Here, on earth, we are always lonely, nor can the best of us avoid that feeling, for we were made for friendship, human and divine, such as here can never be wholly realized or perfectly satisfied. To its full realization there are innumerable barriers which we cannot remove. We look forward to the meeting of friends and we find that often there is something that comes between us, not indeed in the sense that we disagree, but that the very limits of our being prevent that utter absorption of the lover in the loved one, which instinctively we yearn after. Despite our eagerness and their sympathy, we are conscious that absolute oneness is impossible. The presence of those we love is enjoyed, but it fails to satisfy the longing of our heart; the very limits of space and time seem often to put us apart. Hither and thither we run, turning to this friend or that, glad that we are still responsive to the call of affection; yet this very energy of our nature, which never is sated, tells that it was made for things that are better able to fill our hearts. Our hearts, indeed, were made for God, and they can never rest until they rest in Him. From the existence of this desire for friendship alone, one could prove the need of man for intimate union with God - one could show that nature itself proclaims the idea of love as the only thing that can finally satisfy us.
To rest in God eternally is the supreme joy of Heaven. Indeed, Heaven has no meaning but that. As of Heaven, so of Hell, poets, artists, and saints have told us many things: they have described under various allegories both the delights of the one and the pains of the other; they have let loose the rein to their imagination and have conjured up scenes of surpassing loveliness or grim and awful suffering. The harmonies of music, the appeal of colour, the delicious charms of perfume and taste, have all been laid under contribution in order to express as energetically as possible the wonderful joy of Heaven; but we know that these are in reality but the imaginings of those who are endeavouring to depict truth, but know that they are incapable of doing so. They would not pretend that they were doing more than putting into sensible form things that lie outside the range of the senses; for, after all, the joy of Heaven is no other thing than to see and know God. To stand face to face before Him and know Him even as we are known, to be able to detect line by line the features of His divine beauty, to trace the splendour of that divine life which from all eternity has sufficed for God's perfect happiness, to study unendingly that marvellous harmony of justice and mercy, strength and tenderness, love and wisdom the anticipation of doing this must always fascinate man's reason. Then swiftly the will must follow the lead of the reason, for knowledge will not stop till it has passed to love.
It was spoken truly that it is not good for man to be alone. Here are we always in exile, weary strangers, sojourners who have come as yet to no abiding city; here we seem as though, like Dante, we wake to find ourselves in a dark wood. Yet, as to travellers there comes cheeringly the gleam of a distant light that streams in the dark from some cottage window and makes glad the path, gives elasticity to the steps and hastens into regular rhythm the swinging pace, so must the thought of that true home encourage our progress here on earth. We should have the feeling of loneliness that comes on all wanderers in exile. The very joys of life, that might otherwise distract our thoughts from heavenly things, should appear now in their real significance, as foretastes of that everlasting joy sprung from everlasting life. Human love and the delights of friendship, out of which are built the memories that endure, are also to be treasured up as hints of what shall be hereafter. Heaven, then, is simply the vision of God. True knowledge, unveiling for us the sacred beauty, must perforce drive the heart to love: over it, while it gazes on God, must break and sweep the fullest tide of rapture, a divine espousal, a union so intimate that the limits of our personality must be strained to breaking point. Yet it is not that we shall enter into all joy, but that all joy will enter into us.
- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.