The kingdom of heaven is closer than you think
The kingdom of hell is, too.
Written by Theresa Nhật Lai Ngô on Thursday, May 2, 2024
Heaven and hell -
Today’s realities
Oh my Jesus, if only we could realise that both heaven and hell begin here on earth. Holiness and paradise are not a promise of tomorrow, but a reality of today, just like hell. And the condemning judgement is not a decision of Yours. It is we ourselves who judge ourselves. Our thoughts, words and actions, our lives judge us if we do not follow You. Because apart from You, we can do nothing. Oh, how pride catches up with me when I say this sentence in my mind. The insidious voice that insistently suggests: “Sure, you can do things apart from Him...”
Let us recognize:
The joys of heaven and when we hang out in hell again
Oh, if only we all knew at least a little about the joys of heaven, the bliss of being with you. Please remind us forgetful, hopeless and little-believing souls again and again that we do not have to wait until tomorrow to taste it. Help us to recognize it when we are once again hanging around lifeless in hell.
Wake us up!
I ask you, my Jesus, let us believe and dare to hope in something greater, more beautiful, more valuable, better, more fulfilling than we could ever imagine.
You are the greatest artist of all, my God.
You are the Creator of the most wonderful dreams.
O my beloved Jesus, make us hear, see and turn to you.
Let us turn back before we can no longer do it. Before it becomes final.
You, who gave everything for us. You, who conquered death and gave your life for us so that we can live in abundance.
And us? We "fill" ourselves with nothing but emptiness.
When do we finally start living?
Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we are so lost without you.
Lead us to life, lead us to you.
You are the true life and the only joy that enlivens us and raises us to heaven. To you, O Lord.
Only through you. For you alone are holy.
Praise be to you forever and ever. Amen.
O my God! Blessed Trinity, I long to love you and to work to be loved, to work for the glorification of the Holy Church by saving the souls who are on earth and freeing those who suffer in Purgatory. I long to become a saint, but I feel my powerlessness and I ask you, O my God, to be your own holiness.
Since you loved me so much that you gave me your only Son to be my Savior and my Spouse, the infinite treasures of his merits are also mine; I joyfully offer them to you, begging you to look at me only through the face of Jesus and in his heart burning with love.
(...)
I would like to console you for the ingratitude of the wicked, and I beg you to take away from me the freedom to displease you when I sometimes fall through weakness, so that your divine gaze may immediately purify me, consuming all my imperfections, like fire which transforms each into itself...
(...)
After my exile on earth, I hope to enjoy you at home, but I do not want to accumulate merits for Heaven, I want to work solely for your love, with the sole intention of pleasing you, comforting your Most Sacred Heart and saving souls who will love you forever.
At the evening of this life I will appear before you empty-handed, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our righteousnesses are stained in your eyes. I will therefore clothe myself with your own righteousness and receive from your love the eternal possession of yourself. I want no other throne and no other crown than you, O my Much-Beloved....
In your eyes, time is nothing, a single day is like a thousand years, so you can prepare me in an instant to appear before you...
In order to live in an act of perfect love, I consecrate myself as a total burnt offering to your merciful love, asking you to consume me without ceasing, to let the torrents of infinite tenderness contained in you overflow into my soul, so that I may become a martyr of your love, O my God...
May this martyrdom, after having prepared me to appear before you, finally give me death and my soul be lifted up without delay into the eternal embrace of your merciful love...
I will, O my Much-Beloved, with every beat of my heart renew this consecration to you innumerable times, until, when the shadows have vanished, I may declare my love to you in an eternal face-to-face.
From the Act of Consecration to the Merciful Love of God - St. Therese of Lisieux
Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, and believe in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for you?
If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
And where I am going, you know the way.
Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How then shall we know the way?
Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.
Johannes 14,1-6
We Wanderers of the Earth
– much freer than we think.
We wander here on earth as pilgrims between the realms of heaven and hell. Inspired by Dante's Inferno and the image of the steps of heaven, I often have the impression that sometimes we jump up and down in the higher levels of heaven, sometimes we limp back and forth in the lower levels of hell. And we burn there unconsciously, like a frog in a pot with water.
It is an "In you, God" and "away from you, God".
A constant conversion, if we will.
In the meantime, everything is still open as to where we will ultimately go. It is and remains our decision. We are not only closer to heaven and hell than we think, we are also much freer than we think.
Now you may be asking yourself, "Why would I choose hell?" Yes, I ask myself that all the time, and yet I do it even though I don't want to.
Now imagine you eat pizza every day and then you die and are asked if you want pizza or Bun Bo Hue for eternity. Do you risk eating something you don't know, for eternity? Something you've never tried in your life before? Why would you choose anything else if you chose pizza every day?
I think we would all choose pizza in that case and look at each other strangely if we were suddenly presented with Bun Bo Hue. "No, thanks. Yuck. I'll stick with my pizza." And you didn't know that Bun Bo Hue is much better for you and tastes better, too. And no, pizza isn't going to send us to hell.
But the principle applies: we choose what we know. We do what we always do. We go where we always go. The frog doesn't notice that the water is getting warmer and that he is being boiled alive in the pot.
Therefore, the question arises again:
Where am I right now?
And where do I want to go?
Music
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