No politician shifts a society single-handed, by sheer force of personality. Today is the Feast Day of St Antony Pucci, St Barbasymas or Barbascemin, St Datius, St Felix of Nola, St Kentigern or Mungo, St Macrina the Elder, The Martyrs of Mount Sinai and St Sava.. On this day: the Great Frost Fair began on the Thames, 1205; another great Frost Fair was held on the Thames, 1814; Queen Victoria heard a concert relayed to her by telephone, 1878. Today is the Feast Day of St Agrecius, St Berno and St Hilary of Poitiers.
TOMORROW: Births: Dr Albert Schweitzer, missionary, 1875; Hugh Lofting, author, 1886; Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, photographer and stage designer, 1904; Joseph Losey, film director, 1909. Deaths: Edmond Halley, astronomer, 1742; George Dance the younger, architect, 1825; Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, painter, 1867; Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), author, 1898; Humphrey DeForest Bogart, film actor, 1957; Anais Nin, writer and poet, 1977; Peter Finch (William Mitchell), actor, 1977. On this day: the Independent Labour Party was formed under Keir Hardie, 1893; the world’s largest airport was opened in Dallas, Texas, 1974. Anniversaries

TODAY: Births: Charles Perrault, collector of fairy tales, 1628; Lord Willis (Edward Henry ”Ted” Willis), playwright, 1918.

Deaths: Edmund Spenser, poet, 1599; William Frend De Morgan, artist and author, 1917; Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti, electrical engineer, 1930; James Joyce, novelist, 1941; Hubert Horatio Humphrey, US vice-president, 1978. Heaven is traditionally and clearly defined as the nearer presence of God. Now that I have reminded you of that fact, are you sure you really want to go there – dead or alive?Consumerism has seen to it that we think heaven is something which is for us The reality is that it is we who are for heaven The only question is whether we are ready for it. The purpose of our life is not to try our best at virtue and self-denial in order that we might receive our reward in heaven as permission at long last to let rip and really indulge ourselves. Our purpose is so to order our desires and passions in this world that the holiness of the world will not be a nasty shock.There is economic convenience in this scheme, for it means that God does not have to provide two sorts of eternal habitation One will do.

The heaven of the devout will be hell for the disobedient and careless. And it is in this sense only that God cannot compel everyone to be saved: for God cannot force us to desire Him.Spiritual truth is the very opposite of consumerism. That is to say, all talk about salvation and damnation must be seen in the context of Christ’s words: “He who seeks to save his life will lose it.” The divine economy does not work like the superstore In the heavenly life giving really is receiving. We are so used to thinking of rewards and punishments as objects that we are blind to the radical subjectivity of salvation.

In order to receive heaven as salvation and not as damnation we must make ourselves ready to receive it.We are not spiritual consumers, free to make up our own minds about which precise form of eternal bliss we would like to sample. We are made in a certain image and form whose purpose is preordained: it is to find our true selves in the person of God. Aristotle knew this and he called it our telos, and it means our raison d’etre. Or, as St Augustine says in his beautiful prayer: “O Lord, Thou has made us for Thyself and our souls are restless till they rest in Thee.”Who then can be saved? How can I receive salvation when my desire for God is constantly being choked by lust for worldly things, when my love for Him is intermittent and lukewarm? The traditional answer is that these things take time and they come only with pain and struggle.