ON THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
FORTY-SEVENTH SERMON.
ON THE JOY THAT THE ELECT SHALL HAVE IN HEAVEN OUTSIDE OF GOD.
Subject.
The souls of the elect shall be filled with joy, even from what they shall possess outside of God.—Preached on the feast of the Apostles SS. Philip and James.
Text.
Non turbetur cor vestrum; in domo Patris mei mansiones multæ sunt.—John xiv. 1, 2.
“Let not your heart be troubled; in My Father’s house there are many mansions.”
Introduction.
And why, O Lord! should we not be troubled? How could we feel glad or cheerful in this sorrowful vale of tears, in the midst of dangers and calamities, and at such a distance from our eternal country, for which we must constantly sigh and yearn? Yes, says Our Lord; even here you must put away all sadness out of your hearts; you, I mean, My faithful servants, who always try to do My Father’s will: “Let not your heart be troubled;” for remember what joy is prepared for you after this short life. “In My Father’s house there are many mansions,” and now I am going there to prepare a place for you. Have patience only for a little while: “I will come again, and will take you to Myself, that where I am you also may be,” namely, in the joys of heaven. With the hope and expectation of this future happiness you can rejoice even while you are in 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 which makes the perfect happiness of the soul in heaven for all eternity, even outside the good it possesses in God, the Fountain of infinite happiness. All that it remembers outside of God, all that it knows and grasps outside of God, all that it wishes and desires outside of God will cause it unspeakable joy and pleasure.
The memory shall rejoice in the recollection of the dangers incurred on earth. Shown by a simile. With regard to the memory, it can rejoice even at the recollection of sad events. Thus a soldier who has escaped out of a bloody battle, in which the greater number of his comrades were left dead on the field, and who has returned victorious after long fighting, has reason to rejoice whenever his thoughts go back to the danger in which he was, and in which so many lost their lives, and to the good fortune he now enjoys. How lucky I am, he says to himself; I am among the few who have saved their lives and won the victory. And the greater the danger, the greater must be his joy at having escaped. My dear brethren, as long as we are in this mortal life on earth we are soldiers engaged in battle, and we have to defend ourselves amid blows and cuts, and are still uncertain as to whether we shall escape or not. On all sides we are surrounded by powerful foes, and if they get the better of us we shall have to suffer an eternal death. “We have to fight,” says St. Cyprian, “with avarice, impurity, ambition, and impatience,” which try to lead us into sin. Our most bitter and invisible enemies are the demons and their satellites, who lie in wait for our souls night and day. And what should occasion us the greatest alarm, our faith teaches us that the greater number of men succumb in the struggle and are lost forever; and that the smaller number gain the victory and eternal life (although the number of the elect is countless, still it is small compared to that of the reprobate). Hence if you ask those who are really desirous of saving their souls and serving God truly with all their hearts, what it is that occasions them most anguish, they will tell you that they are terrified most at knowing that they are always in danger of offending God, whom they love above all things, and losing their souls, which they are most eager to save. For that reason hermits seek the deserts and wildernesses, and religious love their cloisters and convents, because there they are more safe from that danger; therefore they sigh with St. Paul: “To me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”[2] I would willingly serve Christ till the end of my life, but since I am exposed to so many dangers of losing Him, I look on death as a gain, because it will place me in safety where I can never lose Him again.
