Mother and son are looking out a window, and they are talking about heaven. Less about heaven the place than about unity with God, coming to rest in that One who has given us life and is our final joy. It is a poignant conversation given Monica's looming death. And as mother and son discuss life with God, their hearts and minds pressing deeper and deeper into that mystery of Love, they reach the climax of their conversation, which I've formatted below for savoring:
So we said:
"If the commotion of the flesh were to fall silent in a man,
silent the images of the earth and the waters and the air,
and silent the heavens,
and the soul were silent to itself
and by not thinking of itself would surpass itself,
if all dreams and imaginary revelations were silent,
and silent every tongue and every sign and all that exists only transiently,
since if anyone could hear these things then this is what they would all would say:
'We did not make ourselves,
but He who abides in eternity made us.'
If having said this they fell silent,
having led us to open our ears to Him who made these things,
and He alone would speak through Himself
and not through them so that we would hear His Word
not through a tongue of flesh,
nor through an angel's voice,
nor through the thundering sound from the clouds,
nor through an obscure enigma,
but we might hear Him whom in these things we love,
hear Him without these things,
just as we now reached out
and in swift thought touched the Wisdom
that abides over all things in eternity.
If this could continue,
and other visions that were far inferior could be withdrawn,
and could this vision ravish and absorb and envelop its beholder
in inward joys,
so that eternal life would be like that one moment of understanding for which we longed,
then would this not mean:
'Enter into the joy of your Lord?'"
