131. Second Saturday of Easter

Meditations no. 177 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Possessing God brings lasting joy.

Our Lord speaks frequently to us of the reward which he won for us by his Death and Resurrection. I am going away to prepare a home for you. And though I do go away, to prepare you a home, I am coming back; and then I will take you to myself, so that you too may be where I am. Heaven is the final destination of our path on earth. Jesus has gone ahead of us and awaits us there, in the company of our Lady and of St Joseph, whom I so much revere, and of all the angels and saints.

Even in the times of the Apostles there were heretics who tried to tear hope away from Christians. If what we preach about Christ, then, is that he rose from the dead, how is it that some of you say the dead do not rise again? If the dead do not rise, then Christ has not risen either; and if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is groundless, and your faith too is groundless. Our way is divine, Jesus himself being the way, the truth and the life - and thus we have a sure token that it ends in eternal happiness, provided we do not separate ourselves from hint.

Once the obstacles of the present life have been overcome, and once it has passed, if necessary, through purgatory, the soul of a person who has died in the state of grace flies straight to God like an arrow, desiring only to see him face to face. There the soul has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light and its lamp is the Lamb. And the union of the soul with God will now last for ever, according to the Lord’s promise: No one will take your joy from you.

In the possession of God is everlasting joy. And together with that profound, infinite joy, will be the company of the most holy Humanity of Christ and our Blessed Lady, as well as the consoling presence of the angels and the saints. In our heavenly home, we will meet our Father and all our brothers and sisters and relations who have been faithful. This will be an additional reason for rejoicing in eternal bliss.

Do not ever forget that after death you will be welcomed by Love itself. And in the love of God you will find as well all the noble loves which you had on earth. Our Lord has arranged for us to spend this brief day of our earthly existence working and, like his only-begotten Son, doing good. Meanwhile, we have to be on our guard, alert to the call St Ignatius of Antioch felt within his soul as the hour of his martyrdom approached. Come to the Father, come to your Father, who anxiously awaits you.

We have to foster the virtue of hope.

In a short while we will be contemplating Jesus Christ when he brings his disciples as far as the outskirts of Bethany, and blesses them. And as he does so, he withdraws from them and is carried up to heaven. Sometime later, after a lifetime of self-surrender, Mary is taken by God, body and soul, to heaven; and the angels rejoice! We also rejoice with our eyes fixed on heaven, where we find the people we love the most, Jesus and Mary.

We are on earth as wayfarers: Here we do not have a permanent home, instead, we look forward to that which is to come. Our true home is heaven, and all our desires for holiness have as their goal the possession of God which we shall attain there. I have said that in heaven we will have health, life, absolute fulfilment; with no suffering, hunger, or thirst; with no weakness or blindness, St Augustine writes. I said all of this, but I did not explain what it is that we will possess. We will see God, and this in itself will be so great and so sublime, that everything else will pale in comparison. I said that we will have life and perfect health; that we will not suffer hunger, nor thirst, nor tiredness, nor sleepiness; but what are all these, in comparison with the happiness of seeing God?

It is only right that while we are on earth, we should fill our hearts with the hope of heaven. This will strengthen us to meet difficulties, since we will face them in the certainty of victory. St Peter reminds us: By God’s great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

If heaven awaits us, we should think about it frequently. Our Founder invites us to do so. If love gives such joy here on earth, what will it be like in heaven when all God’s splendour, all his wisdom, his beauty, all that vibrancy, all that colour and all that harmony, cascades into this little clay vessel which we are?

It is indeed worthwhile! It is worthwhile saying “No” to earthly loves for the sake of Love. I like to put it another way too, positively: “because I want to” - I want to be faithful to the love of Christ. Do you see why we should love our Lord’s sacred Humanity? He approached us like this: semetipsum exinanivit formam servi accipiens, he became a slave, he took the form of a slave. So we should never forget the lowly material we are made of…

Think of the Love that awaits you in heaven: foster the virtue of hope - it is not a lack of generosity.

The infinite reward our Lord offers for fidelity impels us to struggle, cost what it may.

What tongue can describe, what mind can grasp, the great joys that await us in heaven? To be in the company of the angels, says St Gregory the Great, among the saints, in the glory of the Creator; to look at God’s face, to see his infinite light… Just hearing about it enkindles our spirit and makes us long to be there, where endless joy awaits us.

If we live by what we believe, we shall travel along the paths of the earth with our eyes fixed on eternal life, since we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling.

To achieve it, we need to use all the human means available, regardless of the cost. There is no possible comparison between the effort required of us - limited, and only for a certain number of years - and the infinite reward which is for ever. With a supernatural outlook, with serenity and peace. That is the way to see things, people and events -from the viewpoint of eternity.

And then, whatever barrier blocks your way -even if it is, humanly speaking, enormous - when you really raise your eyes to heaven, how tiny it becomes! Time is short and the work is little, says St John Chrysostom. Nonetheless, we grow weak and fall. On earth you fight, and in heaven you are crowned … You run for a few days, and the reward will last for centuries without end. The thought of glory should move us to greater self-giving, to steer clear of anything which could draw us away from our path to heaven. How marvellous it will be when we hear God our Father tell us: Well done, my good and faithful servant, because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many: enter into the joy of your Lord! Let us be full of hope! This is the great thing about being a contemplative soul. We live by Faith, Hope and Love; and Hope makes us powerful. Do you remember what St John says? I am writing to you, young men, because you are strong and the Word of God abides in you, and you have conquered the evil one. God is urging us on, for the sake of the eternal youthfulness of the Church and of all mankind. You have the power to transform everything human into something divine, just as King Midas turned everything he touched into gold!…

Let us ask Holy Mary, Spes Nostra, our hope, to kindle in us a holy desire that we may all come together to dwell in the house of the Father. Nothing need disturb us if we make up our minds to anchor our hearts in a real longing for our true fatherland. Our Lord will lead us there with his grace, and he will send a good wind to carry our ship to the bright shores of our destination.