Welcome to our daily rosary meditation. Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

We're going to dedicate the first two weeks of Lent to meditate upon the essential teachings

of Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross the two great doctors of prayer and the spiritual life in our Catholic

tradition.

If you've asked a Christian, when will you finally be perfectly happy, perfectly at peace?

Almost every believing Christian would answer, in heaven.

But then suppose you asked the same Christian, well, what is heaven? In other

words, what is it about heaven that will make you perfectly happy and perfectly at peace. If you ask that,

many Christians probably wouldn't know how to answer. Because we've forgotten the

truth about heaven. The truth that what makes

heaven to be heaven is that God is there and that in heaven were perfectly

united with him. All happiness comes from having united ourselves to something

good. All peace comes from resting in some present good.

And because God is the ultimate infinite good,

when we're perfectly united to Him, that will be the ultimate happiness and endless peace.

But actually, the Church's two great teachers on the spiritual life, John of the Cross and Teresa of

Avla, have told us that we don't necessarily have to wait to taste that

happiness or to experience that peace until after death.

There is a kind of perfect union with God that is the beginning of heaven that begins in this life.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallow would be your name, Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us to stay our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation,

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