In a recent lecture Miroslav Volf brought my attention back to Canto 3 of Paradiso, in which Dante has the souls on the bottom rung of heaven, so to speak, answer how they possibly resist the urge to ask or yearn for more. How, that is, are they content with their station rather than jealous of those above their rank?

Their answer (lines 70-27):

Frate, la nostra volontà quieta
virtù di carità, che fa volerne
sol quel c’avemo, e d’altro non ci asseta.

Robin Kirkpatrick translates:

Dear brother, we in will are brought to rest
by power of caritas that makes us will
no more than what we have, nor thirst for more.

Or as we might render the relevant phrase: “We desire only what we have." In Miroslav’s looser paraphrase, “We hope for what we have." Which is to say, what we have is what we want, and what we want is what we have. In a word, true contentment and rest.