Episode 13 -The Imitation of Christ: Day of Eternity

In Book 3, Chapter 48 of The Imitation of Christ, the disciple contemplates Heaven.

“A most happy mansion of the city above, a most bright day of eternity, which knows no night,” the disciple says, “But is always enlightened by Thy sovereign truth, a day, always joyful, always secure, and never changing in its state for the country. Oh, that this day would shine upon us, and all those temporal things would come to an end. It shines indeed upon the saints, resplendent with everlasting brightness. But to us pilgrims upon earth, it is seen only as far off and through a glass.”

Fr. Robert Nixon thinks a lot of us struggle to think about Heaven in its fullness of glory. “I think we sometimes succumb to interpretations of Heaven that it’s really only a metaphor to living a good life in this world,” Fr. Nixon comments. “There’s a certain degree of truth in that idea, but it’s very inadequate. It doesn’t explain the great glories of Heaven, which are presented to us so vividly in the Bible, in the Book of Revelation, and elsewhere. But here we’re asked, in briefer form but equally powerfully, to contemplate these glories of Heaven, which we see only vaguely in this present life, but which the saints enjoy to its fullness.”

Episode 13 of The Commentaries dives into Book Three of The Imitation of Christ, chapters 47-53.