FIFTY-FIRST SERMON.
ON THE ETERNITY OF THE JOYS OF HEAVEN.
Subject.
1. In the kingdom of heaven alone shall all joys be eternal; 2. In the kingdom of heaven alone shall the elect be certain and assured that their joys shall last forever. Therefore in heaven alone is the true and perfect happiness that we should all strive for.—Preached on the feast of All Saints.
Text.
Gaudete, et exultate; quoniam merces vestra copiosa est in cœlis.—Matt. v. 12.
“Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven.”
Introduction.
To-day all heaven opens itself before the eyes of our minds, and exhibits to us the countless hosts of the saints of God, who there rejoice with Him in all imaginable pleasures, and cry out to us who still sigh in this wretched vale of tears, and call to us, and invite us to follow them, that we too may one day be their companions in happiness. O heaven! O land of joy! O glorious dwelling of the saints! ah, would that we were there! But supposing we go there, as we hope, how long shall we be there to rejoice together? In this world there are wretched, miserable pleasures; when we think we have caught one of them we find that it has come to an end; at one moment this is wanting, at another that; never is our joy complete. “Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven.” Faithful servants of God, a far different festival awaits you! You shall find it in the kingdom of heaven, where all imaginable delights of body, as well as of soul, are prepared for you to your full satisfaction by the Almighty God, as we have seen in different meditations during the course of the year. And, best of all, never shall there be decrease or end of all those delights; they shall last forever without change. This we shall now consider by way of further encouragement in the service of God.
Plan of Discourse.
In the kingdom of heaven alone shall all joys be eternal; the first part. In the kingdom of heaven alone shall the elect be certain and assured that their joys shall last forever; the second part. Therefore in heaven alone is the true and perfect happiness that we should make the sole object of our efforts.
Let that be the conclusion with Thy grace, Jesus Christ. King of glory, through the intercession of Mary and of all Thy angels and saints.
Everything on earth is changeable and transitory. Everything that ends with time, no matter how delightful and agreeable it may be, cannot fully content or satisfy the human soul which is created immortal by God and capable of possessing an infinite Good. Hence when things go well with men we hear that wish and longing desire so often repeated: Oh, would that it might be so always! would that I might be always as well as I am now! that I might always have such pleasant company! always enjoy this pleasure, this comfort! always live in repose, content, and consolation! But in vain is this wish on earth. All that is in us, all that is outside of us is changeable, inconstant, and very transitory. “The days of man are short,” sighs out holy Job, speaking of our misery; “who cometh forth like a flower and is destroyed, and fleeth as a shadow, and never continueth in the same state.”[1] We experience the truth of this daily and almost hourly; at one moment we are joyful, at another sad; we laugh and weep by turns; to-day we are of good heart and courage, tomorrow downcast and miserable; repose is followed by care and sorrow; health by weakness and sickness, and finally by death. “For what is your life? " asks the apostle St. James with reason. “It is a vapor which appeareth for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away.”[2]
Pleasures, especially, last a very short time. So it is with the other goods of this world, which are exterior to us, and are founded on the short span of human life. If you find pleasure in eating and drinking, how long does it last? As long as the appetite is not satiated; when that point is reached, the choicest viands cause disgust. You hear or see something pleasing; how long does your pleasure last? Not longer than the soothing sound resounds in the ears, the pleasing object remains before the eyes. You find the love and affection of some creature a source of delight and joy to you: for how long? Until mutual love has grown cold, or sickness attacks the beloved one, or death removes him altogether. Then there is an end of all joy, and sorrow comes in its stead. Do you set your happiness in the possession of riches? Ah, how soon an unforeseen loss or an accident can put an end to it! And if you are spared that, death must inevitably come like a thief and steal everything from you at once; a wooden coffin will then be all that shall remain to you of all your earthly goods. “See,” says St. Augustine, “how fleeting that happiness is;”[3] the beginning of it is almost the end too.
