Chapter XXIV. What God will do in another Life, not only for him who has always served Him, but also for the converted Sinner

THE favours and the bliss which are received from God in the Heavenly Country are such, and so great, that here they cannot be conceived, nor can we clearly and adequately desire them.

Who shall ever attain to the full knowledge of what it is for a man to sit down at the table of God, God ministering to him and giving him the food of His Own Beatitude?

Who can imagine what it is for the souls of the blessed to enter into the joy of their Lord?

And who can ever comprehend the love and honour which God shows to His citizens, of which St. Thomas speaks in one of his works thus—"The Almighty God to each of His Angels, and to holy souls, subjects Himself to such a degree as to become, so to speak, the hired servant of each, and as if each of them were His God?"

O Lord! O Lord! he who often enters into a profound consideration of Thy dealings with Thy creatures, finds Thee so inebriated with love that it appears to him that Thy Beatitude consists in loving, in doing them good, and feeding them with Thyself. O Lord, so impress this consideration upon us, that we may love Thee, and loving Thee, may be made one with Thee by a loving union.

O human heart, whither dost thou run?— after a shadow?—after the wind?—after nothing? leaving that which is All, Almightiness, Highest Wisdom, Unspeakable Goodness, Uncreated Beauty, Supreme Good, and the Infinite Sea of all Perfections? He runs after you, calling you with many, many a strong cry, with new blessings, as well as by those already received.

Do you know from whence your so great misery arises? It is because you do not pray; it is because you do not meditate. Therefore, being without light, and without heat, it is no wonder that you cannot turn yourself from the works of darkness. Enter, enter now, O soul, O lukewarm Religious, into the school of meditation and prayer of which we have been speaking; and in it you will learn by experience that it is the true study of a Christian and of a Religious to endeavour to deny self-will, so as to do the Will of God, and to hate self, so as to love God. All other studies without this (though of all the sciences put together) are nothing else but the fuel of presumption and of pride, and the more they enlighten the understanding, the more they darken the will, to the ruin of the souls of those who make them their pursuit.