don Enrico Ghezzi

What is paradise? It will be an awareness of our Inner Self. It is to become finally aware that our Inner Self was created in God’s image (Gen 1 27 :” So God created man in His own image…”). I shall see in myself the image of God the Creator. Everyone will see in himself a reflection of God; like a ray of sun born from the incandescent origin of God’s love. I will know I am part of God’s eternal love.

God will be present and known by billions of creatures who will live in the incandescence of His love, the Holy Spirit of God. The entire cosmos will be displayed in the sun of love.

Then paradise will be for each and all of us the enjoyment of God who created us in his image. I shall contemplate him in myself, immersed in His love; the love which unites us all in God.

This was what John meant in his First Letter 3 1-2: “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God.”  “Beloved, now we are the sons of God , and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when He shall appear we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is”. In fact: “Love is God, and everyone who loveth is born of God and knoweth God. In this was manifested the love of God toward us because God sent his only begotten son into the world ”(1 John 4.7-10). Paradise will be to know and live in the likeness of god, the Father.

But there will be more: the Son sent by the Father, the Word of God has taken on and included in his ‘divinity’ , flesh similar to our flesh, to our body. “And the Word was made flesh ”(John 1 14). He is the “first-born” of the new creation, after the creation of Adam and Eve. The flesh of every man, in his suffering which penetrates the human experience and the entire cosmos has been absorbed and lived by the body of Christ.

In embracing all humanity, on the cross, Jesus leads us to descend into death to be resurrected with him on Easter Day. Paradise will be the glory of our resurrection in the resurrection of Jesus. We shall know each other and we shall love each other in the love of God with our body created for happiness. We shall live always in our love of the Spirit which lives eternally between the Father and the Word of God, the Son made man. Creation and Incarnation, these are the mystery of light and happiness.