Chapter 9
What joys are there in our faith and hope! If by the mercy and goodness of God we succeed in saving our souls, how cheap will seem the price we shall have paid for Heaven, and how benign and ineffably loving will appear the Providence of God which is leading us there! At times now in our fervor we can faintly and feebly imagine what it will mean to throw off forever this veil of faith and see distinctly and continually the Shepherd of our souls. But our liveliest conceptions here are infinitely inferior to the vision to come. “To see God face to face, as He is; to gaze undazzled on the Three Divine Persons, cognizable and distinct in the burning fires of their inaccessible splendors; to behold that long-coveted sight, the endless Generation of the All-holy Son, and our hearts to hold the joy, and not die; to watch with spirits all out-stretched in adoration the ever-radiant and ineffably beautiful Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, and to participate ourselves in that jubilee of jubilees, and drink in with greedy minds the wonders of that Procession, and the marvelous distinctness of its beauty from the Generation of the Son; to feel ourselves with ecstatic awe, and yet with seraphic intimacy, overshadowed by the Person of the Unbegotten Father, the Father to whom and of whom we have said so much on earth, the Fountain of Godhead, who is truly our Father, while He is also the Father of the Eternal Son; to explore, with exulting license and with unutterably glad fear, attribute after attribute, oceans opening into oceans of divinest beauty; to lie astonished in unspeakable contentment before the vision of God’s surpassing Unity, so long the joyous mystery of our predilection, while the Vision through all eternity seems to grow more fresh and bright and new: O my poor soul! what canst thou know of this, or of these beautiful necessities, of thy exceeding love, which shall only satisfy itself in endless alternations, now of silence and now of song?”(113)
If regret were possible for the blessed hereafter, they would never cease to mourn over the loss of their opportunities on earth to increase their eternal beatitude. It is only when the veil shall have been removed that we shall fully realize how the goodness and mercy of God have always pursued us in this life, that we might be saved and enjoy the rewards of His house forever. May God give us all that child-like trust in our heavenly Master which the sheep display toward their shepherd; may He grant us that vivid constant faith of the Saints which will enable us to see in every event of life, in adversity as well as in prosperity, in our pains as well as in our joys, the designs of a loving Father who is ever wishing and trying to lead His children to His home of eternal delights.
FOOTNOTES
1 Isa. xl. 11.
2 Jer. xxiii. 4, 5.
3 Ezech. xxxiv. 11, 12, 23.
4 Phil. ii. 6, 7.
5 Jno. x. 30, 38; xii. 45.
6 Luke xii. 49.
7 Gen. iii. 19.
8 Lam. i. 12.
9 Ps. cxliv. 9.
10 Isa. liii. 4.
11 Rom. viii. 17.
12 2 Cor. iv. 17.
13 Matt. v. 48.
14 Jno. xv. 5.
15 Luke xxiii. 34.
16 Prov. viii. 31.
17 Jno. xv. 15.
18 Ps. viii. 5.
19 Prov. xxiii. 26.
20 Matt. xi. 28.
21 Jno. vi. 52, 55.
22 Jno. xvi. 2.
23 Ezech. xviii. 23; xxxiii. 11; 2 Pet. iii. 9.
24 Ps. 102. 14.
25 Luke xv. 4, 7.
26 Luke i. 31.
27 Matt. xvi. 18.
28 Luke x. 17.
29 Matt. xviii. 17.
30 Matt. xxiv. 35.
31 Matt. xxiv. 24.
32 2 Cor. xi. 26.
33 2 Cor. xi. 13.
34 Matt. xxviii. 20.
35 Ps. cxiii. 13, 14.
36 Jude 10.
37 Matt. x. 17, 22-26.
38 Mich. vii. 6; Matt. x. 36.
39 Bk. i. 11. 5.
40 Matt. xvi. 24.
41 Ps. xvii. 4, 5.
42 Luke xii. 34.
43 1 Jno. iv. 16, 18.
44 Ps. xxvi. 1, 2.
45 Matt. x. 28.
46 Wis. iii. 3.
47 Ps. xxxiii. 20.
48 Ps. xiii. 3.
49 Jno. x. 10.
50 2 Tim. ii. 5.
51 Luke ix. 23.
52 Jno. xii. 34.
53 Job vii. 1; Job xiv. 2.
54 Isa. xl. 6, 7.
55 Heb. xi. 10.
56 Wis. v. 6-9.
57 Rom. viii. 16, 17.
58 1 Peter iv. 13.
59 Wis. iii. 4, 6.
60 Luke xiv.
61 1 Cor. i. 25.
62 Luke xiv. 26.
63 Philip iii. 7, 8.
64 Confess. ix. 1.
65 Ps. xxxiii. 9; lxxxii. 2.
66 Job xiii. 15.
67 Ps. xc. 11.
68 Philip iv. 7.
69 Philip iv. 13.
70 Rom. viii. 33-39.
71 Rom. ix. 16.
72 Eccl. ix. 1, 2.
73 Philip, ii. 12.
74 1 Cor. ix. 27.
75 Jno. xvii. 11-15.
76 Ps. xvi. 5.
77 Isa. xlii. 3.
78 Ps. cii. 13, 14.
79 Apoc. xxi., iv.
80 Philip i. 20, 21.
81 2 Cor. vi. 4-11.
82 Matt. vii. 16-19.
83 Matt. vi. 30.
84 Luke xxiv. 25.
85 Matt. xvii. 16.
86 Ps. xxix. 7.
87 Jonas iv.
88 In Ps. xxx. Exp. 2.
89 Ps. cxlv. 2, 3.
90 Jno. xiv. 27.
91 Bk. iii.; ch. lix. 3.
92 Matt. xxv. 24-31.
93 Matt. xi. 28.
94 Jno. iv. 13, 14.
95 Bk. iii., ch. 1, 4.
96 De Fide orthod. ii. 29.
97 Wis. vi. 8.
98 Ench. tom. iii., ch. 27 and ii.
99 Isa. lv. 8; Rom. xi. 33.
100 Jno. xii. 25.
101 Matt. vii. 21.
102 Mk. iii. 35.
103 Mk. xi. 23.
104 Bk. III., ch. l. 6.
105 Matt. xi. 12.
106 Rom. viii. 32.
107 Imitation, Bk. III., ch. l. 4.
108 2 Tim. i. 12.
109 Matt. x. 24, 25.
110 Rom. viii. 28.
111 Wis. v. 15.
112 2 Tim. ii. 10.
113 Faber, Creator and Creature, Bk. II., ch. v.