What is glory the glory of heaven?What is glory the glory of heaven?
Glory is a certain excellent knowledge, combined with a certain special love. Saint Thomas says: "It is clear understanding with thanksgiving." The glory of heaven, then, consists in an intimate knowledge of God, and a supernatural and all-absorbing love of Him. Hence there are as many degrees of glory in heaven as there are degrees of knowledge and of love.
Every moment of glory is an act of knowledge and of love, a moment wherein, and an act whereby, the soul vividly knows and loves God, and all suitable things in God.
In that glory, knowledge is not foremost and love behind, nor is love quick and full and knowledge partial or wanting. No; knowledge and love go hand in hand, and are there equal.
The first and essential object of that knowledge and love is God; but in that knowledge and love of God there is an involved knowledge and love of whatever God is interested in, and whatever it is fitting the soul should know.
The names by which this glory is signified in Scripture are very touching and lovely. It is called "the eternal blessedness," "the life that knows no death," "the ever lasting tabernacle," "our fatherland" (in patria), "an end less kingdom," "the crown awaiting the conquerors," "the paradise of God," "the inheritance," "the banquet-hall," "the bridal chamber," "sitting in the throne of Christ," "the golden Sabbath of rest".
Saint Paul calls this life a "wrestling-ground," a "race course," a "land of exile". Scholastics, on the other hand, call heaven "the comprehension of all joys," "the end of exile," "our native country".
What is the Beatific Vision?
It is the clear knowledge of God by which we know Him as He is in Himself. We here know God by His works, or by being told about Him: one is the argument of natural reason, the other is the teaching of faith. A blind man could feel the heat of the sun, and could learn about it; but it is only when he would get his sight, and when he would be placed in a tropical climate, that he would know the sun as it is possible for man on our earth to know it.
The Scripture says: "This is life everlasting, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Him whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ." (John 17:3)
"We know that when He shall appear we shall be like to Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (1 John 3:2)
"Now we see Him as in a glass and by enigma . . . but then face to face. Now I know only in part, but then [I shall know Him] as I am known." (1 Corinthians 13)
To see God as He is, to know Him as He knows us what is this but the most intimate knowledge?
Tradition - Saint Clement of Alexandria: "It is clear that no one ever during this life understood God fully; they, however, who are clean of heart, they shall see God when they shall have attained final perfection."
Saint Augustine: "He is the invisible God, not in the eternal years, but only here below."
Saint Prosper: "In heaven there shall be such and so clear a knowledge of all things, as that even the very substance of God will be clearly and perfectly seen."
Saint Bernard: "In this shall consist eternal life, that we shall know the Father and Son, with the Holy Ghost, and that we see the triune God as He is, that is, not only as He is in us, or in other creatures, but as He is in Himself."
The Council of Florence defined: "The souls of the just, after death, clearly see the very God Himself, three and one, as He is."
The Council of Vienna: "In order to see God the soul needs the light of glory." Our own reason would tell us that, if a life of grace here consists in knowing and loving God, as far as the soul and reason can, and if glory be the consummation of grace - in other words, if the next life be the complement and fulfillment of this, then that knowledge and love which were the two great virtues here must be crowned and consummated in the world to come, and there fore the fullness of knowledge and love must await those who consecrated their knowledge and love to God here; the fullest entirety being reserved for those who, with full and absolute sacrifice, made over their knowledge and love as immaculate handmaids in the service of their Creator.
Now, that knowledge is immediate; that is, imparted at the first glance, and without any reasoning process or delay of any kind. "To the blessed," says Pope Benedict II, "the Divine Essence shall show itself immediately, fully, clearly, and distinctly."
Saint Paul says: "Everything partial (or imperfect) shall be eliminated, and everything perfect shall be there." (I Corinthians 13:12)
In this life our knowledge is partial or imperfect, for we know only by faith, and faith is a belief in the things we do not see. Such a state befits a time of trial; but surely nothing but the full glow of knowledge becomes a time of ecstatic jubilee and joy.
The Psalmist says: "I will be filled when Thy glory shall appear." (Psalm 16:15)
It shall be also most certain; that is, the mind shall have no doubt whatsoever. But that glory shall not be equal in all. Jovinian in the fourth century, and Luther in the sixteenth, taught that it would, thereby doing away with the merit of good works; for our glory in the next will be according to our actions in this. "Everyone shall receive his reward according to his labour." (1 Corinthians 3:8)
The Scripture says: "In My Father's house are many mansions." (John 14:2) Saint Paul says: "The brightness of the sun is one thing, the brightness of the stars another; for star differs from star in brightness. The same way shall it be in the resurrection of the dead." (1 Corinthians 15:41) But it might be said it is only the brightness of bodies Saint Paul speaks of here when he mentions the resurrection of the dead; souls do not arise from the dead; it may be the brightness of bodies. But bodies have their brightness from the souls, or, in other words, it is according to the degree of brightness of the soul that the everlasting brightness of the body will be.
The Council of Florence says: "We believe that the souls (for whom no punishment remains) will be at once received into heaven, and there clearly see God Himself as He is, differently, however, according to the different degrees of merit, some more perfectly, some less so."
Our own reason would tell us that greater labours and greater sacrifices and purer intentions must have more plentiful rewards. "He that sows sparingly, sparingly also shall he reap." (2 Corinthians 9:6) Again, punishment, according to the Scripture, will be of different degrees: "The powerful shall be powerfully tormented, and the mighty a mighty harassment pursueth." (Wisdom 6:7) "As much as he hath glorified himself in pleasure, fill ye to him just such a measure of torment and woe." (Apocalypse 18:7) Finally, if all were to receive the same reward, then there would be no incitement to labour and sacrifice more than ordinarily, but, on the contrary, idleness and sloth would prevail. Therefore it is to be concluded that in heaven there are different degrees of glory.