From which the soul is now saved and placed in eternal security. How great then must not be the consolation and joy of the soul that, freed from all dangers, finds itself in safety, when it remembers its former condition? That very remembrance will make the elect soul eternally happy; it will recall all the temptations with which it was assailed during life, and that it resisted by the grace of God; all the occasions of sin in which it was and from which it escaped; all the dangers in which it should have fallen if it had not been protected by God’s special grace and the help of its holy guardian angel; all its past, even mortal sins, for which it did penance and which were thus blotted out. O my God! it will say; how easily I might have been lost forever! In that house, that company, that garden, in those allurements, that occasion, that violent temptation, how near I was to losing Thy grace! If death had come to me when I was in the state of sin I should now be in the fire of hell. How many thousand others have fallen, and shamefully fallen in the same temptations, occasions, and in far less dangers, and they are now with the demons in hell? Ah, how easily that might have been my fate too! Infinite thanks to Thee, God of mercy! the danger is now over; I have happily escaped it; with the happy few of the elect I have won the game. Eternal fire of hell, I fear thee no longer! Unhappy eternity, thou art no more a source of dread to me; I am in heaven! Now I am no longer in uncertainty as to whether I shall fall or not; there is no weakness in me now that can succumb to difficulties; no evil inclination that can dare to allure me to offend the God of my love; now I am sure that I shall never lose Him. There, in the abyss of hell, are burning many millions, and I am in heaven, and shall be there forever! Oh, what an incomprehensible joy this recollection brings with it! Imagine, my dear brethren, that we are already with the blessed in heaven in the place of safety; what a consolation it must be for us to look back on those things as the elect do?
In the recollection of the graces received from God. This joy will be increased by another recollection calculated to comfort and console; for during all eternity the soul shall be mindful of all the benefits, general and particular, spiritual and corporal, that it received from the hands of God during life; and it will recall the wonderful secret ways and means by which Divine Providence led it to its last end. God, it will say, has caused me, in preference to so many millions of men, to be born and bred in a Catholic country of Catholic parents. Oh, what a great grace this is! If I had been born among heathens or Turks, or of heretical parents, how would it have been with me? I should have led as bad a life in unbelief as others, and have died as they did, and of course I should now be in hell as they are; but I am in heaven! From my earliest years God gave me a tender devotion and love towards His Blessed Mother Mary, from whose hand I have received so many graces; by the help and favor of that Mother I have been enabled to die a happy death and to gain eternal happiness. When I heard that sermon at which I was present by chance, or read that spiritual book that happened to fall into my hands, I received that light and knowledge. If my good angel had not taken care of me, I should have persisted in my ignorance, tepidity, and carelessness of my salvation, and in the wickedness and vices to which I was growing accustomed; that knowledge was the beginning of my reform, and of the good life I led afterwards; from that time I regularly heard the word of God by which I was encouraged to good, strengthened against temptations, and kept in the state of grace. Now I am in heaven!
Of difficulties overcome. God has often by a special grace visited me with crosses and trials, by which He led me on the way that all His elect must travel, and made me follow the example of His crucified Son. At first it was hard for me; but, O good cross! how beneficial thou wert to me afterwards; if I had been freed from thee, I should, like so many others, have gone astray on the broad road that leads to eternal ruin! Golden poverty to which Divine Providence brought me, how salutary thou wert for me! If I had been rich, the vain world would have counted me in the number of its children, and I should not have found any place among Thy elect. The want of temporal goods taught me to be humble, to fly idleness as the root of many sins, and to raise my heart and desires to heavenly things. Desirable sickness and bodily pains with which God visited me at that time, what great merit you have brought me! If I had been always strong and healthy, I should have often been in dangerous occasions of sin. That illness lessened my bodily strength, and kept the wanton flesh under control. Happy contempt and persecution that I had to suffer from men, how advantageous you were to me! You taught me not to depend on the world, but to place all my trust in my Creator alone. Dear sorrow and desolation, that I had to suffer when husband, wife, father, mother, dearest child was taken from me by a premature death! Ah, what do I not owe you! Then I learned to know the inconstancy and transitory nature of all earthly joys and comforts, and how to resign myself humbly and contentedly in all things to the will of God, and then too I was able to say from my heart: “Our Father, who art in heaven, Thy will be done! “All these troubles and difficulties have been happily overcome; they are now vanished forever, and I am in possession of eternal joys! Now I shall praise and extol for all eternity the great mercy and manifold graces that the Lord showed me: “The mercies of the Lord I will sing forever.”[3] Oh, truly joyful, my dear brethren, are the memories that occur to the blessed in heaven! What could be more consoling?
