Book excerpt: Heaven: it's everything we're made for, the answer to our inmost longings, our true Home whose depths of joy we can only imagine. And who can tell us more about this blessed realm than the saints — the souls closest to God while here on earth who now dwell beside His royal throne? What they say about Heaven has the fragrant anointing of the Holy Spirit who authored the Scriptures and from whom they draw their wisdom. Open these pages, then, and enter the Celestial Kingdom. Ponder all the rapturous beauty that the saints describe. Bask in the consoling warmth of their tender love for us and grow ever stronger in the desire to share in their heavenly delight. Here you'll come to know the very heart of Heaven: our sharing in the ecstatic love and life of the Trinity. You'll taste the joy of the saints triumphant, ponder the mysteries of our glorious resurrection, and come to understand death as the beautiful gateway to Heaven that it is. Best of all, you'll learn how to begin to live in Heaven even now — by adoring the Blessed Trinity dwelling in your soul, by receiving the precious Body and Blood of the Lord in the Eucharist, and by growing in the heavenly virtue of charity. The wisdom of the saints in these sublimely beautiful pages will quench your fear of death and awaken in you a blessed hunger to join your departed loved ones and to delight with them in the Three Divine Persons who are the very heart of Heaven's splendor.