The hope of the eternal prize is a valuable encouragement to bear the Cross every day with Christian resignation.

Newsroom (30/08/2023 09:00, Gaudium Press) As we well know, Heaven is the inheritance of God’s children. In order to understand this truth more deeply, let us make a contrast. If we consider what hell is like, we see in it the total absence of love: there, no one loves their neighbour, and they live in a delirium of hatred towards each other, both towards the Blessed in Heaven and towards those who share the same misfortune. It is perpetual hatred of everything and everyone. On the other hand, in Heaven you live eternally in love. And if love causes happiness, this will be the essence of Heaven, resulting from the Beatific Vision, because it is a necessity for the intellect to adhere to the truth and for the will to love the good within its reach. This aspiration of the soul’s powers will be satiated in its fullness in the possession of the vision of God Himself.

In Heaven, where there is no deceit, the essence of Good and Truth is found, and for this reason it is impossible for man to stop loving. In this way, from the moment the soul sees God, in the Beatific Vision, the intelligence and will immediately adhere to Him in an absolute and irrevocable way.

We were created for beatitude, but what will it be like?

We were all created for God, and it is for Him that our soul longs. From the fact that we possess Him in Heaven comes this fullness of joy. Why fullness? Because the intensity and duration of joy depend on the quality of the object possessed. If it is small, over time it wears off and we get tired of it, as tends to happen sooner or later with material goods and everything of this world. Human pleasure expires. Who can listen without interruption to the same music, no matter how beautiful, or contemplate a single landscape for years without moving? In this life there is nothing that does not end in boredom. But not God, because in Heaven He will be seen in His entirety, but not totally. And since He is the Supreme Truth and Beauty, He will always present new aspects to our eyes throughout eternity, without ever boring us.

“Then,” comments St. Robert Bellarmine, “wisdom will no longer consist in an investigation of divinity in the mirror of created things, but in the very vision discovered of the essence of God, the cause of all causes, and of the first and Supreme Truth.” The natural desire to know is satisfied with this vision, because our understanding will be elevated by the light of God – the lumen gloriæ – to be able to understand Him in the most perfect way possible for our condition. And if in this life the notion of certain truths brings us joy, what happiness will come from the dilation of human intelligence by a loan from divine intelligence?

However, heavenly enjoyment would not be complete if it were restricted only to satisfying the desires of the intellect. The will also achieves its full satisfaction in it. The heart needs to love and be loved, and nothing brings as much happiness as realising this ideal, even if it is only for a short time. When someone we hold in high esteem, especially if they are superior to us in some way, says to us “I love you very much!”, our heart expands because we feel loved. How immense our joy will be when God says to us: “My son, I love you very much! So much so that I created you, and it was My love that infused your soul with all the good in it. Come, my child! Here I am to be your eternal joy!” St. Alphonsus says that souls “in Heaven are sure that they love and are loved by God. They see that the Lord embraces them with a great love that will never cease for all eternity.” This is happiness in Heaven! This is happiness in Heaven!

Happiness that satisfies without satiating, because it doesn’t produce boredom. Just like Truth, God’s Goodness is infinite, always allowing man to know something new and worthy of being loved. The Saints created a very expressive image by comparing eternal delight to a thirst that, once satisfied, is never quenched: thirst for thirst. “Heavenly goods satiate and always gladden the heart […]. And even though they fully satisfy, they always seem new, as if it were the first time we had tasted them; we always enjoy them and we always desire them; we always desire them and we always reach for them.”

Mgr João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, EP

Text taken, with adaptations, from the magazine Heralds of the Gospel no. 248, August 2022.

Compiled by Sandra Chisholm