"On Heaven"

"Saints in Paradise,"  Fra Angelico

We've adopted St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church, as our guide through this Lent.  The following is taken from a sermon of St. Alphonsus for the Second Sunday of Lent:

"[H]ow . .  . beautiful shall be the city of Paradise.  . . . [W]hat it must be to behold the beauty of Jesus Christ!  St. Teresa once saw one of the hands of Jesus Christ, and was struck with astonishment at the sight of such beauty.  . . . The hearing shall be satiated with the harmony of the celestial choirs.  St. Francis once heard for a moment an angel playing on a violin, and he almost died through joy. . . .But the delights of which we have spoken are the least of the blessings of Paradise.  The glory of Heaven consists in seeing and loving God face to face. . . . God himself, whom the saints are allowed to behold, is, according to the promise made to Abraham, the principal reward of the just in Heaven.  "I am thy reward exceeding great" - Gen. xv. 1.  St. Augustine asserts, that, were God to show his face to the damned, "Hell would be instantly changed into a Paradise of delights."

St. Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us.