Of the good works done during life. Still there is another thing that increases this joy of the memory; it is the recollection of the good works and merits that the elect amassed during life, for which they now receive such an exceeding great reward in eternity. O my God! they will think, I am in heaven, and what have I done to get here? I have not shed my blood, nor endured pains and torments like the holy martyrs who rejoice with me in glory; I have not labored to that end till the last day; how is it that such a great reward has fallen to me? Oh, how little I have done for it! A few years ago, while I was still on earth, I began to serve Thee, my God, and to keep Thy commandments, none of which after that I ever transgressed grievously; and while engaged in Thy service, under Thy sweet yoke I enjoyed the utmost peace and comfort of mind, and a repose of conscience that I would not have exchanged for any pleasure in the world. And is that all I did? Yes; that is all. And on account of it I am now in the glory of my Lord! So little have I paid for heaven! I have often sinned, and afterwards sincerely repented and tried to be all the more zealous in the performance of good works in order to make some atonement for the insults I offered Thee; and for that I now receive as a reward an ocean of delights! I have for God’s sake practised a little mortification in rising in the morning, I have spent half an hour in devotion, said my morning prayers (the words I used to say with assembled people during my life are still ringing in my ears: “All for the honor and glory of God”), I directed my daily duties to the honor of God by the good intention, etc.; is it possible that these things have gained for me so many happy eternities as I see to be actually the case? Hearing holy Mass daily, saying the rosary, making the evening examen of conscience, going to confession and Communion every week or fortnight, observing the fasts and abstinences prescribed by the Church, giving a small alms now and then to the poor according to my means, visiting the siek and attending on them occasionally, mortifying my outward senses, overcoming human respect, avoiding dangerous company, meekly bearing the faults and failings of others, forgiving those who have injured me, being a little zealous in leading to God those under my care: these things are the seed that I sowed during my life-time; for they are all the good I remember doing; and an eternal, immortal, divine glory is the fruit I gather from them now in heaven!
For which an eternal reward is now to be received. O my God! I imagine that all these works are worth nothing or very little, and I should consider myself as mure than fortunate if they gained for me the very lowest place in Thy kingdom; but now I hear Thee saying: “Friend, go up higher.”[4] My dear child, a greater degree of glory is yours! Now I must acknowledge that to be true which I formerly read in Thy Holy Scripture, but did not then understand: “Behold with your eyes how I have labored a little, and have found much rest to myself.”[5] Truly, O my God! only for a short time and very little have I labored; and for that I have found eternal rest! Now, O holy St. Paul! my companion in everlasting joys, now do I indeed realize the truth of thy words: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us.”[6] All that we do during our lives, all that we suffer and endure, is nothing compared to the glory that awaits us as a reward for it in eternity. Yes; now I know by experience how little I have done. How great and superabundant are the joy and glory in which I now reign forever! Alleluia! O God of my love! eternal thanks and praise to Thee! There, my dear brethren, you have a slight sketch of joys of memory that shall be ours unchangeably for all eternity in the kingdom of heaven, even without counting what we shall possess in God Himself if we shall only have the happiness of being in the number of the elect.
