Zebedee, who were asking Him for a seat in His kingdom. But was not their request a reasonable one? Otherwise were they wrong in desiring to attain glory before drinking the chalice of suffering? Yes; that was one reason why they were reproved; but St. Anthony of Padua gives another; they had asked to be allowed to sit, one at the right, the other at the left hand of Our Lord, and therein they showed their great ignorance in thinking that there would be a left side in heaven, “for there is no left side where there is neither adversity nor diminution of happiness.”[1]
Comfort for the repentant, the afflicted, and those who are heavily laden. Courage, then, pious souls, who spend your days in the constant mortification of your bodies and in works of penance, or who have to earn your bread according to the decrees of Providence in a lowly state, with labor and trouble, and in the sweat of your brows; and you too, poor, oppressed mortals, who through a similar decree of the Almighty are overwhelmed with poverty, sickness, and weakness, persecuted by others, and surrounded on all sides by trials, crosses, and afflictions! Leave to the world its false joys; let it afford its vain pity for your seemingly hapless condition; do you only raise your eyes to heaven, where you will be free from all your miseries. Think to yourselves: here in this vale of tears, in this place of suffering, we are indeed in a miserable state; but it will not be for long. If I now suffer with a good conscience for God’s sake, and bear my cross with patience and resignation to His holy will, I shall have an eternal inheritance in heaven, where all my tears shall be wiped away. Then all that can now afflict and cause me pain shall be banished forever; then there will be an end to all labor, trouble, and suffering, and in their place I shall have endless joy and happiness. So it is, my dear brethren; in heaven, not only will there be nothing that can in the least afflict the body (and if we had that to say on earth we should think ourselves in a heaven of bliss), but in heaven there will be everything that, can delight our bodies and make them most perfectly happy, as we shall see in the
Second Part.
In heaven the body shall have all imagi- The pleasures of the body consist in the things that please and refresh the five outward senses, namely, in hearing and seeing agreeable things, in smelling sweet perfumes, in enjoying good
- ↑ Ibi non erit sinistra, quia nec adversitas, nec gaudium diminutum.
