleasing I will say to myself: O heaven! what beauty I shall behold in thee! what sweet sounds I shall hear in thee! Whenever people speak to me of the happiness of this world, how rich that man is, how highly he is esteemed by the great, etc., what! I will say to myself, is that worth talking of? Far different is the happiness that awaits me in heaven. When I enter the church either to pray or to hear a sermon, I will think: by hearing this sermon I will encourage myself in the divine service in order that I may gain still more happiness in heaven; and I will pray, with the Catholic Church, “that Thou lift up our minds to heavenly desires, we beseech Thee to hear us!” “Thy kingdom come!” Thus, like the holy apostle St. Paul, although I am still on earth amongst men I shall be always in heaven in desire, and shall be able to say: “Our conversation is in heaven,”[1] until I actually possess what I have so often longed for and desired, and enter body and soul into the eternal joys of heaven, to which my thoughts and wishes are always tending. Amen.
Another introduction to the same sermon for the third Sunday after Epiphany.
Text.
Multi ab oriente et occidente venient et recumbent cum Abraham et Isaac et Jacob in regno cœlorum.—Matt. viii. 11.
“Many shall come from the east, and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”
Introduction.
Shall strangers then possess this beautiful heaven while the children of the kingdom are cast out into the exterior darkness?
- ↑ Nostra conversatio in cœlis est.—Philipp. iii. 20.
