Ah, if you could only see a little
bit of paradise, if you could only hear for a few seconds the chanting of the
sweet angels who shine with heavenly light and emit paradisiacal fragrance! Oh,
what beauty! Unfortunately, we are in the dark about all these things.
There everything shines with
limitless bliss. And what does the throne of Christ tell you? Christ the Master
sits upon a throne, and due to His light no one can discern His sacred and most
sweet face. Oh, what sweetness and beauty! What is more beautiful than this?
This is truly paradise: to behold the face of our Jesus! Glory to Thy Cross, O
Lord, and to Thy Resurrection!
O depth of the wisdom of God! O
mysteries of the three sun Deity! Blessed is he who humbles himself like a
child, obeying all commands with a guileless soul for the love of God! And woe
to him who will hold on to his egotism, like me; how many divine gifts does he
deprive himself of!
My children, run with humility to
reach the Lord Who humbled Himself for our sake—our sweetest, beloved Christ,
the light of our poor souls.
See what beauty awaits us! If you
could only see how beautiful it is! You would disregard everything; you would
even become like trash to be stepped on, just as long as you would not be
deprived of everything that the sweet love of Jesus has prepared! These are the
kinds of things my Elder used to tell me, and I am conveying them to you so
that you may be sweetened. I am done—forgive me!
Selected from the Letters and Homilies of
Elder Ephraim of Arizona
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