The mind shall be filled with joy in understanding all the mysteries of the faith. With regard to the understanding, it has its greatest and highest pleasure in the knowledge of those things that it wishes to know and understand; a desire of knowledge, as we have seen al ready, that has induced many to renounce all their possessions, to sacrifice their repose and comfort, their health, and even life itself, that they might devote themselves altogether to the study and investigation of interesting facts with which they were after all only dimly acquainted, llave a little patience, curious souls! in heaven your desire for knowledge shall be fully satisfied. Besides what we have seen with our bodily eyes in the triumphant procession from the valley of Josaphat to the city of God, oh, what new and beautiful objects shall be offered to our minds to know and clearly understand when we shall be together in the heavenly Jerusalem! And in the first place we shall understand those truths that are now incomprehensible to our minds, and that the brightest intellectshave in vain tried to master; truths that would never have occurred to us as possible even, if faith had not suggested them to us. Then we shall understand the mystery of the resurrection of the dead, and how the same body, this very flesh of ours, after having decayed in the earth and been eaten by worms, after the bones have crumbled away into dust and been converted into earth,—how the same flesh shall rise in its integrity and become alive again as it was before. We shall see and experience how these bodies of ours, that are now so gross, shall after having been glorified be able to pass through the hardest stone, steel, and iron without trouble, and without leaving behind the slightest trace of their passage; and how they shall be able to accomplish in a moment, if we only wish, the immense journey between heaven and earth, just as we now ascend in thought into heaven and come back to earth again in a moment. We shall understand the wonderful power of the fire of hell, and how the souls and bodies that are confined therein burn forever without being consumed. We shall know and clearly understand all the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, all the prophecies contained therein, all the mysteries of the incarnation, birth, passion, and death of Our Lord, the oft-repeated and still existing incomprehensible mystery of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar: how, namely, the whole of Our Lord’s humanity is completely present in every particle of the elements in virtue of the words of the priest, and present at the same time in countless different parts of the world, without being multiplied, and received by us in the shape of our natural food without being dissolved in the stomach. We shall understand (but not fully comprehend) the great mystery of the Most Blessed Trinity; how the Son is generated by the Father from all eternity, and shall be so generated for all eternity, although the Father is not before the Son; how the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, and how these three distinct Persons are but one God. It was a sublime knowledge of this kind that made David cry out rejoicing beforehand in spirit: “I studied that I might know this thing; it is a labor in my sight;” all my investigations result in nothing; I cannot understand it “until I go into the sanctuary of God.”[7] I must wait till then, and I shall understand everything. A single small ray, the merest spark of infused knowledge (although it is in no way to be compared to the light of glory by which we shall see God face to face), wonderfully illuminated the mind and intellect of a weak woman, St. Theresa. A similar ray enlightened St. Ignatius Loyola, a soldier accustomed to the use of the sword, but not at all to the pen. And what have not the apostles done with a single spark of this light that they received from the Holy Ghost? Oh, what shall not then be disclosed to us, what shall we not learn in the kingdom of heaven when we shall see God clearly as He is in Himself? This should be to us as great a source of joy as it was to David.
And in having all natural knowledge. Again, the mind shall fully grasp and understand all the natural knowledge, all the qualities, powers, virtues, and efficacy of all creatures that have ever been created by God from the beginning of the world. No matter what I may now learn and know in this life of the arts and sciences, or how profound my knowledge may be, there must still be an infinite number of things that I know nothing about. For while studying one science, I forget or lessen the knowledge I have of another that I learned formerly. The influence of things present, and the images we form of them often destroy altogether the memory of past events. But at the first sight of God, the Source of all truth, knowledge, and science, I shall understand and know more than all the most learned theologians on earth ever knew, although they devoted their lives to study; I shall understand and know more than all philosophers, naturalists, astronomers, and geographers; in a word, more than all the scientists of the whole world. Now, in spite of the long time we devote to study, how little we are able to know thoroughly! We see the earth, the trees, the herbs with our eyes, but