This is the last chapter of this wonderful work of Blessed Elizabeth. It summarizes what we have been reading so far. Elizabeth's insight is not original. In fact, this work "Heaven in Faith" is full of borrowed quotations from different spiritual writers as well as Scriptures. But Elizabeth's talent, I think, is her ability to pull all these sentiments together and come up with a doctrine which is beautiful, lyrical and theologically accurate: the Cross as a means to love, the proof of love and the object of love. This chapter ends our review of the work "Heaven In Faith."
41. We have been predestined by the decree of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we may be the praise of His glory. It is St. Paul who tells us this. St. Paul who was instructed by God himself. How do we realize this great dream of the Heart of our God, this immutable will for our souls? In a word, how do we correspond to our vocation and become perfect praises of glory of the Most Holy Trinity?
42. "In Heaven each soul is a praise of glory of the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, for each soul is established in pure love and lives no longer its own life, but the life of God. Then it knows Him, St. Paul says, as it is known by Him. In other words "its intellect is the intellect of God, its will the will of God, its love the very love of God . In reality it is the Spirit of love and of strength who transforms the soul, "for to Him it has been given to supply what is lacking to the soul," as St. Paul says again, "He works in it this glorious transformation." St. John of the Cross affirms that the 'soul surrendered to love, through the strength of the Holy Spirit, is not far from being raised to the degree of which we have just spoken, even here below! This is what I call a perfect praise of glory!
43. A praise of glory is a soul that lives in God, that loves Him with a pure and disinterested love, without seeking itself in the sweetness of this love; that loves Him beyond all His gifts and desires the good of the Object thus loved. Now how do we effectively desire and will good to God if not in accomplishing His will since this will orders everything for His greater glory? Thus the soul must surrender itself to this will completely, passionately, so as to will noting else but what God wills.
A praise of glory is a soul of silence that remains like a lyre under the mysterious touch of the Holy Spirit so that he may draw from it divine harmonies; it knows that suffering is a string that produces still more beautiful sounds, so it loves to see this string on its instruments that it may more delightfully move the Heart of its God.
A praise of glory is a soul that gazes on God in faith and simplicity; it is a reflector of all that He is; it is like a bottomless abyss into which he can flow and expand; it is also like a crystal through which he can radiate and contemplate all His perfections and His own splendor. A soul which thus permits the divine being to satisfy in itself His need to communicate all that he is and all that he has, is in reality the praise of glory of all His gifts.
Finally, a praise of glory is one who is always giving thanks. Each of her acts, her movements, her thoughts, her aspirations, at the same time that they are rooting her more deeply in love, are like an echo of the eternal Sanctus.
44. In the heaven of glory the blessed have no rest "day or night, saying: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty..... they fall down and worship Him who lives forever and ever..."
In the heaven of her soul, the praise of glory has already begun her work of eternity. Her song is uninterrupted, for she is under the action of the Holy Spirit who effects everything in her, and although she is not always aware of it, for the weakness of nature does not allow her to be established in God without distractions, she always sings, she always adores, for she has, so to speak, wholly passed into praise and love in her passion for the glory of her God. In the heaven of our soul let us be praises of glory of the Holy trinity, praises of love of our Immaculate Mother. One day the veil will fall, we will be introduced into the eternal courts, and there we will sing in the bosom of infinite Love. And God will give us "the new name promised to the Victor." What will it be? LAUDEM GLORIAE
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