For bedtime reading over the weekend in New Hampshire, I chose Maurice and Thérèse, The Story of a Love, by Bishop Patrick Ahern. The following passage struck me. It is from a letter of Saint Thérèse to her spiritual brother, Maurice Bellière:
I have to tell you, little brother, that we don't understand Heaven in the same way. You think that, once I share in the justice and holiness of God, I won't be able to excuse your faults as I did when I was on earth. Are you then forgetting that I shall also share in the infinite mercy of the Lord? I believe that the Blessed in Heaven have great compassion for our miseries. They remember that when they were weak and mortal like us, they committed the same faults themselves and went through the same struggles, and their fraternal tenderness becomes still greater than it ever was on earth. It's on account of this that they never stop watching over us and praying for us.
His Excellency, the Bishop of the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma has given
Father Mark a special mandate to live in adoration before the Most
Blessed Sacrament, in a spirit of thanksgiving and intercession, that he
might make reparation before the Eucharistic Face of Jesus for all his
brothers in Holy Orders. At the same time, he is available to the
priests and deacons of the Diocese for spiritual and sacramental
support in their pursuit of holiness.
Isn't that lovely - I have to find that book and re-read it - it is downstairs somewhere. This was such a perfect quote for me today.
It is amazing how we can sometimes misunderstand heaven and in what holiness consists.