The Music of Heaven
They sang as it were a new canticle. (Apoc. xiv. 3.)
Everyone has read the story of the monk who
once sat down in a wood near a monastery and
wondered whether Heaven would not after a time
lose its charm. A little bird began to sing a song
so sweet that he sat entranced. After a few minutes,
as it seemed to him, the song ceased and he returned
to his monastery to find that he had sat
there and listened for twenty years. If this could
be the case when it was but one little bird singing,
what must be the absorbing delight of the music
of the Angels and Saints in Heaven?
This music will combine the beauty of every
earthly instrument and of the sweetest of earthly
singers. No notes were ever heard on earth like
the notes of the virgins, boys and girls, men and
women, who will sing a heavenly melody that will
never cease; and each note will be such that, if we
heard it on earth, we should despise all pain and
suffering, nay, death itself, for the joy of listening
to it.
There will be a still sweeter music for the
blessed in Heaven, a music which makes the music
of the Saints and Angels seem almost discord. The
Voice of Jesus Christ will be Heaven's sweetest
melody. If on earth men hung on His every word,
if never man spoke like that Man, what will be
the Divine attraction of every word, every sound
that will proceed from His lips in Heaven? How
each word will ravish the souls of all the Saints
in Heaven! O my God, grant that I may hear that
Voice in Heaven.
Pray to dwell now in spirit in the company of the Voice speaking to your heart on earth.