Revelation Part 6, Conclusion

 Revelation part 6, conclusion:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sidrRUkoF85-Rxk15lUGuYD34qPpjPdV/view?usp=drivesdk

Wednesday in the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 12, 2026

Matthew 18:15-20

Jesus said to his disciples: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell the Church. If he refuses to listen even to the Church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” 

We see here the Lord Jesus promulgating laws regarding the functioning of his Church.  Previously we saw him refining or strengthening laws that involved virtue and sin.  In this reading he gives laws for the proper functioning of the organized body of his followers.  This tells us that after three years of public ministry, his followers have coalesced into a fairly consistent and fairly large group of men and women out of the enormous crowds which heard his preaching and witnessed his miracles earlier.  It is now necessary to establish rules for order, especially as the Lord directs his flock towards the future.

It is interesting to hear our Lord speak on procedural matters, and to compare what he says here with, say, God’s instructions to Moses on how a person may become ritually impure and then how he may purify himself again.  Jesus begins his instruction on the lowest level of contact between the sinner and the person against whom he sinned.  If the person who committed the sin expresses sorrow for the sin, having come to his senses, then the matter closes.  If not, it can gradually become a matter for Church leadership.  This would include sins committed directly against a person or persons as well as the sin of scandal.  For the latter, we have an example of how St. Paul acted.  In 1 Corinthians 5, 1, Paul speaks of a man professing Christianity while living with his mother as though she were his wife.  The sin is not directed against him, but it is a scandal, and Paul takes action, and has judged “to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh” (1 Corinthians 5, 5).  This is completely in line with the final sentence that Jesus commands to take in the face of an unrepentant sinner: “treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.”  That is, have nothing to do with this person.  Do not even talk to him.  This is done to show the sinner the seriousness of what he has done in order to bring him back to he fold, but also as a matter of justice as well as to protect other believers from him.

“Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  This must have stunned the Apostles, and they probably did not understand this at the time.  Jesus will say this again to them after his Resurrection but only with the Descent of the Holy Spirit will they begin to appreciate what this means.  In short, it means that they will stand in for Christ among his followers after the Ascension and speak with the same authority with which he spoke.

“I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.”  In the context of the Lord’s words, we must understand that he is speaking of praying for spiritual necessities such as graces and that which will lead to the conversion of souls and the glory of God.  “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”  The Lord reminds us here that following him is a social activity, not a solitary one.  We members of his Body walk towards him, making progress day by day, and we walk together, helping one another, consoling and correcting, as needed.

Tuesday in the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 11, 2026

The Feast of St. Clare

Matthew 1, :1-5, 10, 12-14

The disciples approached Jesus and said, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me. 

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father. What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”

In the the question posed by the disciples, we see that a certain tension among them has come to a head.  A little time before, Jesus had announced to Peter that he would be the rock on which he would build his Church.  Then came the event of the Transfiguration, in which the Lord had taken only Peter, James, and John with him.  Following this, the nine Apostles had failed to exorcise a demon from a child.  And then came the episode in which Jesus told Peter to take a coin from the mouth of a fish he had caught and to pay the temple tax with it for them both.  It would have seemed that Jesus favored some followers over others, or that some possessed powers or authority others did not.  The question arises for them: “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  To their credit, they do not ask, Who is the greatest in this world? which would reveal a preoccupation with power and glory that did not belong to a follower of the Lord Jesus.

Perhaps the Apostles were actually asking, Who, Lord, is the most important of us to you?  But they would have seen the foolishness of such a direct question.  The question that they do ask is well thought-out: Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?  They do not ask who is the greatest in heaven, or who is the greatest in Christ’s subjective opinion, but who is the greatest in the kingdom and what are his qualities.  Already, the Lord had told them: “Amen I say to you, there has not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist: yet he that is the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11).  So who could this be?  What did it take to be “the greatest” in the kingdom?

The answer Jesus gives has nothing to do with power, charisma, ability, or any particular talent.  Instead, it is about virtue and service: holiness.  Jesus called a little child (as per the meaning of the Greek word) and pointed him out as the model for this “greatness”.  This had nothing to do with the particular child’s goodness or lack thereof, but with the innocence we associate with children.  For instance, a little child does not lust, or desire to kill, or to enslave others.  A little child of seven or eight (according to the usage of the word) in ancient times was learning to obey and to help out in the family business.  Duty was impressed upon a child from a very young age in those days, out of dire necessity.  At the same time, a child of this age had no rights and his existence depended upon his parents as well as the absence of disease, famine, and civil strife.  Of these things the child was very much made aware.

And so, virtue and duty are the hallmarks of the true follower of Christ, of one who is “great” in the kingdom of heaven.  The awareness of one’s own lowliness is key to this because it fosters gratitude to Christ for every gift received and a desire to serve the Lord in others: “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.”

