What are the unique features of the heavenly bride?

First: Heavenly Joy: The church’s virtuous life is an icon of the heavenly life, into which no disturbance nor anxiety can crawl, but the believer lives in the peace of God which surpasses all understanding and rejoices with the heavenly joy that springs from the Holy Spirit. The soul thus enjoys this joy as she prepares herself for the heavenly wedding. As for

995 St. Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on The Song of Songs , ed., Brian E. Daley S.J. and John T. Fitzgerald, trans., Richard A. Norris Jr. (Society of Biblical Literature, 2012) 1: pp. 25–27.

evildoers, they cannot have fellowship with the heavenly Bridegroom, but hear that prophetic voice saying, “There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked” (Isa. 48:22).

When the believer contemplates heaven, he will never find a distressed angel or an angel quarreling with another, since they all live together in perfect peace. The believer then imitates them and this is how he prepares himself for the eternal heavenly wedding. St. John Chrysostom says, “I should say that true happiness is when the soul is not affected by passion, not agitated nor overpowered by the body.”⁹⁹⁶ “We, who do have the first fruit of the Spirit, we, as well, ‘groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body’ (Rom 8:23); For he who has this fondness, can neither be puffed up by the good things of this life, nor abashed by its sorrows; but as though dwelling in the very heavens, is freed from each sort of irregularity.”⁹⁹⁷

Second: Humility as the ladder to heaven : True believers ascend to heaven day by day with humility to meet their humble Bridegroom who says, “Learn from Me for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:29). St. Jerome encourages us to strive that we may attain greater glory in heaven; the matrimonial heavenly house: “If we are all going to be equal in heaven, in vain do we humble ourselves here that we may be greater there.”⁹⁹⁸

St. John Chrysostom also says, “For this is the summary of our salvation. He who has acquired this virtue, although still entangled in the flesh, will be able to vie with immaterial powers and to be free from any connection with his present life … e he has come under the yoke of Christ and has learned to be meek and humble of heart, he will follow in the steps of the Master and manifest every virtue in every way”⁹⁹⁹ He also says, “If the sin of haughtiness by the Hebrew women was punished under the old law (Isa. 3:16), what can we say about women under the law of grace, the household of the city of heaven, who are supposed to imitate the angelic life?”

Third : Commitment to the sense of responsibility in everything we are entrusted with. Our life is a divine school in which we learn and are trained on the heavenly life in all aspects of our life, as a heavenly bride. St. John Chrysostom says, “And another thing too we learn, the self-restraint of the disciples which they practised in necessary things, and how little they accounted of food. For being twelve, they had five loaves only and two fishes; so secondary to them were the things of the body: so did they cling to the things spiritual only.”¹⁰⁰⁰ And he says, “I want you to set your minds on these things all the time (1 Cor. 3:1), for when we

996 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle to Timothy 2 (NPNF I/13:415).

997 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 19.7 (NPNF I/10:131).

998 St. Jerome, Against Jovinianus 2.33 (NPNF II/6:412).

999 St. John Chrysostom, Baptismal Instructions 1.30, 31 (31:36).

1000 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 49.4 (NPNF I/10:296).

focus on them, we become liberated from earth and are raised to heaven.”¹⁰⁰¹ “It is possible even while abiding here, to do all, as though already placed on high.”¹⁰⁰²

Fourth: To know both sides of the spiritual warfare. Since we are invited to the heavenly wedding feast, let us remember what was said about our heavenly Bridegroom: “Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one, with your glory & your majesty” (Ps. 45:3). Our warfare against the devil is actually between God and Satan. In His love for man, God desires humanity to be lifted up to His heavens, granting them victory as good soldiers (2 Tim. 2:3). On the other hand, the devil in his envy, does his best to destroy man so that he may not desire heaven, destroying every hope in it and using every possible way to enslave him and draw him down to the flames of the eternal hell. St. John Chrysostom says, “See how the devil on the other hand set himself in array against God or rather not against God unveiled, but God hidden in man's nature.”¹⁰⁰³

Fifth: Commitment to the life of prayer and praise: St. John Chrysostom says, “Even if you are in the market-place, you can collect yourself, and sing unto God, no one hearing you. For Moses also in this way prayed, and was heard, for He says, Why do you cry unto Me? (Ex. 14:15) although he said nothing, but cried in thought — wherefore also God alone heard him — with a contrite heart. For it is not forbidden one even when walking to pray in his heart, and to dwell above.”¹⁰⁰⁴ “Nothing helps the soul soar in the heavens, detaches it from the world, snatches it from the bonds of flesh, teaches her to despise worldly matters, like praising with harmonious melodies.”

Sixth: Observing Feasts with a spiritual mind . We observe the day of the Lord as a weekly feast that we may strongly be attached to our Bridegroom and complete all the days of our lives in a constant feast that never ends. As St. John Chrysostom says, the Sabbath, for many of the Jews, was a day when they abstain from work to help them remember how they were set free from slavery in Egypt or from making bricks like they used to in Egypt as slaves. In their minds, it was also a way for them to continually go out from slavery to the promise land. As for the new Sabbath in the Christian understanding, it is our entrance into the promise land that we may enjoy the eternal wedding feast and God’s promises. It is not just freedom from slavery, but also a way of enjoying the power of Christ’s resurrection and the joyful spiritual work in the heavenly land of Canaan. St. John Chrysostom says, “For we must not only be delivered out of Egypt [symbolically], but we must also enter into the [land of] promise.”¹⁰⁰⁵ Life for us, Christians, is a continuous feast. “For it is a festival, even the whole of our time.”¹⁰⁰⁶

1001 St. John Chrysostom, Baptismal Instructions 7.14 (ACW 31:109).

1002 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 19.7 (NPNF I/10:132).

1003 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 2.1 (NPNF I/10:9).

1004 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Colossians 9 (NPNF I/13:302).

1005 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 39.4 (NPNF I/10:252).

1006 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle to the Corinthians 15.6 (NPNF I/12:86).

Seventh : Worshiping in the Church with a spiritual mind. A true ecclesiastical person’s partaking in the communal worship of the Church helps him to experience the heavenly life. St. John Chrysostom says, “God has set over all one and the same Head, Christ according to the flesh, alike over Angels and men. That is to say, He has given to Angels and men one and the same government; to the one the Incarnate, to the other God the Word … Let us then exemplify the life of Angels and the virtue of Angels.”¹⁰⁰⁷

Eighth : Endurance of the current sorrows for the sake of Christ. St. Paul the apostle says, “Therefore. Let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb. 13:13). St. John Chrysostom says, “And see how he brings to nothing the sorrows of this present life. St. Paul sets side by side the things present with the things to come, the momentary with the eternal, the light with the weighty, the affliction with the glory. And neither is he content with this, but he adds another expression, doubling it and saying, more and more exceedingly. Next, he also shows the mode how so great afflictions are light. How are they light? While we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen. So will both this present be light and that future great, if we withdraw ourselves from the things that are seen.”¹⁰⁰⁸

Again he says, “Beloved, contemplate the hardships of this life. Even though they could be severe, they are only for a short term. As for the good things that we will receive in the life to come, are eternal. For this reason, may we endure whatever we go through without complaining and let us never stop striving for virtue until we enjoy the eternal goods that will continue forever.”¹⁰⁰⁹

Ninth: Preserving the virginity of the heart . According to St. Caesarius of Arles , “the souls, not only of religious, but of all men and women do not doubt that they are spouses of Christ if they are willing to preserve both bodily chastity and virginity of heart in those aforementioned five senses. For Christ is to be understood as the spouse of souls, not of bodies.”¹⁰¹⁰