is necessary? To gain those objects no watching, fasting, expense in money, begging, humbling myself seemed too much for me; nay, they were easy and pleasing; and even those very means seem difficult to me now and intolerable, and not to be endured, when there is question of using them to gain eternal happiness. What a shameful and degrading weakness!
Exhortation and conclusion to keep all the commandments in future. Ah, my dear brethren, do we wish to go to heaven? If so, why do we take such little trouble about it? Do we not wish to go to heaven? What have we to seek or desire in this world? What do we hope, or fear, or love? Why do we live if all our hopes, fears, desires, longings, lives, labors, and love are not directed to that one necessary business for the sake of which alone we are on this earth, and that is the business of our eternal salvation? If we do not gain heaven, what good will all other things be to us? And must we then hear that terrible reproof from the lips of the divine Judge: “How often would I have gathered together…and thou wouldst not”?[1] How often have I desired to make you happy forever, and you would not accept My offer? O my Lord and my God! before it comes to that I will at once change my will. A hundred times have I said to Thee that I hope for heaven, but I see now that my hope was a deceitful one. A hundred times have I said that I wish to go to heaven, but I see now that my will was weak, nerveless, and half-hearted, a will that led me farther and farther from heaven. One good desire have I had after the other, but without effect; one good resolution after the other, but without fulfilment; the eyes of the mind were opened and looked towards heaven, but the feet remained fixed to the earth; my heart was attached to the world and its vanities. Now I say once for all: 0 my God! I will go to heaven; this is my earnest determination, and I will work for its fulfilment constantly by carefully avoiding all sin and the occasions of sin, and by diligently performing all my duties through a true, zealous love for Thee. And what is wanting to my weak will do Thou supply by Thy powerful grace, 0 Holy Ghost! who on this day didst so wonderfully change the apostles; that thus strengthened by Thy almighty power, I may hope with childlike confidence one day to enter heaven, where I shall see, love, and praise Thee with the heavenly Father, and His blessed Son, my Saviour, Jesus Christ, for all eternity. Amen.
- ↑ Quoties volui congregare…et noluisti.—Matt. xxiii. 37.
