|
Beatitude That Cannot Be Lost
It follows from all we have been saying that the
saints
in heaven cannot lose their beatitude. Scripture
calls
this beatitude "eternal life." As the wicked go into
eternal punishment, so the just go into eternal life.
[589] St. Peter speaks of "a never-fading crown of
glory." [590] St. Paul says that this crown is
incorruptible. [591] He goes on to say that our
afflictions, light and momentary, gain for us an
eternal weight of glory. [592] The Creed ends with
these words: "I believe in life everlasting " [593]
The expression "eternal life," everlasting life,
means
much more than future life. Future is only a part of
time, which passes, which bears within itself a
succession of moments. But eternal life is not
measured
by time, neither by solar time nor by spiritual time.
Eternal life is measured by the unique instant of
immovable eternity, an instant which cannot pass,
which
is like an eternal sunrise.
Theologians say that the eternal life of the blessed
is
measured by participated eternity. This participated
eternity differs, without doubt, from that essential
eternity which is proper to God. It differs, because
it
had a commencement at the moment of entry into
heaven.
But it will not end, and has not within itself any
succession. It is truly the unique instant of
immovable
eternity. This instant is not dead, but sovereignly
alive, because it fuses perfect intelligence and
perfect love.
This vision and this love exist at the topmost point
of
the beatified soul. But, beneath this topmost point,
there will be a region less high of intelligence and
will, a succession of thoughts, of emotions, of
desires, in the form of prayers addressed to God in
regard to this or that soul still on earth.
The inamissibility of beatitude follows from the
essence of that beatitude. Heavenly bliss, by its
very
nature, satisfies all aspirations of the just soul.
But
this satisfaction could not exist if the blessed
could
say to themselves: "Possibly a time will come when I
shall cease to see God." Such cessation of beatitude,
after it has been possessed, would be the greatest
suffering, and a suffering inflicted without guilt.
If
we cling so closely to the present life, in spite of
all its sadness, how much more will we cling to the
life of heaven? Hence nothing can bring the beatific
vision to an end, neither God who has promised it as
recompense, nor the soul which has reached it. [594]
The Catechism of the Council of Trent says: "He who
is
happy, must he not desire ardently to enjoy without
end
that which makes him happy? And without the assurance
of a stable and certain felicity, would he not be the
prey of fear?" [595]
The blessed souls live above the reach of our hours
and
days and years. They live in one unique instant which
does not pass. This instant, when we enter heaven,
when
we receive the light of glory and begin to see God
forever, must be prepared for. In this preparation
three other instants of life have pre-eminent
importance: that of receiving justification by
baptism,
that of reconciliation with God if we have offended
Him
gravely, that of a happy death, that is, final
perseverance. Beatific love, we know, corresponds to
the intensity of our merits. Not in heaven do we
learn
to love God, but here on earth. The degree of our
life
in eternity depends on the degree of our merits at
the
moment of death. There are many mansions in the
Father's house, corresponding to varied merits. [596]
"He who soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly;
and
he who soweth in blessings shall also reap
blessings."
[597]
Christian life on earth is eternal life already
begun.
Sanctifying grace and charity endure eternally. St.
John of the Cross speaks thus: "In the evening of our
life we shall be judged by our love for God and
neighbor."
Eternal joy, beatific love, is ineffable. If here on
earth we are enchanted by the reflection of divine
perfection in creatures, by the enchantments of the
visible world, by the harmony of colors and sounds,
by
the immensity of the ocean, by the splendor of the
starry heavens, and still more by the spiritual
splendors revealed in the lives of the saints, what
joy
shall we feel when we see God, this creative center
of
life and of love, this infinite plenitude, eternally
self-existent, from whom proceeds the life of
creation!
Each soul will rejoice, not only in the reward it has
received, but also in the reward given to other elect
souls, and still more in the glory of God, in the
manifestation of His infinite goodness. This joy will
be an act of the virtue of charity, the normal
consequence of love of God and of creatures for the
sake of God.
Such is the essential glory which God has reserved
for
those who love Him. "The eye hath not seen," says St.
Paul, "nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into
the
heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them
that love Him." [598]
Then, too, we shall see the immense distance between
goods that are spiritual and goods that are material.
The same material good, the same house, the same
field,
the same territory, cannot belong simultaneously to
many persons. Possession by one hinders possession by
another. On the contrary, spiritual goods, the same
truth, the same virtue, the same God seen face to
face,
can belong simultaneously to all. Nay, we possess
these
spiritual goods the more, the more others possess
them.
Their joy multiplies our joy.