Men would willingly make their happiness everlasting, or at least hand down their names to posterity. And that it is which embitters the apparent happiness of all the vain children of the world who seek after empty things, namely, that they cannot make everlasting the joys in which they take delight. We often think how happy that monarch must be who has everything his heart can desire, and abounds in pleasures day and night. And if it were as we imagine, would he not prize his honors, wealth, and pleasures much more if they were never to end, if no grave yawned for him, if he could remain as he is forever? But there is a sharp thorn that he must always wear inside his crown; all must come to an end in a short time. In order to satisfy in some measure this desire for an everlasting good, there are men who endeavor to hand down their names and renown to future generations. To that end beautiful palaces and pillars and triumphal arches are erected on which their pictures, names, and escutcheons are carved, so that after their bodies are decayed the lifeless stone may keep their memory green in after ages; others write books in order to secure immortality in the printed page; others leave their portraits behind them in medals of copper, silver, or gold, that after their death they may remain always in the memory of men.
But to no purpose, for after a time they are forgotten. But all this is of no good; for even the memory of men lasts but a short time on earth. “Their memory hath perished with a noise,”[4] says the Prophet David of such people; with the death-knell that tolls for their burial all remembrance of them is blotted out and vanished. That gentleman, that lady is dead, the people say; there is two, three, four days’ talk about them, and after that their names are not even mentioned. No one speaks of them again, and perhaps there may be two or three who even think of them. When a hundred years have passed the stone pillars fall down; time eats away the names and escutcheons, and even if these remain uninjured there is no one living who pays any attention to them. It is as if one wrote his name in the dust to have it blown away by the first puff of wind. So speaks the Prophet: “Like the dust, which the wind driveth from the face of the earth;”[5] or like a mighty tree, which with its wide-spreading branches occupies a great space of ground; when it is cut down it makes a great crash; but if you go a few days afterwards to the place where it stood, you will hardly know it had ever been there. The workmen have cut it into pieces, and brought it to their master to be burnt to ashes; and here again the Prophet supplies us with a simile: “I have seen the wicked highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Libanus. And I passed by, and lo he was not: and I sought him, and his place was not found.”[6] So that everything in this world is transitory. “Vanity of vanities, and all things are vanity;”[7] words wrung out of Solomon, who as it were swam in a sea of all imaginable worldly goods and pleasures, and wrung out of him by experience. Therefore there is nothing on earth that can satisfy and fully content the immortal soul.
The joys of heaven shall be everlasting. The dwelling of the elect in heaven alone is that most happy place of perfect joys, of which the angel Gabriel said to the Blessed Virgin, when announcing to her that she was to be the Mother of God: “Of His kingdom there shall be no end.”[8] And as it is said of the wicked on the last day: “These shall go into everlasting punishment,” so shall it be said of the just, “but the just into life everlasting.”[9] We read that in the creation of the world God did not rest till the seventh day: “He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.”[10] Why was that? Was it because He had come to the end of His work? No, says St. Anselm; but because that day was a figure and image of heavenly glory. In the history of all the other days mention is made of morning and evening: “And there was evening and morning, one day;”[11] “and the evening and morning were the second day,” the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth day. But this is not said of the seventh day, because it is a symbol of eternity, a day without evening, a day without end, to signify that on the day of glory the just shall repose with God without end. “As the Sabbath, on which God rested, is not said to have had an evening, so the repose of the just shall not have an end.”[12] Such are the words of St. Anselm.
Hence its happiness shall be most perfect. And this it is that will perfect the happiness of the elect; they shall enjoy with their God in heaven all imaginable pleasures of soul and body, as we have seen already; that is a great deal indeed to say; but we have not yet said enough. The chief and most necessary constituent of perfect happiness is that all these pleasures shall never cease; they shall last forever, and never come to an end: “The just shall live for evermore; and their reward is with the Lord, and the care of them with the Most High,”[13] whose kingdom and glory as a reward shall never end. The soul shall rejoice in the clear knowledge of all things, natural as well as supernatural; and this blissful knowledge shall last for all eternity, without end and without fatigue. It shall rejoice in the clear knowledge and vision of the God of infinite beauty, and this vision shall last without intermission for eternity. It shall rejoice in the most perfect love of God, and know that its love is returned in the most tender manner, and this happy love shall last without change for all eternity. The bodily eyes shall see in heaven, the ears hear, the smell, taste, and touch perceive all that can delight and ravish those senses, and these delights shall be without intermission, without end for all eternity. The blessed in heaven shall enjoy each other’s society, and this joyous company shall last without interruption or change of mind for all eternity. The blessed in heaven shall be with their God as with a most intimate friend, and this joyous intimacy shall persevere without end or cessation for all eternity. “The just shall be in everlasting remembrance,”[14] and in the perpetual friendship of God.
