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Heaven should be open to all of us.  I’m not speaking of some fantastic experience or wonder, as much as a knowing, a seeing, a union and communion of our inner person.  This is our right and inheritance; this is the normal Christian life.

Sanctifying grace is not about staying away from sin that leads to death as much as the Kingdom of God that leads from life to life, where all doctrines become a living hope full of the joy of the Lord.  Where joy is absent though we are living in purity, more than likely we are under spiritual warfare.

I would even say, by the measure you’re walking in an open heaven the more demonic affliction you will encounter.  If God calls you to be active in service or ministry, the movements of the enemy will double down around you.

If you’re Catholic living in the riches of the Kingdom, and are called to labor in the vineyard hell’s fury shall manifest in terrible violence against you, and all around you.

So how to deal with all this?  Know your enemy.  He’ll throw at you whatever sticks, temptation, condemnation, outward trial–all these things can manifest in a hundred different ways, and the demon cares not how.

What are the demons aim?  To cloud the glory of God in your life, to weigh you down with human sorrows, to rob you of the joy of the Kingdom.

Our response is not one of escape or avoidance, but to make a stand. To have faith.  Resist the devil and he will flee. The more uncreated light you’re dwelling in the more he’ll want nothing to do with you.

God is light.  The glory of the Lord is like poison to the demon, and while we emanate the glory of heaven, the demons are nothing short of afraid of us. Anything but light, says the demon.  Being overtly religious out of duty, they can deal with that.  Keeping the commandments in struggle, they can still torment, doing only what is required is their bread and butter.

If we are living in a natural state, while our spirit man sleeps, they can literally raise hell all around us.  But the glory of God shall cause them to flee.  They can no more stand in the light than we can stand in a camp fire.

As far as I know this is the only safe place to live when living as a child of God.  Our Catholic faith must take on the dynamic of heaven, or it has not gone far enough.  This is not for the super mystic, this is for all of us.

We are children made for heaven!  We have the deposit of heaven–the power of the Holy Spirit.  We consume the Lamb, and we have in effect the seeds of eternal glory within us.

There is a reason many pictures of saints have an orb of light around their heads, though most of the time it was not a physical manifestation.  It was felt and seen by them and those they came in contact with.  This glory is for all God’s children.  And it is not some special grace or chrism.  It is communion and fellowship with the person of Jesus Christ.

Christ is our light, our union, our glory, right now!  We consume Him all the time, the two becoming one flesh. The only strange thing in all this is that all of us are not walking around with orbs of light. And why not?  Many are bogged down by the world that smothers the spirit man within them.  But this party I am not addressing.

I am addressing you, saint of the most high God.  You are a child of light, a burning coal of the living God!  A fire from heaven has burned the dross in you and you begin to burn with the eternal Kingdom of the living God. You stand amongst the saints with your own orb of glory walking as a child of the flame, the living flame of love.

Walk, burn, heat of the living God come and consume us, and watch the demons run away in fear. For our God is a consuming fire.