Similarly we shall see clearly that goodness is
essentially self-communicative. God the Father
communicates His entire nature to His Son and through
His Son to the Holy Spirit. The person of the Word
communicates itself to the humanity of Jesus, and
through this humanity He communicates to us a
participation in divine life.
The elect in heaven belong to the family of God. The
Blessed Trinity, seen clearly and loved sovereignly,
dwells in them as in a living tabernacle, as in a
temple of glory, endowed with knowledge and love. The
Father engenders in them the Word. The Father and the
Son breathe forth the personal love of the Holy
Spirit.
Charity renders them in a measure similar to the Holy
Spirit; vision assimilates them to the Word, who
Himself assimilates them to the Father of whom He is
the image. They enter therefore in a sense into the
cycle of the Blessed Trinity. The Trinity is in them,
rather, they are in the Trinity, as the summit of
reality, thought, and love. [599]
Love of the Saints for Our Lord and His Holy Mother
Beholding the three divine persons, the saints
understand likewise the personal union of the Word
with
the humanity of Jesus, His plenitude of grace and
glory, His charity, the treasures of His heart, the infinite value of His theandric acts, of His merits,
the value of His passion, of His least drop of blood,
the unmeasured value of each Mass, the fruit of
absolution. They also see the glory which overflows
from the soul of our Savior upon His body, and they
see
how He is at the summit of all creation, material and
spiritual. In Him they see also Mary co-redemptrix,
the
infinite dignity of her divine maternity, her
position
in the hypostatic order, superior to the orders of
nature and of grace. They see the greatness of her
love
at the foot of the cross, her elevation above the
angelic hierarchies, the radiation of her universal
mediation. This vision of Jesus and Mary belongs to
essential beatitude as its most elevated secondary
object. [600]
Hence the saints love our Lord as the Savior to whom
they owe everything. They see that without Him they
could have done nothing in the order of salvation.
They
see, down to the least detail, all the graces they
received from Him: all the effects of their
predestination, namely, their vocation,
justification,
glorification. They live by Him. Each sees in Him the
Bridegroom, the Bridegroom of the Church militant,
suffering, and triumphant. What love they must have
for
the mystical body, of which Jesus is the head! What
bliss in being loved by God in Jesus Christ, whose
members they are!
Such is the vision described in the Apocalypse: "I
heard the voice of many angels saying with a loud
voice: The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive
power and divinity and wisdom and strength and honor
and glory and benediction. The Lamb was slain and has
redeemed us . . . in His own blood out of every tribe
and tongue and people and nation." [601] "The
heavenly
Jerusalem hath no need of sun, nor the moon to shine
in
it, for the glory of God hath enlightened it and the
Lamb is the lamp thereof." "There shall not enter
into
it anything defiled, . . . but they that are written
in
the book of life of the Lamb." [602]
Bossuet writes as follows: "Let us here below begin
to
contemplate the glory of Jesus Christ, to become like
unto Him by imitating Him. The day will come when we
shall be like unto Him in glory, when we shall be
inebriated with His love. Thus will be consummated
the
work for which Jesus Christ came on earth." [603]
Again [604] he writes: "Jesus says of the elect, 'I
am
in them.' [605] They are My living members, they are
Myself. The eternal Father sees in them nothing but
Jesus Christ, loves them by pouring forth on them the
love He has for His Son. Let us, then, remain in
silence with our Savior. In wonder at the grandeurs
given us in Him, can we have any other desire than to
render ourselves worthy of His grace?"
Here we find the true meaning of the term, "spiritual
gospel." This is written by the Spirit, not with ink
on
parchment but with grace on our minds and wills. This
spiritual gospel is the complement of the one we read
in daily Mass. It is being printed day by day,
century
by century, and will be finished on the last day. It
is
the spiritual history of the mystical body. God knows
it from all eternity. The blessed read it in God.
[606]
Mary is loved by all as the worthy Mother of God,
mother of divine grace, the powerful virgin, mother
of
mercy, refuge of sinners, consoler of the afflicted,
help of Christians, queen of patriarchs, of prophets,
of apostles, of martyrs, of confessors, of virgins,
of
all the saints. The love of the saints for Jesus and
Mary belongs to essential beatitude. It is the
highest
among the secondary objects of the beatific vision.
Love of the Saints for One Another
Seeing one another in God, the saints love one
another.
The degree of this love is measured by nearness to
God. Each rejoices at the degree of beatitude which
others
have received. Yet each loves with special affection
those to whom he has been united on earth. [607]
What an immense throng! Here we find, not only
patriarchs, prophets, the precursor, St. Joseph,
[608]
the apostles, but the souls of children who died
after
their baptism. And in this immense assembly we find
harmonized the greatest variety with intimate unity,
the highest intensity with the deepest repose. The
saints whom we call dead, because they have left the
earth, are in reality overflowing with life.