“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.”  Although this parable may sound straightforward to us, it is complicated by the fact that most owners of flocks would not in fact abandon their ninety-nine sheep to look for one.  To leave their sheep like this was to open up the chance for a wolf to scatter them and to kill a few.  We must suppose here that the owner had trustworthy shepherds working for him with whom they could leave the bulk of his animals.  In such a case they could hunt far and wide for the lost sheep without worrying that they would lose their flocks.  Such an owner rejoices to have found it alive and unhurt because of the sheep who were already safe, but it is true joy.

The “kingdom of heaven” and the “flock” both signify the Church.  Let us strive for holiness so that, in virtue and service, we may become “great” in the eyes of our Lord.

Monday in the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 10, 2026

The Feast of St. Lawrence

John 12:24-26

Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.”

The grain of wheat must die in order to achieve its end, the production of “much fruit”.  We hear the Lord speak in these and similar words throughout all four of the Gospels.  It is a way in which he prepares his disciples for his own Death and Resurrection.  It is also a way in which he prepares them for the life in him: we must also “die” in order to produce “much fruit”.  

We use the verb “to die” in many ways.  It was a favorite expression of my mother when I was a child, usually using it in reference to something I had done: “I could have died.”  Here, we see it meaning “experiencing mortification”.  We also speak of “dying” in terms of any kind of extreme experience.  A comedian may “die” on stage, or a person may be anxious to learn something, as in “I’m dying to hear”.  Jesus uses the word in two senses: the literal sense, as in “ceasing to live”, and the metaphoric sense of giving of oneself until one has nothing left.

The Lord Jesus accomplished the first dying on the Cross, and the fruit produced was the resurrection of the dead: “The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Matthew 27, 52).  He accomplished the second from the instant of his Incarnation, when he “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man . . . even to the death of the cross” (Philippians 2, 7-8).  By the fruit of his lifelong obedience we “are fellow citizens with the saints and the servants of God” (Ephesians 2, 19). 

St. Paul gives us a very graphic summary of how he emptied himself for a Christ and in imitation of him: “Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods: once I was stoned: thrice I suffered shipwreck: a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren: In labour and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, fasting often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:24–28).  The fruit of his dying to self in obedience to God is found in the conversion of crowds of people and the establishment of many churches, and this dying was crowned by his martyrdom.  Not many of us are called to this kind of suffering any more than we are called to his level of theologian, but we who profess to follow Christ must follow no one else and obey his holy will.  

We see this also in the case of the deacon St. Lawrence, whose feast we celebrate today.  We pray for his intercession, that by it we might fall ever deeper in love with our Lord, and knowing his unconditional love for us, serve him without ceasing.

Sunday in the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time, August 9, 2026

Matthew 14, 22-36

Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side of the sea, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter said to him in reply, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” After they got into the boat, the wind died down. Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”  After making the crossing, they came to land at Gennesaret. When the men of that place recognized him, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought to him all those who were sick and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak, and as many as touched it were healed.

“Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side of the sea.”  The events in today’s Gospel Reading take place just after Jesus has fed a crowd of five thousand people and leads up to his rebuke of the Pharisees and their customs that they have taught the people to be mandated by the Law.  In essence, the Lord contests their supposed authority with his own, which is clearly established as from heaven in the miraculous feeding and then in his walking on the sea.

“He went up on the mountain by himself to pray.”  How greatly the Lord Jesus must have treasured those moments when he could get away from the crowds and even from his Apostles in order to pray!  The Gospels mention only a few time when he does this which indicates that these marked special occasions.  He chooses mountains and wastelands for praying because they allow him to be alone, but also because he seems to have genuinely liked these places.  Perhaps he liked them for their raw beauty, undisturbed by the workings of sinful men and thus reminiscent of how the world had looked before the cataclysmic sin of Adam and Eve, which brought destruction even to the natural world.

“The boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it.”  We should consider the situation of a boat at sea at night during this era.  There are no lights except for the stars and the moon, there is no navigation equipment, no life vests, no long distance communications, and no Coast Guard.  While fishermen went out at night to the sea, they tried to remain within sight of the coast and avoided stormy weather.  Squalls blew up frequently and without warning, and such a one is blowing up now.  

“During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea.”  We can imagine the peace the Lord Jesus felt in his prayer to his Father while the Apostles were struggling fiercely to keep from capsizing.  And he maintains his peace as he walks on the water.  And in doing so, the Lord shows himself the water’s Lord and its Creator.  We might think of the water smoothing itself before him even as it threatened to swamp the boat of the Apostles.  He is walking on the water at the fourth watch, the time when the dawn breaks.  Apart from the dramatic scene this would have made, Matthew is probably specific about the time because it has significance in the history of Israel, for Almighty God saved the Hebrews from the Egyptians at the Red Sea at that hour (cf. Exodus 14, 24-25). This is also the time Matthew gives for the Resurrection (cf. Matthew 28, 1).  The water or the sea also signified death for the ancient Israelites, and so the Lord’s walking upon it shows his domination of death.  We might recall that in ancient times a conquering army would trod over their prisoners as a way of impressing on them the totality of their victory over them.  Here, the Lord Jesus shows the Apostles a sign which frightens them now but which they will understand and take solace in later: “When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified.”  

“Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”  The sight that scares them calls out for them to recognize him.  He calls out from the sign of death to remind them that he is alive and present with them.

“Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus.”  Peter also wishes to tread over death and he begins to do so.  The Lord gives him the grace to allow him to do this, but the paucity of his  faith results in his sinking.  That is not to criticize such faith as he had, for he will shortlyk confess his belief that Jesus is the divine Son of God.  But we see here how much faith is required if we are to tread death after this life and travel to heaven.  “Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him.”  If we call to Jesus for help in this life or at the time of our death, he will help us readily.  But if we rely on our own efforts, we will sink into the abyss without a trace.  “After they got into the boat, the wind died down.”  The wind had blown against them but now dies down, as though acknowledging the arrival of its king and bowing solemnly.

“Truly, you are the Son of God.” None of the Prophets had commanded nature as Jesus does here. He appears to them out of the howling wind, its cause and its soother. And he stands before them as one who can command them to walk on the water too. All that holds them back is their paucity of faith. We pray that God will grant us the grace to follow his commands and to do his will with unwavering faith so that we might come to him and not sink into the abyss.

Saturday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 8, 2026

The Feast of St. Dominic

Matthew 17:14-20

A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said, “Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.” Jesus said in reply, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured. Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

The events in the Gospel reading for today transpire immediately after the Lord and his Apostles Peter, James, and John return from Mount Tabor following the Transfiguration.  The exorcism Jesus performs here serves to validate the events on the mountain and the words heard by the Apostles just as the healing of the leper did when Jesus descended the mountain upon delivering the Sermon on the Mount.  One further descent and validation is to come: following the Last Supper and the inauguration of the Mass, Jesus will come down the Mount of Olives to die on the Cross.  In the healing of the leper, the Lord in sign enters our own sinfulness in order to heal us from our sins.  In the present exorcism, in sign he casts out the evil one who has dominated the human race to that point.  In his Death on the Cross, he will fulfill the signs of the healings and rescue us all, and destroy the power of the devil over all humans.

“He falls into fire, and often into water.”  The Church Father Origen makes an interesting comment on this verse.  Already in the mid third century some were saying that the boy was suffering from some physical ailment, attributable in Origen’s day to an upset of the balance of the four humors.  Origen points out that if so, the Lord would certainly have treated him differently than he did, and then would not have explained to his Apostles that prayer (and fasting) were necessary for casting out an evil spirit of this magnitude.  In the present day, many modernist scholars still echo the notion which Origen so soundly defeated.

“O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you?“. This sounds like a rebuke of the Apostles, who failed to cast out the devil, but the Fathers, such as St. Jerome, are universal in seeing these words as applied to the boy and his father.  What is lacking is not want of power for a successful exorcism, but the faith necessary to be exorcised.  St. Mark, in his more detailed telling of the event, records: “And Jesus saith to him: ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.’  And immediately the father of the boy crying out with tears said: ‘I do believe, Lord. Help my unbelief!’ ” (Mark 9, 22-23).  While Jesus does not always require faith on the part of the one he is to heal, he does so on several occasions, such as this one, in which a Jewish child and his father must renounce evil and believe in God’s mercy.

Later, in private, the Apostles ask the Lord how they could have failed: surely they had received power from him to cast out demons and cure diseases (Matthew 10, 1)?  They had exercised this power previously: “Even the demons were subject to us!” (Luke 10, 17).  Jesus explains, “Because of your little faith.”  That is, they had received the power, but the power required faith to be applied.  With Jesus on Mount Tabor, the faith of the nine remaining Apostles weakened enough that they could not accomplish this work.  Jesus continues, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”  We ought to consider the size and purity of our faith, and pray for more, so that we might move the mountain of our world to convert and to become a truly holy mountain.  In this way we could join in the work of St. Dominic, who won back to the True Faith those who had rejected it for a terrible heresy.

The Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, Thursday, August 6, 2026

Matthew 17:1–9

Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother, John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and do not be afraid.” And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone.  As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, “Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

The Feast of the Transfiguration began to be celebrated locally in the 900’s on various dates in Western Europe.  It was promulgated to the whole Church by Pope Callistus III in the year 1456 in thanksgiving for the victory of the Hungarian Count John Hunyadi over far larger Moslem forces at the Battle of Belgrade, who threatened to enslave Europe after taking Constantinople three years before.  The victory by this ragtag, quickly assembled army of peasants and mercenaries forced the Muslims to retreat and saved Europe.  

