examination of the heart 362 with a remarkable triumph, whereas the entrance to the heavenly Capitol [f.114r] cannot stand open to anybody before I enter it in triumph and for that reason I will precede you to the Kingdom of My Father, to arrange for your entrance there, when you arrive after Me.” Do you want to follow Christ’s soldiers to their winter quarters? Follow them to battle. If you fight well, you will also merit participation in the triumph and repose. 2. “where I am you may be also” (Jn 14:3). Consider that you must strive on the paths of the Lord to enter with Him the Gate of Life. It shall happen if you would make a serious effort to acquire the virtues; if you would be seized with the greatest desire to carry the cross and carry the one imposed upon you with untiring zeal; if you would work solidly in the vineyard of the Lord, and if you would, unsatisfied with just any ordinary perfection, strive after a higher one. For if the Lord said that someday His disciples will perform greater miracles than He Himself performed (cf. Jn 14:12), He certainly wants you to work hard at attaining more sublime virtues and to break with the ordinary manner of living. He wishes that you even surpass Him, as much as it is possible for a man, by your virtues and saintly deeds: so that due to your virtues and saintly deeds you may also be where He is, in that very same place. 3. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). The Lord rightly calls Himself the way: for wanting the whole human race to attain the everlasting glory, He descended to earth from Heaven, not only to show us the way, but also to pave it and make it secure, marked with so many Sacraments and branded with so many traces of His virtues. But why does He join together these three things: the way, the truth, and the life? Because He wants to teach you that you should seek the truth if you want to have life; that you should walk in the way of the Lord if you want to find the truth. Hence, He says to you: “Follow me” (Mt 8:22), “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
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