Jan 30 Tue
Thinking about heaven, one may have the doubt, “Will I be then the same person I am now?”
The last sentences that Cervantes wrote, four days before his death, are moving: "Farewell, thank you; farewell, gentle, pleasant friends; I am dying, and I wish to see you soon, happy in the next life… I continue to hope against all hope, because I no longer have it in this world, but I prolong it, I transfer it to the other, to that other that will continue to be mine, with my pleasant friends whom I hope to see happy. I know who I am, who I wanted to be, and, I insist, I still want to be; and I want to be this one I am, this very one... I know who I will always be.” This is the decisive expression describing the most intense possession of permanent life in God.
Cervantes also considers a second concept, uniqueness; he describes that each person is unique, that is to say: that like me there has not been, nor will there ever be another equal, both with respect to who I am, and what I am. Neither can I become another person. Every human being is impossible to repeat.
Life is like a little boat, which allows us to go out to sea, at the risk of being shipwrecked and lost. Let's imagine the scene. Sailing in that fragile boat, going through so many calamities. Not even during storms, should we lose our calm or become discouraged.
The sailor must keep calm, bring calm to himself, and advance serenely in the midst of the storm; God is my Father. He must not become upset or uneasy. Anxiety is the loss of serenity, of the firmness and calmness that man had achieved, that he had procured by calming himself.
Anguish enters, which is a deprivation, because man's proper thing is not anguish, but serenity. But this serenity and peace, in turn, is not given to him for nothing; rather, man has to conquer it, and win it, as God’s gift. In order to have peace, he must first of all become calm.
Man, even in the tightest situations, must withdraw into himself, look at the lighthouse at the distance, and calm down, perhaps through an energetic effort. Then, he arrives at his real self, his permanent destination. Serenity is finding oneself authentically, having conquered oneself from agitation or alienation.
It is not in anxiety, but in calm that man can truly take possession of his life and, in effect, fully exist; in it, he properly humanizes himself, and able to give himself to God.
Is it possible we remain looking at ourselves as persons? … As persons with an immortal destiny? … with a vocation to unending happiness?
I think it is enough to open our eyes, and see what each one of us is, and hopes to be. That is achieved in dialogue with our Father and Creator in contemplative prayer.
Video: