seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. iii. 1-3).
St. Peter admonishes us: "Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims (on earth) to refrain yourselves from carnal desires, which war against the soul" (1 Peter ii. 11).
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy hath regenerated us unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead — unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that cannot fade — reserved in heaven for you" (1 Peter i. 3, 4).
4. Let us quit the polluted realms of the terrestrial heaven and raise our eyes to the true heaven. And why ought we to do this? Because the world and its pleasures pass away. The happiness which it offers us, in its honors and riches and pleasures will never satisfy our hearts, which are made for the enjoyment of higher and better things.
Hear the testimony of a man who had enjoyed a very wide experience and had drained the cup of earthly pleasures to its very dregs — I mean Solomon. As he himself plainly states, he had left nothing untried. What was the result? Was he satisfied? No, the refrain of his song is ever the same: "Vanity of vanities, and all things are vanity."
