Relying on his profound insights from prayer and his deep love for Sacred Scripture, Anselm systematically describes various aspects of the happiness of heaven in his work, The Glories of Heaven. This excerpt compiles his writing on the gifts of friendship, honor, joy, and wisdom that we are promised in heaven.
Friendship
Christ, Who Himself is our peace, shall be the one head of all. In the same way that no members of a body, even the lesser ones, are not truly loved by the body itself and all the other members which comprise it, even so will all the souls in the kingdom of heaven be united in affection and perfect solidarity.
You will love all your heavenly companions just as they will all love you. Consider how much love and friendship you shall thus enjoy in the shared possession of that glorious kingdom of eternal joy and peace! Nevertheless, let us pass from the friendship which will exist among the souls of the blessed and contemplate now another good thing which shall come to you in that future life in heaven. For there will be One Who loves you more than you love yourself, and more than all the other blessed beings combined could possibly love you. And you also shall love this One—Who is God Himself—more than you love all others and more than you love yourself. And that divine love will be of a sweetness that exceeds all description and a delight which transcends all comprehension!
Honor
Since such immense power will be yours when you have entered the kingdom of heaven, commensurate honor shall also certainly not be lacking. Let us consider for a brief moment what honor exactly is. Imagine a certain poor and wretched beggar, from whom all solace is absent, and who is afflicted with hideous ulcers and other foul wounds and infirmities. This poor beggar does not even possess a cloak to shield himself from the bitter cold of winter.
Now imagine that a most powerful and magnificent king is passing by and happens to see this poor wretch lying in the dirt by the wayside. And the king feels pity and compassion for the poor man and commands that his wounds be treated and healed and that the beggar should be clothed in fine garments from his own stores. Moreover, the king determines and declares that he shall adopt the wretched beggar as his very own son, and he commands that henceforth all the subjects of his kingdom are to regard him as such. He orders that none are to oppose, disparage, or belittle his newly adopted son (despite the fact that he was formerly a beggar), and he even makes him heir of his entire kingdom, bestowing upon him an exalted title of royal dignity.
Would you not say that this man, who was once a wretched beggar but has been adopted and elevated by so great a king, has been magnificently honored?
But this is certainly just what God, the King of the universe, has done for you! For we fallen human beings are born in the corruption of the flesh, and our lot is filled with many miseries. And, in the midst of our sorrows and suffering, we are bereft of all consolation and subject to all the turmoil and weakness of fleshly passions. And, although we are covered with the wounds of misery and the ulcers of sin, God Himself comes to our assistance, motivated by His mercy alone. He will cure us of our afflictions and—in the fullness of time—adorn us with the blessings of perfect righteousness and incorruptibility. He will adopt us as His sons and daughters through grace, and make us sharers in, and heirs to, the untold splendors of His glorious kingdom. He will establish us as peers and co-heirs with His only-begotten Son, and shall place all created things under our dominion.
Joy
If there is anyone whom you love just as much as you love yourself, you will rejoice in the happiness of that person just as much as you will rejoice in your own. So, if there was such a person who possessed blessings and joys which were equal to your own, would not your own happiness be thereby doubled? Would it not be the case that if there were two, or even more, whom you loved just as much as yourself, your own happiness would increase when you perceived that their own joys equaled yours?
If you recall what we have written about the universal and perfect friendship which shall redound in the kingdom of heaven, you will realize that you shall love all the other souls of the blessed as much as yourself, and they will likewise love you with an equal love. And there shall be there a thousand times a thousand souls who enjoy the perfection of happiness, or rather a thousand times a hundred thousand, or rather a number which is utterly incomprehensible and uncountable!
And, [applying the principle we have just described], each one shall have their own joys multiplied in perceiving the joys of all the others. This supreme joy, therefore, will be both inside and outside, joy above and joy below, joy surrounding the soul in every direction and in every aspect! And this, as we have said at the beginning of our discourse, is “what God has prepared for those who love him.”
This is what, in my judgment, can be described—insofar as it is possible to be described—as eternal beatitude, eternal happiness, the perfect fullness of all possible comforts and delights, in which nothing at all shall be lacking. This is what all the friends of God will possess in the unending life to come! Nevertheless, we do not claim to have fully or adequately described it. For it is, to be sure, infinitely more than all we have managed to convey in our humble and simple words.
Wisdom
Wisdom is something which we all naturally value, desire, and seek in this present life. Yet our wisdom in this present life, even for the most learned and astute of people, is always partial, fragmentary, and uncertain. But in the next life, the blessed souls in heaven shall possess wisdom which is of such a wonderful extent that there shall be absolutely nothing which they do not know or understand. For God shall permit and cause them to know everything which can be known, including all things past, present, and future.
In the kingdom of heaven, each shall know everything, and everyone and everything shall be perfectly known. There will be nothing which remains concealed, neither what homeland nor what people nor what family anyone has originated from nor what deeds anyone has done during the course of their earthly life. Once you have attained the kingdom of heaven, the perfect well-being, stainless purity, complete remission, and unassailable impunity which you have secured will fill you with perfect joy.
Thoughts of the sins you committed during your earthly life, once they have been forgiven, shall not cause you any more fear or anxiety than Saint Peter now suffers from the fact that he once denied Christ, or that Saint Paul now suffers because he once persecuted the Church, or which Saint Mary Magdalene now suffers for her former sins. For each of these saints knows with perfect certainty that their sins, though perhaps many and serious, are now entirely forgiven.
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This article is taken from a chapter in The Glories of Heaven by St. Anselm of Canterbury which is available from TAN Books.