Each of the saints has his personal distinction. Each
is himself, with all his natural gifts and
supernatural
privileges, all of them perfectly developed. St. Paul
differs from St. John, St. Augustine from St. Francis
of Assisi, St. Theresa from St. Catherine of Siena.
Yet
they resemble one another since each contemplates one
and the same divine truth, each is on fire with one
and
the same love of God. Hence the masters of the
spiritual life tell us: Be supernaturally yourself.
That means, eliminate your faults, that the image of
the Father and the Son may be formed in you. Let each
reproduce that image in his own fashion. Unity in
diversity is the definition of beauty. And spiritual
beauty is deathless beauty.
Lastly, the blessed love us. They pray, in particular
and without ceasing, for those whom they have known
here below. So near the source of all good, they heap
benefits upon us. They draw from God's treasury the
gifts which His goodness wishes to bestow. Further,
all
the saints in heaven love us, even those whose very
existence we know not, because we with them are
members
of that mystical body of which Jesus is the head.
Hence we, too, must love the saints. This love is a
sure and abundant source of spiritual progress. Who
can
tell the fruits of that intimacy of grace which
exists
between us and this or that saint in heaven whom we
are
moved to imitate? In each of them we find our Lord,
the
supreme model. [609]
This love of the saints for one another belongs to
essential beatitude, because they see and love one
another in the Word. What joy flows from the
contemplation of uncreated good in all its radiation!
We read in The Imitation: [610] "Think, My son, on
the
fruits of your labors, of the end which will come
soon,
of the recompense and repose there in great joy. They
cannot turn their heart to any other object because,
filled with eternal truth, they burn with charity
which
cannot be extinguished. They do not glory in their
merits, because they do not attribute to themselves
the
good they have. They attribute it all to Me, who have
given them everything in infinite charity. [611] The
more they are elevated in glory, the more they are
humble in themselves, and their humility renders them
more dear and unites them ever more closely to Me.
[612] It is written: 'They fell down before the Lamb
.... and adored Him that liveth forever and ever.'
[613] O ye humble souls, rejoice! Ye poor, leap with
gladness! The kingdom of God belongs to you if you
walk
in the truth."
|
|
|
|
| 589. |
Matt. 25:46. |
| 590. |
I Pet. 5:4. |
| 591. |
I Cor. 9:25. |
| 592. |
II Cor. 4:17. |
| 593. |
Denz., no. 430. |
| 594. |
Ia IIae, q. 5, a. 4. |
| 595. |
The First Part, chap. 13, no. 3. |
| 596. |
John 14:1. |
| 597. |
II Cor. 9:6. Cf. Supplementum, q.93, a.3. |
| 598. |
I Cor. 2:9. |
| 609. |
Cf. Bossuet, Meditations on the Gospels, Second
Part, 75th and 76th day. |
| 600. |
On the contrary, vision extra-Verbum, and with
much
more reason the sense-vision of Christ and of Mary
belong to accidental beatitude. There is a great
difference between these two kinds of knowledge. The
highest is called by Augustine the knowledge of
morning, the other, the knowledge of evening, because
the latter knows creatures, not by the divine light,
but by the created light which is like that of
twilight. We may better understand this difference if
we think of two kinds of knowledge which we may have
of
souls on earth. We may consider them in themselves by
what they say and write, studying them as would a
psychologist, or we may consider them in God, as was
done, for example, by the holy Cure of Ars, when he
was
hearing confessions. He was the supernatural genius
of
the confessional, because he heard those souls in
God,
while he himself remained in prayer. Thus he gave
supernatural replies, replies not only true, but
immediately suited to the question. Penitents went to
him because his soul was full of God. |
| 601. |
Apoc. 5:12. |
| 602. |
Ibid., 5:9; 21:23; 21:27. |
| 603. |
Meditations on the Gospel, Second Part, 72nd day. |
| 604. |
Ibid., 75th day. |
| 605. |
John 17:26. |
| 606. |
Father de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine
Providence. |
| 607. |
IIa IIae, q. 26, a. 13. |
| 608. |
St. Joseph, though he is the highest of all
saints
after Mary, is often named after the prophets, the
patriarchs, and the Precursor, since he belongs to
the
New Testament. The Precursor forms the transition
from
the Old to the New. |
| 609. |
Life and Christian Virtue, chap. 17. |
| 610. |
Imitation of Christ, Bk. III, chap. 49, no. 6. |
| 611. |
Ibid., chap. 58, no. 3. |
| 612. |
John 15:19. |
| 613. |
Apoc. 4:10; 5:8, 14. |
|
