Heaven can be closer

In the special entitled "The day I went to heaven", our confrere and friend Marcelo Teixeira, one of the journalists of our magazine, evokes a moment of great happiness that he could experience thirty years ago. It is worth reading the article, because his testimony confirms a thesis known to the spirits about the benefits of charity, either for the target and for those who practice it.

St. Vincent de Paul, whose social work dedicated to the poor is well known to Catholics and non-Catholics, to the extent that it was declared on May 12, 1885, by Leo XIII, patron of all charitable works of the Catholic Church, it refers to the subject in a message transmitted medially and inserted by Allan Kardec in the cap. XIII of The Gospel According to Spiritism.

From the message signed by the champion of charity, we highlight the following points:

- All eternal happiness is contained in this precept: "Love one another." The soul cannot rise to the high spiritual regions, but by devotion to the neighbour, only in ventures of charity finds its happiness and consolation.

- Be good, shelter your brethren, let go of the hideous scourge of selfishness. When this duty is fulfilled, the path of eternal happiness will open.

- Which among you still did not feel the heart pulsate of joy, of intimate joy, to the narrative of an act of beautiful dedication, of a truly charitable work?

- If you were only looking for the pleasure that a good deed gives you, you will always be on the path of spiritual progress. It does not miss examples; rare is only goodwill.

- Charity is the fundamental virtue on which the whole edifice of the earthly virtues must rest. Without it there are no others.

- Without charity there is no better hope, there is no moral interest to guide us; without charity there is no faith, because faith is just pure radiance which makes a charitable soul bright.

- Charity is, in all the worlds, the eternal anchor of salvation; it is the purest emanation of the Creator Himself; it is his own virtue, given by him to the creature. How to despise this supreme goodness? What heart, aware of it, is perverse enough to repress in itself and expel this all-divine feeling? What is the bad enough son to rebel against this sweet caress: charity?

- Good men, with good and firm will, unite to continue the work of the propagation of charity; in the very exercise of this virtue, you will find your reward; there is no spiritual joy that it does not already provide in the present life. (Excerpts from the message published in chapter XIII, item 12, of The Gospel According to Spiritism.)

Reading the words of St. Vincent de Paul, it is easy to understand the joy described by Marcelo Teixeira, due to the important act he practiced at an age when he was barely out of adolescence and which, as we can see, marked him for the rest of life.

Let us imitate him, and we will undoubtedly reap similar joy, imbued with the righteous feeling that heaven may be much closer than we imagine.