And this eternal happiness we earn in this short life of ours. O eternity of heavenly joys! what art thou? O my God! is this true? It is now fifty-four years since I began to serve Thee. But what am I saying? That is the length of time that Thou hast given me life on earth! In all these years.—ah, how late it was when I began to know and love Thee truly!—in all these years how few days I can reckon in which I have served Thee properly! If I were now to die in Thy sanctifying grace and friendship, should I rejoice with Thee in Thy kingdom of heaven for all eternity as a return for such a short and ill-rendered service? Truly, I should enter into the joy of my Lord! But when I shall have enjoyed this reward for a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand million years, will there be no end to my reward even then? No; it will last for eternity. And when I shall have been happy with Thee for as many countless millions of years as would be denoted by a number so great as to fill the whole firmament with figures, at the end of that time, shall I continue as before to have the same joy with Thee in heaven? Yes; “of His kingdom there shall be no end;” the kingdom of the elect of God, like that of God Himself, shall never come to an end. As long as God shall be God, so long shall the elect rejoice with their God in heaven, so long shall their pleasures and delights last without causing them the least weariness.
How generous our God is to give an eternal reward for such a short service! Christians, what a generous and liberal Rewarder we have! What an exceeding great return we have to expect if we serve our God diligently! And how long must we serve Him? asks St. Augustine. An eternal reward should justly be paid for by an eternal service and labor; but see how little God asks from us. If He said to you: serve Me for a hundred thousand times a thousaud years in labor and suffering, and I will give you heaven, would He ask too much? Ah, that service compared to heaven is as nothing, and even then we should have reason to wonder at the goodness and generosity of God in giving such an exceeding great reward for such a small service. For the hundred thousand times a thousand years would come to an end some time, but the heavenly .joys prepared as a reward for it last forever. Now the Lord does not say to you: serve Me for a hundred thousand times a thousand years; He does not say: serve Me for a hundred years, but: serve Me as long as you live; whether your life is long or short makes no difference to Me; let it come to an end in a year, or in half a year, or in a month, or this very day, I will be satisfied with your work. Only serve Me during that short time; love Me so as to do nothing against My will and divine law, and as a reward I will give you eternal joys in the kingdom of heaven. O good God! what an exceeding great reward Thou bestowest for such a short service! O my Saviour! with reason may I ponder on the words Thou didst address to Thy servant as he was meditating on Thy sufferings before the crucifix: “Often think to yourself: oh, how little! oh, how much!”[15] How little is what I have to do and to suffer for Thy sake! How much I shall gain as a reward! For almost a nothing Thou wilt make me happy, and happy for all eternity! O happiness! O eternal happiness! Here words fail me, like St. Chrysostom, who, ravished out of himself, as it were, by this same meditation, could say nothing else but: O heaven! what art thou not worth? O most perfect joy! of which one can say that it will never come to an end, what should one not do to gain thee? Yes, my dear brethren; not only shall all the joys of heaven be everlasting in themselves, but what fully completes the happiness of the elect, the blessed in heaven shall be certain and assured that their happiness shall last forever. This we shall briefly consider in the
Second Part.
He who is not sure of his happiness cannot be happy. How can the possession of a great good contribute to my happiness if I do not know that I own it, or otherwise am not sure of owning it for a long time? The royal prince, who is still in the cradle, is really the heir to a great and rich kingdom; but as he neither knows nor understands anything of this, how can it help to make him happy? The beggar’s child is just as contented and joyful, although it will spend its life in poverty; it laughs, as gaily when one sings to or plays with it; and the prince’s child cries just as hard as the beggar’s when it is hurt. Neither of them knows anything of poverty or wealth, and hence neither is glad or sorry on account of its state. Generally speaking, the hope of enjoying a long life on earth in health and prosperity makes glad the heart of man; how would it be if we could be quite sure and certain of such good fortune? If an angel had appeared to Mathusala in his youth and told him that he should live to be more than nine hundred years of age, he might have said to himself to his great satisfaction: what a fine time I have still to live on earth! I can have many a pleasant day before I need fear the approach of death. He lived indeed to a great age, but as he was a mortal man, and as such had to be in hourly and momentary expectation of death, the long life that was before him could not have been a great source of consolation to him. And here again we have the cause of the bitterness that spoils the poor and mean pleasures that we sometimes enjoy on this earth: namely, that we do not know for certain how long we can enjoy them. All that can give us enjoyment here is short-lived; if the pleasure lasts an hour, we are not sure even of that hour. Every hour makes us afraid that the end is coming; every moment we must be in dread of death. And the greater and more agreeable the good we possess, the greater too is our fear of losing it.
Even the elect would not be happy if they were not sure of their happiness. My dear brethren, to inherit the eternal kingdom of heaven, always without end to live with God in the abode of joy—oh, what happiness! what immense good fortune! The mere hope and confidence of going to heaven is the greatest consolation, and one that really sweetens our labor and trouble, our suffering and misery, in this mortal life; I rejoice in this hope whenever I think of it. Ah, let each one think to himself: if God were now to say to me: you will save your soul, you will go to heaven and be happy with Me forever, how could I contain myself through sheer joy and satisfaction at this assurance? If I might say like Job: “I know that my Redeemer liveth…and in my flesh I shall see my God”?[16] I am certain of it; God has said it; not only do I hope this, but this certainty is laid up in my bosom; I shall surely go to heaven! But as it is, I have to waver between hope and fear, and the greater my wish and desire to be eternally happy, the greater my dread of being disappointed through the sins that I may still commit. O chosen saints of God! you are beyond all this doubt and anxiety; you are already in heaven, and are actually enjoying everlasting delights! But how would it be with you if you did not know how long your happiness is to last? if uncertainty filled you with the fear of losing the kingdom of joy and the vision of God that you now have? Oh, my dear brethren, in that case there would be an end to the happiness of the elect, and heaven could no longer be called the abode of bliss; for, as theologians teach, happiness to be perfect must have two qualities: it must be eternal in itself, and also eternal in the memory and sure knowledge of the blessed. If this latter condition were wanting, there would not be complete happiness in heaven; for the greater the bliss caused by the beatific vision and the possession of the immense goods of heaven, the greater too 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;”[17] 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, what a happy state, to live in all imaginable delights, to live in all imaginable delights forever, and for every moment of eternity to taste and enjoy all imaginable delights at one and the same time!
Conclusion to serve God here in order to gain eternal reward. My dear brethren, take this well to heart; we know and daily experience that everything that seems good on this earth is but a transitory thing that must soon pass away; we are, at the same time, assured by our faith that in the future life the joys that await us as a reward shall last for all eternity; and yet those transitory, uncertain, momentary goods and pleasures often make us forget the eternal ones and actually barter them away. Can we imagine anything more senseless and stupid? What is become of us? Where is our reason if we give up heaven for a forbidden pleasure or some temporal gain? We know and experience that our lives on earth are confined within very narrow limits, so that we cannot promise ourselves even one hour of life, and at the same time we are assured by our faith that the next life shall last forever, either in the pains of hell or in the joys of heaven. And yet what trouble, and labor, and expense we go to! what care we take when we are ill to prolong for a little while this uncertain life of ours, and to stave off for a time the death we dread! What trouble and labor then should we not justly undergo to avoid the eternal death of hell, and to gain an eternal, joyful life in heaven? And would not this latter be worth the trouble and labor? We know and experience that the good works that we perform with a supernatural intention, the crosses and trials that we bear patiently and resignedly for God’s sake, last only a very short time; oh, how short it is! And we know surely and certainly too by our faith that the reward promised us for these things in heaven shall not come to an end for all eternity; oh, how much it is! Come, then! let us perform these works with all possible diligence, bear adversity with contentment, and say to ourselves: this good work that I now give to my God is soon done; the pain, the torment, the sickness, the cross that I am suffering will soon be over; the heavenly joys that are to come shall never end. Therefore I will cheerfully invest the temporal capital that is to bring me in an eternal interest.
