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183.1
First Point
The
happiness of the saints is something so great, so far above human
thoughts, that Saint Paul says when he speaks of it, that
Eye
has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has the heart of man ever conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him.[i]
It is, he says, the hidden wisdom of God, which he
has prepared before all ages for our glory.[ii]
In fact, this eternal wisdom, which is in itself filled with glory and
majesty and constitutes all the glory and happiness of the saints, is
hidden from us in this life, and is known to us only through faith. It is
rightly only in heaven that we will see God unveiled and entirely
revealed. We know, says Saint John, that when Jesus appears we
shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.[iii]
What a joy for the saints to be made like God through a
participation in his nature and his divine perfections![iv]
It is there that God is truly in the saints by a holy sharing in his
greatness, and there the saints are in God because their entire being is
penetrated by God, so that they can think only of him and can love only
him.
Today, pay homage to the saints, but let it be in God, since it is
in him that you find them all. Admire how great is the happiness they
enjoy in heaven, how wonderful is the glory they receive, and beg them to
obtain from God for you the grace to share in their glory after your
death.
183.2
Second Point
No
matter what hope you can have to share in the glory of the saints, it will
not have any effect unless you work to become a saint yourself by using
the same means they used to achieve this. They endured great combats,
says Saint Paul, in the various kinds of afflictions that they
suffered. They served as a spectacle to the world because of insults and
ill-treatment; with joy they saw themselves despoiled of all their goods,
knowing that they had more excellent goods that would never perish.[v]
Elsewhere he says that they endured mockeries, scourgings, chains, and
prisons; some were stoned, others sawed in two; some were put to death by
the sword; others wandered about garbed in sheepskins and goatskins, being
abandoned, tormented, and persecuted; others, finally, of whom the world
was not worthy, passed their lives wandering in deserts, and in mountains,
living in dens and caves[vi]
of the earth. All these saints, tormented in various ways, were
unwilling to rescue their present life, in order to find a better one in
the resurrection.[vii]
This is how Saint Paul describes in admirable fashion the different means
the saints used to obtain the glory which they now possess.
Since, then, Saint Paul adds, we are overwhelmed by a
great cloud of witnesses who surround us, let us detach ourselves from
everything that weighs us down and prevents us from raising ourselves to
heaven. Let us run with patience in this race which is open before us,[viii]
and which is the only way we will reach the happiness of the saints. For,
adds the same Apostle, these are only the afflictions that produce that
eternal weight of glory to which we are destined in the next life.[ix]
Yearn, then, for sufferings every day, as did many of the saints,
in the desire and the hope of being clothed with t30em one day with the
immortality of heaven.
183.3
Third Point
What
animated the saints to suffer so much in this life, in order to enjoy a
blessed eternity afterwards, is the example of the Savior. They were convinced,
as Saint Paul says, that they should always bear about in their bodies
the mortification of Jesus Christ, so that the life of Jesus might also
appear in their mortal bodies, knowing that he who raised Jesus from the
dead will also raise his elect with him, and will place them all in his
presence.[x]
It was also by reason of this confidence, continues Saint Paul,
that they preferred to be separated from their bodies in order to enjoy
the presence of the Lord.[xi]
This is why their whole ambition was to be pleasing to him,
convinced that since all those whom God has predestined must in this
life be conformable to the image of his Son,[xii]
and take him as the model of their conduct, all also must appear before
the tribunal of Jesus Christ, so that each one may receive what is due to
the good or evil actions they performed while clothed in the body.[xiii]
This is why, as long as the saints were in their bodies as in a tent,
they sighed beneath its weight, because they desired that whatever was
material in them might be absorbed in life.[xiv]
Take Jesus Christ as your model, then, and yearn as the saints did
for the happiness which they now enjoy, considering, as Saint Paul
says, not the visible things, but the invisible, because the visible
things are temporary, whereas the invisible are eternal.[xv]
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This
feast was inaugurated when the Pantheon in Rome, which had originally been
dedicated to all the pagan gods by the emperor Agrippa in 273 B.C., was
consecrated to the worship of God in honor of Our Lady and all the
Christian martyrs by Pope Boniface IV (608 - 615). Pope Gregory IV (827 -
844) assigned the feast to November 1.
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