The feast commemorates the manifestation of Christ’s glory to his most zealous Apostles Peter, James, and John, who would later describe this to the others.  It occurred as the Lord led his disciples to Jerusalem in order for him to enter his Passion, and it served to strengthen them for its coming as well as to prepare them for his Resurrection.

“Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother, John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.”  Mount Tabor, the traditional site for the  Transfiguration, rises almost two thousand feet above the surrounding plain near the Sea of Galilee and presents a marvelous view from its summit.  It is a rather steep feature and it would have required a lot of work to get to the top, particularly since no roads went up it at the time.  It takes a few hours to climb.  Since Jesus often chose places like this to pray, his Apostles might have thought, as they made their way up, that he proposed to do this here.  On the other hand, he preferred to go off by himself to pray.  They knew that when he took the three of them along apart from the other Apostles, they saw wondrous healings and even the dead rise.  

“And he was transfigured before them.”  The Greek verb here is the root of the English “metamorphosis”, which means “a transformation”.  The Greek is customarily translated as “he was transfigured”, which has the sense of being transformed into something greater or more beautiful.  The question arises, then: Was he or his appearance transformed into this greater reality, or was he or it revealed to be thus in actuality?  We can think of Jesus himself as a sacrament in which the outer appearance signifies the power of God.  In the case of Jesus, the appearance of his Body was that of a Jewish man, but his words and his actions, also part of his appearance, indicated far more.  In this way, the Transfiguration meant the revealing of his glory inasmuch as human eye could bear it.  It was also a sign of the transformation his Body would undergo in the Resurrection, when it became spiritualized.

“His face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.”  The Lord’s Transfiguration dazzled his Apostles, and yet it drew their vision on with its glory.  This was the light of pure love, the end of every human desire.  Peter later described it in the presence of St. Mark, who duly recorded his words: “And his garments became shining and exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller upon earth can make white” (Mark 9, 2).  St. Luke says, “His shape of his countenance was altered and his raiment became white and glittering” (Luke 9, 29).  

“And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him.”  St. Luke adds: “And they spoke of his decease that he should accomplish in Jerusalem” (Luke 9, 31).  That is, of the Lord’s Passion and Death.  Jesus stood in the center of these two holy men, showing himself to be their superior.  Both had seen a vision of God, Moses while still alive, and Elijah when he was carried up to heaven in a fiery chariot.  God had formed the people of Israel from the law and the covenant which he made through Moses.  Elijah was to come again at the beginning of the end of the age to announce the Messiah, who would form the people anew.  The Fathers saw Moses as signifying the Jewish law, and Elijah as signifying the prophets calling the people to observe that law.  Together, they signify the old covenant, which would be “transfigured” into the new covenant of Jesus: “This is my Blood of the new covenant, which shall be shed for many” (Mark 14, 24).  

“Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  St. Mark adds, “For he knew not what he said: for they were struck with fear” (Mark 9, 5).  Peter evidently surmised that Jesus meant to make this mountain his headquarters and that he and James and John were brought along to serve Jesus, Moses, and Elijah there.  They could not have raised proper tents, of course, but they could have gathered wood from the trees that abound on Tabor for shelters until something more fitting could be constructed.

“A bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice.”  This might remind us of the dedication of the temple of Solomon, nearly a thousand years before: “A cloud filled the house of the Lord, 

and the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 8, 10-11).  Here, the dedication of the Body of the Lord, for which the earthly temple was but a sign, is manifested by his Father for his coming Sacrifice on the Cross.  “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him”, the Father’s own words thundering through creation, as they had at the beginning of his Son’s earthly ministry, reaching even our ears today.

“When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and do not be afraid.”  It shall be thus for the blessed souls at the end of time.  The angels will reconstitute their bodies and they will tremble in anticipation of the great judgment, but the Lord shall call to them still in their graves, “Rise, and do not be afraid.”

“And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone.”  Suddenly, without warning, all was as it had been.

“Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”  St. Mark adds, “And they kept the word to themselves; questioning together what that should mean, when he shall be risen from the dead” (Mark 9, 9).  In their wonder at what they had seen, the Apostles must have thought that Jesus was speaking in parables here.  In light of this vision of his glory, at this validation by God himself, what could he mean?  So much they would not understand until after it had happened, when they looked back and remembered, and when he came back to explain it to them.  We cannot now imagine the glory of heaven although the Lord and his saints have told us about it, and entire chapters of the Book of Revelation are given over to it.  Still, “eye has not seen, nor ear heard: neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2, 9).  We have a hint, in the words of today’s Gospel reading, of the beatific vision.