CALENDARIUM ROMANUM FORMA ORDINARIA

After this our Lord said: “I thank you for your service and your labor in your youth.” And in this my understanding was lifted up into heaven, where I saw our Lord God as a lord in his own house, who has called all his friends to a splendid feast. Then I did not see him seated anywhere in his own house; but I saw him reign in his house as a king and fill it all full of joy and mirth, gladdening and consoling his dear friends with himself, very familiarly and courteously, with wonderful melody in endless love in his own fair blissful countenance, which glorious countenance fills all heaven full of the joy and bliss of the divinity. God showed three degrees of bliss that every soul will have in heaven who has voluntarily served God in any degree upon earth. The first is the honor and thanks from our Lord God which he will receive when he is delivered from pain. The thanks is so exalted and so honorable that it may seem to him that this suffices him, if there were no more. For it seemed to me that all the pain and labor which all living men might endure could not earn the honorable thanks that one man will have who has voluntarily served God . As to the second degree, it is that all the blessed in heaven will see the honor of the thanks. God makes the soul’s service known to all who are in heaven (…). If a king thank his subjects, it is a great honor for them; and if he make this known to all the kingdom, then their honor is much increased. And for the third degree: It is that the first joy with which the soul is then received will last forevermore. And I saw that this was familiarly and sweetly revealed, that every man’s age will be known in heaven, and he will be rewarded for his voluntary service and for the time that he has served, and especially the age of those who voluntarily and freely offer their youth to God is fittingly rewarded and wonderfully thanked.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

There has come a shout at midnight. What can this shout be, if not what the apostle talks of: in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise up imperishable, and as for us, we shall be changed (1 Cor 15:52)? Once the shout has been raised at midnight what happens next? They all arose. What’s the meaning of “They all arose”? The hour is coming, says the Lord himself, when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and come forth (Jn 5:28-29). (…) What’s the meaning of “They didn’t take oil in their flasks”? In their hearts (…) I mean, look at these foolish virgins who didn’t carry oil with them; by their self-denial which earns them the name of virgins, and by their good works represented by the lamps they bring,’ they are intent on pleasing other people. And if they are intent on pleasing other people, and that’s why they do these admirable things, they are not carrying oil with them. So you, then, mind you carry it with you, carry it inside, where God can see; carry the testimony of your conscience there. (…) So if you refrain from unlawful things and perform good works in order to be admired by other people, there is no oil inside you (…) Before those virgins went to sleep it doesn’t say that their lamps were going out. The wise ones’ lamps were burning from the oil inside them, from the assurance of their consciences, from their inner boast, from their deepest charity. But those of the foolish ones were also burning. Why were they burning then? Because there was no dearth of admiration from other people. But after they had risen, that is to say, in the resurrection from the dead, they began to trim their lamps, that is, to prepare to give God an account of their works. And because there is nobody then expressing admiration (…) they were asking for what they had always been used to, that is to say, to shine with someone else’s oil, to live in dependence on other people’s admiration. Give us some of your oil, because our lamps are going out.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team