Thought for the Day – 12 April – During this Season of Alleluias and Joy, we will consider Fr von Cochem’s Reflections upon our Heavenly Homeland.
Excerpts from THE FOUR LAST THINGS —- DEATH, JUDGMENT, HELL and HEAVEN
FATHER MARTIN VON COCHEM (1625-1712) OSFC .
Nihil Obstat: Thomas L Kinkead, Censor Liborium
Imprimatur: Michael Augustine — Archbishop of New York (5 Oct 1899)
PART IV
ON HEAVEN
I.1 On the Nature of Heaven:
WE must not, as some do, picture Heaven to ourselves as a purely spiritual realm. For Heaven is a definite place, where not only God and the Angels are but where Christ is also in His Sacred Humanity and Our Lady with her human body. There too, all the blessed will dwell with their glorified bodies after the Last Judgement.
If Heaven is a definite locality, it must accordingly be a visible, not a spiritual Kingdom; for a place must, in its nature be to some extent conformable to those who abide in it.
Besides, we know that after the Last Judgement the Saints will behold Heaven with their bodily eyes and consequently it must be a visible Kingdom. We are ignorant of what the material structure of Heaven will be composed, we know only that it will be something infinitely superior to and more costly than, the matter of which the other spheres, the sun, the moon and other heavenly bodies, are formed.
For since God has created Heaven for Himself and for His Elect, He has made it so beautiful and so glorious that the blessed will never tire of the contemplation of its splendours for all eternity!
Yet, I repeat, it is not within the power of the writer to describe, nor within that of the reader, to comprehend, of what Heaven is actually composed of. Something may perhaps be learned concerning this from what St Teresa writes. Speaking of herself, she says :
“The Blessed Mother of God gave me a jewel and hung around my neck, a superb golden chain, to which a Cross of priceless value was attached. Both the gold and the precious stones thus given to me, are so unlike those which we have here in this world that no comparison can be instituted between them. They are beautiful beyond anything which can be conceived and the matter whereof they are composed, is beyond our knowledge. For what we call gold and precious stones, beside them appear dark and lustreless as charcoal! ”
From these words we may form some idea of the beauty, the rarity, the costly nature of the stones wherewith the walls of Heaven are built. We gather from them that the Light of Heaven is so dazzling as not only to eclipse the sun and stars but to cause all earthly brightness to appear as darkness. We have besides every reason to believe that in the Light of Heaven, all the colours of the rainbow are seen to flash, giving an indescribable charm to the eyes of the blessed. Moreover, the bodies of the redeemed are resplendent with light and the more Saintly their life on earth has been, the more brilliantly do they shine in Heaven.
What must be the glory of that celestial firmament, glittering with the radiance of many thousand stars! Nothing is more pleasing to the eye than light ; how brilliant, how beautiful must the light of Heaven be since, compared with it, the sun s bright rays are but darkness.
How the redeemed must delight in the contemplation of this clear and dazzling brightness!
O my God, grant me grace that on earth I may love the Light and eschew the works of darkness, in order that I may attain to the contemplation of the Eternal and Perpetual Light! Amen
AnaStpaul 