we rarely have a thorough knowledge of their nature. Philosophers and doctors have been disputing with each other up to the present day, and their dispute continues still whenever there is question of deciding in what consists the “continuum,” that is, for instance, the length and breadth of a finger; and they are bound to acknowledge that up to this no one has advanced a sound theory on the matter. So dark is our understanding in spite of our craving for knowledge. But in the place of eternal joys the full light shall shine on the mind, and it will know and understand in its first sight of God all that it can ever wish to know and understand: all history, from the beginning to the end of the world, of all peoples, times, and individuals. There are still living and shall live till the end of the world two renowned men, one of whom is not less than two thousand four hundred and ninety years old, the Prophet Elias; the other is still older and has reached the age of five thousand three hundred and fifty years, that is Enoch. Imagine those two men coming into the city of Treves; what an immense rush there would be to see and speak to them! What a treat it would be to hear Elias describing the character of King Achab, with whom he had to deal, and the fierce anger of Jezabel, from whom he was forced to fly! What delight it would cause to hear how and why he made fire to fall from heaven on the soldiers who had come to bring him before the king! how food was brought him by the raven! what was the taste of the hearth-cake on which he was able to subsist without any other food for forty days, and to walk up to the mountain of God! How interesting it would be to hear Enoch describing the size and appearance of Adam and Eve, our first parents, with whom he lived for more than two hundred years! to hear his description of the deluge, which he witnessed, and how and where he was saved from it by the Almighty! What pleasure it would give us to learn all about the various changes of dynasties and the great events in the history of the world that they saw! And yet they could not tell us that they saw how the earth, or sky, or the stars, or the light, or the elements were made. Yet it would interest us very much to hear them describe what they do know by experience. Nay, we look on it as a great aifair to get news from Spain, Italy, France, or any corner of the world; and there are some so curious in this respect that they prefer to go without their meals rather than lose the latest news, although we know very well that such news is often a mere fabrication; yet it pleases us to gratify our curiosity and to be able to talk about what is going on in the world. Oh, how great then will be the delight and pleasure of the mind in the kingdom of heaven, when all history shall be clear and evident to us as well as all science without bewildering us with multiplicity or confusing us with the vast variety of subjects! Oh, Christian faith, provided thou art kept alive by good works, what a great reward awaits thee in heaven!
The will shall be filled with joy in the possession of all imaginable goods. There is still another faculty of the soul, the will, which is the proper seat of joy; this too shall be filled to overflowing with delights, and shall swim in an ocean of pleasure. The human will enjoys complete felicity and perfect pleasure when it has all it desires, and in the way in which it desires. To no purpose should we seek such happiness in this vale of tears; here we have no joy without care and trouble; nor has there ever been a man since the world was made who always had all his desires satisfied; even that most fortunate of kings, Solomon, in the midst of his riches, honors, and carnal pleasures, complained in the bitterness of his heart. If we are not wanting in one thing we are in another; and if we sometimes taste a little pleasure, it lasts a very short time, or otherwise we get disgusted with it. If there is any one on earth who has all he wishes and as he wishes, it is in my opinion the man who wills what God wills, and neither wishes nor desires anything but what God wills. Heaven of joys! thou art the city of rest, in which every wish and desire of the will shall be completely fulfilled and satisfied for all eternity! “But as for me, I will appear before Thy sight in justice: I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear.”[8] Such are the words in which David expresses his joy at the thought of heaven. Here on a royal throne, in the midst of treasnres and riches, and all the delights of sense, I am only a poor beggar; it is only hereafter that my hunger shall be fully appeased. Truly, “I shall be satisfied;” in heaven I shall have everything I wish for, and as long as I wish to have it; nor will satiety cause me disgust, or weariness, or aversion; after ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a thousand times a thousand years, my pleasure and joy shall be just as fresh, just as agreeable as at the very first moment of my entry into heaven. “I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear!” My memory, my understanding, my will, my whole soul shall be filled with joy; all that I shall there remember, all that I shall know and understand, all that I shall wish and desire shall fill me with delight, and my joy no man shall take from me.