And cheerfully to face all difficulties If we now and then find a difficulty in keeping the commandments of God and the Gospel laws of Jesus Christ, such as, for instance, forgiving our enemies from our hearts, and doing good in the hope of it. to them, restoring ill-gotten goods to their lawful owner, renouncing unlawful intimacy, abstaining from forbidden pleasures, abolishing abuses at the cost of a certain amount of self-denial, and so on, let us think as the Theban ambassador of whom Ælianns writes. This ambassador was sent to the king of Persia, and as he was about to have an audience of that monarch he was informed that at his first entry into the royal chamber he had to fall on his knees and do homage to the king, an homage that seemed to him unworthy of his high office and of the person who had sent him. Very well, he answered; bring me to the king. As soon as he entered the chamber he drew a ring from his finger and purposely let it fall on the ground; he then bent down and picked it up. Thus he appeared to the king to have performed the required act of homage, but he said to himself as he was stooping down: “this is not for you, but for the ring.”[18] So let us too act, my dear brethren. It is hard for me to forgive that man who has injured and insulted me so often, to show him a friendly countenance, to greet him courteously, to be a true friend to him; yet I will do it; I will overcome myself; I will be the first to offer friendship and reconciliation; non tibi, sed annulo—not for your sake, but for the ring of heavenly immortality. It is difficult to give up that property which I have had for such along time, and to restore it to its rightful owner; yet not for your sake, but for the ring of everlasting riches shall it leave my hands this very day. It is better for me to be poor for a short time than to lose heaven forever. It is difficult to put away that person whom I have so dearly loved hitherto, and to renounce all intercourse with her; it is difficult to abstain from those carnal pleasures that I have so frequently indulged in; yet it must and shall be done; non tibi, sed annulo; for the sake of a happy eternity, a blissful heaven! When I am tempted to sin I shall remember the words, “The delight is momentary, the torment eternal.”[19] On the other hand, when there is question of bearing the cross and suffering, I shall say to myself: “The torment is momentary, the delight eternal,” which after I have suffered with patience is prepared for me by the Almighty. This latter I shall try to gain that I may rejoice in heaven forever. Amen.
Another introduction to the same sermon for the second Sunday after Epiphany.
Text.
Deficiente vino, dicit mater Jesu ad eum: vinum non habent.—John ii. 3.
“And the wine failing, the Mother of Jesus saith to Him: They have no wine.”
Introduction.
Joyous the wedding-feast at which Jesus and Mary were present; but it must have been a feast of poor people, since the necessary drink was wanting, and the merriment disturbed thereby. So it is in the world, my dear brethren; when we think we have secured a pleasure, we find ourselves disappointed; at one moment this is wanting, at another that; never is our joy complete, never a pleasure lasting. Rejoice, faithful servants of God; a far different feast awaits you, etc. Continues as above.
- ↑ Breves dies hominis sunt. Qui quasi flos egreditur, et conteritur, et fugit velut umbra, et nunquam in eodem statu permanet.—Job xiv. 5, 2.
- ↑ Quæ est enim vita vestra? Vapor est ad modicum parens, et deinceps exterminabitur.—James iv. 15.
- ↑ Ecce volaticam felicitatem.
- ↑ Periit memoria eorum cum sonitu.—Ps. ix. 7.
- ↑ Tanquara pulvis, quem projicit ventus a facie terræ.—Ps. i. 4.
- ↑ Vidi impium superexaltatum, et elevatum sicut cedros Libani. Et transivi, et ecce non erat; et quæsivi eum, et non est inventus locus ejus.—Ibid. xxxvi. 35, 36.
- ↑ Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas.—Eccles. xii. 8.
- ↑ Regni ejus non erit finis.—Luke i. 33.
- ↑ Ibunt hi in supplicium æternum: justi autem in vitam æternam.—Matt. xxv. 46.
- ↑ Requievit die septimo ab universe opere, quod patrarat.—Gen. ii. 2.
- ↑ Factumque est vespero et mane, dies unus.—Ibid. i. 5.
- ↑ Sicut sabbatum, in quo Deus requievit, non legitur habuisse vesperam; sic requies justorum non habebit finem.
- ↑ Justi autem in perpetuum vivent, et apud Dominum est merces eorum, et cogitatio eorum epud Altissimum.—Wis. v. 16.
- ↑ In memoria æterna erit justus.—Ps. cxi. 7.
- ↑ Sæpe cogita; o quam parum! o quam multum!
- ↑ Scio quod Redemptor meus vivit…et in carne mea videbo Deum meum.—Job xix. 25, 26.
- ↑ Gaudium vestrum nemo tollet a vobis.—John xvi. 22.
- ↑ Non tibi, sed annulo.
- ↑ Momentaneum quod delectat; æternum quod cruciat.