In a sermon for All Saints, St Bede pictured warriors returning to heaven from the spiritual warfare of earthly life, men and women, young and old; and he reminded his listeners in the monastery at Jarrow that heaven should not seem to be in any way alien, but a homeland in which they already held citizenship together.

Bede went on to recall to his listeners the character of their heavenly homeland: how there was no grief or pain there, how it was free from temptation and falling alike, and how all was tranquillity there thanks to unbroken concord of mind and heart, and the absence of ambition and lust for power.

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