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When after the labours and dangers of this mortal
life, good souls arrive at the port of the eternal,
they ascend to the highest and utmost degree of love
to which they can attain; and this final increase
being bestowed upon them in recompense of their
merits, it is distributed to them, not only in good
measure, but in a measure which is pressed down and
shaken together and running over,(1) as Our Saviour
says; so that the love which is given for reward is
greater in every one than that which was given for
meriting.
Now, not only shall each one in particular have a
greater love in heaven than ever he had on earth, but
the exercise of the least charity in heaven, shall be
much more happy and excellent, generally speaking,
than that of the greatest which is, or has been, or
shall be, in this failing life: for there above, all
the saints incessantly, without any intermission,
exercise love; while here below God's greatest
servants, drawn away and tyrannized over by the
necessities of this dying life, are forced to suffer
a thousand and a thousand distractions, which often
take them off the practice of holy love.
In heaven, Theotimus, the loving attention of the
blessed is firm, constant, inviolable, and cannot
perish or decrease; their intention is pure and freed
from all mixture of any inferior intention: in short,
this felicity of seeing God clearly and loving him
unchangeably is incomparable. And who would ever
equal the pleasure, if there be any, of living amidst
the perils, the continual tempests, the perpetual
agitations and viscissitudes which have to be gone
through on sea, with the contentment there is of
being in a royal palace, where all things are at
every wish, yea where delights incomparably surpass
every wish?
There is then more content, sweetness and
perfection in the exercise of sacred love amongst the
inhabitants of heaven, than amongst the pilgrims of
this miserable earth. Yet still there have been some
so happy in their pilgrimage that their charity has
been greater than that of many saints already
enjoying the eternal fatherland: for certainly it
were strange if the charity of the great S. John, of
the Apostles and Apostolic men, were not greater,
even while they were detained here below, than that
of little children, who, dying simply with the grace
of baptism, enjoy immortal glory.
It is not usual for shepherds to be more valiant
than soldiers; and yet David, when a little shepherd,
coming to the army of Israel, while he found every
one more expert in the use of arms than himself, yet
he was more valiant than all. So it is not an
ordinary thing for mortals to have more charity than
the immortals, and yet there have been some mortals,
inferior to the immortals in the exercise of love,
who, notwithstanding, have surpassed them in charity
and the habit of love.
And as, when comparing hot iron and a burning
lamp, we say the iron has more fire and heat, the
lamp more flame and light; so if we parallel a child
in glory with S. John while yet prisoner, or S. Paul
yet captive, we must say that the child in heaven has
more brightness and light in the understanding, more
flame and exercise of love in the will, but that S.
John or S. Paul had even on earth more fire of
charity, and heat of love.
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