The consideration of this joy should make us think lightly of all difficulties. My dear brethren, if there were no other joy to expect in heaven but that which the human soul experiences, as we have been meditating (although that is after ail only a small matter when compared to the happiness that results from the vision of God), would it not be well worth our while to work hard for it even till the last day? And could any good work seem too difficult to us, when we consider the glory and happiness it will bring us in heaven? Or could any one say that the commandments of God are too hard to keep when we know that the faithful observance of them will open to us heaven with all its joys? Eh! “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us;”[9] no pain, or labor, or trouble of this short time is worthy of being named when we consider the future glory that is promised us for it. Therefore let us with King David make this resolution: “I have inclined my heart to do Thy justifications forever, for the reward.”[10] My heart, O God! is like a pair of scales; if I put on one side the eternal reward and the unspeakable joys of the memory, understanding, and will, and on the other all the good works, mortifications, acts of self-denial, troubles, and adversities of this life, the latter would be lifted up as if filled with nothing but feathers. Therefore I will incline my heart to do Thy justifications forever, for the reward.
Conclusion to serve God with our whole hearts. Yes, O my God! most generous in Thy rewards for good works, such is my firm resolve! No time shall seem too long for me to spend serving Thee zealously so long as I receive the promised reward, even if I have to wait many hundred years for it. Now I will amass a treasury of good works and merits, the remembrance of which shall be a source of joy to me for all eternity; now I humbly submit my understanding to the service of the faith; with the Apostle I desire to know nothing but Jesus Christ, my crucified Saviour; hereafter my mind shall rejoice in Thy kingdom in all sorts of knowledge. Now I resign my will to Thy most holy will; I leave my fate and fortunes in Thy fatherly hands, ready and willing to do, to omit, to suffer whatever, how, when, and as long as it pleases Thee; to this I make no exception; I do not desire to live or to die in any other way but as it pleases Thee, my God. Hereafter when I come to Thee in heaven, as I hope with child-like confidence, and as I most ardently desire, Thou wilt give me everything as I wish to have it, and that for all eternity. Amen.
Another introduction to the same sermon for the third Sunday of Advent.
Text.
Gaudete in Domino semper, iterum dico: gaudete.—Philipp. iv. 4.
“Rejoice in the Lord always: again, I say, rejoice.”
Introduction.
But, holy apostle, how can we always rejoice? This exhortation thou gavest to thy Christians who were still alive on this earth. But how should or could we follow it in this sorrowful vale of tears, where we are at such a distance from our heavenly country, in which we are surrounded on all sides by misery, crosses, and trials, so that our whole life is made up of mourning and lamentation? Nevertheless, says the Apostle, “again I say, rejoice.” My dear brothers and sisters, I allude to you who serve the Lord and try to do His will in all things; rejoice in the Lord always, for you have no occasion to trouble yourselves. “Again I say, rejoice;” and I mean it, too; rejoice precisely because you serve the Lord, and therefore have to expect the eternal reward of heaven, the hope of which should fill you with joy even in this troubled life. My dear brethren, St. John Chrysostom, considering these words, makes this reflection, which is suitable to our subject, etc. Continues as above.
- ↑ Gaudete in Domino semper: iteram dico, gaudete.—Philipp. iv. 4.
- ↑ Mihi vivere Christus est, et mori lucrum.—Philipp. i. 21.
- ↑ Misericordias Domini in æternum cantabo.—Ps. lxxxviii. 1.
- ↑ Amice, ascende superius.—Luke xiv. 10.
- ↑ Videte oculis vestris quia modicum laboravi, et inveni mihi multam requiem.—Ecclus. li. 35.
- ↑ Existimo enim quod non sunt condignæ passiones hujus temporis ad futuram gloriam, quæ revelabitur in nobis.—Rom. viii. 18.
- ↑ Existimabam ut cognoscerem hoc, labor est ante me. Donec intrem in sanctuarium Dei.—Ps. lxxii. 16, 17.
- ↑ Ego autem in justitia apparebo conspectui tuo: satiabor cum apparuerit gloria tua.—Ps. xvi. 15.
- ↑ Non sunt condignæ passiones hujus temporis ad futuram gloriam quæ revelabitur in nobis.—Rom. viii. 18.
- ↑ Inclinavi cor meum ad faciendas justificationes tuas in æternum: propter retributionem.—Ps. cxviii. 112.