How Much This Exercise Is Recommended and Repeated in Holy Scripture

B* the extent to which Holy Scripture recommends and repeats this exercise, we may well understand its value, excellence, and how pleasing it is to God, and at the same time we can take thence matter to practise it and occupy ourselves further therein. The Royal Prophet in the Psalms at every step invites us to this exercise, saying: Be glad and exult, ye just, in the Lord, and glory all ye right of heart. Exult, ye just, in the Lord. Delight in the Lord, and he will give thee thy heart’s desires (Psalm xxxi. 11; xxxii. 1; xxxvi. 4), or, to say better, what thou desirest and hast need of. This is a prayer in which you ask without asking, and God hears the desires of your heart. The Apostle St. Paul, writing to the Philippians, says: Rejoice in the Lord always. And thinking that this was not an advice to be given once only, he repeats it: Again I say, rejoice (Phil. iv. 4). This is the joy with which the most holy Virgin rejoiced, when she said: And my spirit hath exulted in God my Savior (Luke i. 47). With this joy also Christ our Redeemer rejoiced, as the Gospel says: He exulted in the Holy Ghost (Luke x. 21). And the Prophet David says that so great was the joy and gladness which his soul experienced in considering the greatness of the excellence and glory of God, and what fit matter it furnishes to all for rejoicing in the infinite good that God enjoys, that the joy redounded abundantly even upon his body, and his very flesh was kindled with love of God: My heart and my flesh have exulted in the living God (Psalm lxxxiii. 2). And elsewhere he says: My soul shall exult in the Lord, and take delight in God her Savior: all my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee? (Psalm xxxiv. 9-10). And because this love is a thing so divine and heavenly, the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, at the beginning of the canonical hours, commencing matins, invites us in the invitatory to love the Lord in this manner, being glad and rejoicing in His infinite excellences, taking it from Psalm xciv. 1, 3-4: Come let us rejoice in the Lord, let us utter a cry of joy before God our Savior: let us come before His face with praise, and make to Him a joyful sound of psalms: for the Lord is a great God, and a great king above all gods: for the sea is His, and He made it, and His hands planted the dry land. And for the same reason and to the same effect the Church puts at the end of all the psalms Gloria Patri. This is that entry into the joy of God which Christ our Redeemer speaks of in the Gospel: Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord (Matt. xxv. 21)— to share in the infinite joy of God, and be taken up with rejoicing and exulting along with God Himself in His glory and beauty and infinite riches.

To incite us more to this exercise and cause us constantly to advance in this joy and exultation, it will aid us much to consider how good and beautiful and glorious God is. So beautiful is He that the bare sight of Him renders those who see Him blessed; and if those who are in hell were to come to see God, all their pains would cease and they would pass from hell to paradise. This is life everlasting, to know thee, the one true God (John xvii. 3). In this consists the glory of the saints, in seeing God. This is what makes them blessed, and that, not for one day or one year, but forever, because never can they be sated or weary with looking upon God, but they shall always find new joy therein, as the Apocalypse (xiv. 3) says: And they sang as it were a new song. Herein it seems that the goodness, beauty, and infinite perfection of God are sufficiently declared; but there is more still that may be added, and plenty more still. God is so beautiful and glorious that, in seeing Himself, God finds His happiness. The glory and beatitude of God is in seeing and loving Himself. See if we are not right in delighting and rejoicing in a goodness and beauty so great as to make glad the whole of that City of God, and render all its citizens blessed, and God Himself also blessed in knowing and loving Himself.