Saturday, August 28 : Julian of Norwich

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