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Our lives can often be difficult to endure, and we may not have much peace or happiness anymore. It’s relatively easy to grow in our negativity and cease to have any hope.
Thankfully, we do not need to live like this. No matter how difficult our lives can get, we can always turn our hearts to God and remember the promise of Heaven!
It is beneficial for our soul to often meditate on Heaven and the joy it will contain. Our lives are very short on this earth and spending eternity with God should be a consoling thought.
Early 20th-century writer Rev. Bertrand L. Conway reflects on this topic in the Pulpit Commentary on Catholic Teaching.
First of all, we will finally understand why certain things happened in our lives.
[In Heaven] We will begin to fathom—and all eternity will not suffice for the task—the impenetrable depths of the mysteries of God—the trinity, the incarnation, the redemption, the love, the mercy, the justice, the power, the eternity of God. We shall then learn the reason of suffering and labor … we shall see the wisdom of the marvelous distribution of God’s graces—in a word, we shall be perfectly happy in viewing all things from the viewpoint of God.
Secondly, all of our sorrow will be turned into a joy that we can not fathom!
In Heaven every true desire shall find its perfect satisfaction, and every evil shall cease to exist forever more. There will be perfect rest and peace for body and soul. The poor “shall no more hunger and thirst, neither shall the sun fall on them, nor any heat.” The sick and sorrowing shall be strong and happy, for “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more.” The curse of sin and the dark night of struggle and temptation shall disappear, for “there shall be no curse any more, and night shall be no more.”
Above all, Heaven will be centered on the fact that we will be in the presence of God, whom we love and who loves us.
Lift up your hearts to the glory and happiness that await you in the palace of the King. The true lover thinks constantly of the beloved … The true lover longs ardently for the presence of the beloved, “As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so their souls pant after God” (Ps. xli., 1, 2). The desire “to be dissolved, and to be with God” (Phil. i. 23) has ever burned in the hearts of patriarchs, prophets and apostles. They knew that nothing but God could give true rest and peace to their souls; that their longing for truth, goodness, beauty and love was too intense to be satisfied by aught created, that this life was but an imperfect, humdrum existence, unless its motive was divinized by the glory of the life to come. Death to God’s true servants is merely a door into their Father’s house, a gate into the King’s city. Sickness, sorrow and labor are merely the passports for entrance.
Suffering in this life does not last, and for those who ardently love God and pursue him, they will be united with their love for all eternity in a happiness that will surpass anything we have experienced.
Read more:
Why Heaven will be a union of friends, both old and new
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Prayer of hope to join deceased family in Heaven
And today we celebrate...