The Beatific Vision excludes all idea of error: there can be no ignorance, no doubt, no error in heaven.
Saint Thomas says: "The fullness of light admits of nothing erroneous."
Saint Augustine says: "In that land of the blessed every thing will be patent. The intellect shall suffer neither ignorance nor error; the memory neither forgetfulness nor decay."
"In and by that Vision everything partial is put away, and the desire of knowing is fully satisfied. Now this cannot be consistent with a want of due knowledge, therefore the blessed know all those things that it is opportune for them to know. In this sense it is that the Fathers use the expression, 'The blessed know all things'. They are, however, ignorant of those things which are not necessary to the perfection of their state? - Bonal, De Gratia et Gloria
Is it possible for a created intellect to fully understand the infinite God?
It is not possible. No one created can fully understand the essence of the Deity.
The Soul of Christ was the most blessed and the most extraordinarily endowed and adorned of all created things, and the Soul of Christ blessed and adorable as It is, and forming even part of the Divine Person of our Blessed Lord does not fully understand the essence of the Deity. It does not fully understand that tremendous Word with which It is hypostatically united; and ever since the Hypostatic Union, and even now in heaven, and momentarily in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, the Sacred Soul of Jesus bows down and worships Its companion Divinity with all the humility and all the prostrate adoration of a creature. If, then, the ever-blessed Soul of our Divine Lord did not, does not, and never can understand fully and truly the infinite perfections of the Godhead, how can an ordinary soul? Neither here, then, nor in heaven can a soul (because it is finite and limited) understand fully the essence of the great God, which is, because it is God Himself, infinite, eternal, and unlimited.
"We firmly believe that God is incomprehensible," says the Fourth Lateran Council. "And truly," says Bonal, "by the comprehension of a thing is meant the under standing of that thing as it is adequate to the mind that examines it; so that, to fully comprehend a thing it is required that nothing remain hidden in that thing from the person examining it. Now, God cannot thus be understood by a created intellect; for the understanding of an infinite Being requires an intelligence adequate to it; that is to say, it also should be infinite. And, therefore, a created intellect, as being finite, is totally inadequate to understanding what is infinite. Saint Paul, indeed, says: Thus run that you may comprehend (1 Corinthians 9:24); but in this case the word comprehension is used in its wider and more general acceptation, that is, the attaining of what we aim at. And again he says: I shall know as I am known (1 Corinthians 13:12); he means as far as the substance and the end, but not the degree." - De Gratia
What, then, can be understood about God?
The blessed in heaven, as far as it is possible, and as far as their merits deserve, see the Divine Essence in the Trinity of Persons.
The Scripture says: "We will see God as He is." (John 3:2) If we see God as He is, and if God be Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, then we must see the Three Divine Persons. And Saint John says "that our company be with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ." (1 John 1:3); and if our company be with the Father and the Son, then our company must be with the Holy Ghost, for Father and Son can be in no place from which the Holy Ghost is excluded. Even when we receive Holy Communion, we receive, with the Divinity of Jesus, the Father and the Holy Ghost; for, as theology teaches, God the Son can be nowhere but God the Father and God the Holy Ghost must be there also.
And from the decision of the Council of Florence, which says: "We define that their souls see clearly God Himself, Three and One, as He is," there is no longer any room left to question it.
Our own reason would tell us, that to Each of the Three Divine Persons we owe a special gratitude, because from Each of the Three we have received special graces and favours; and, therefore, heaven would have something wanting to it if One of these Three Divine Persons were absent, or that we did not see Him as intimately as the other Persons of the Sacred Trinity. Moreover, in this life we believe in the Three Divine Persons; that is an article of our faith. In the next life comes the clear and full enlightenment of all we believed in this. The Trinity is one of those mysteries of belief; shall It remain absolutely clouded from us, and shall we know no more about it for all eternity in heaven than we do here on earth? That is not like the good God, nor like what we feel in our souls, nor is it what theology teaches.
Shall the blessed know about other creatures friends on earth, etc.?
Yes. Perfect happiness means that nothing shall be wanting whose presence would ensure that happiness. Now, the knowledge of certain things would undoubtedly secure, if not increase, that happiness; and, therefore, the knowledge that would perfect the happiness of their state shall not be wanting. They shall, therefore, know -
(1) All objects of natural science on this earth, and all its order and beauty and conservation, the planets, the heavenly bodies, their substance, movements, laws so that an infant, who has been but a moment baptised and dies, will know more in the instant after its death than all the professors of all the sciences on this earth.
Saint Augustine says: "The angels, and therefore all others (in heaven), without doubt know the universal creation in the Person of the Word."
This is a thirst in our nature an instinct planted there by God to search after, and, if possible, to understand all things; and this thirst can be satiated only in heaven.
(2) They shall know all the mysteries of faith that they believed in here on earth.
Saint Augustine says: "What shall we see? What but the great God and all those things which we now believe, although we do not see."
And justly, because the seeing them in heaven is the reward of our believing them on earth.
(3) The blessed shall know in heaven all those they knew on this earth. Every pleasure or enjoyment that is innocent and lawful here shall be perpetuated in the realms beyond the sky. The friendship of friends, the affections of parents or relatives, the innocent society of companions all these shall live in the world to come; and we shall be happier there in the friendship of friends, for there shall be no mistake and no deceit there; and we shall rejoice in the affections of parents or relatives, when these shall be purged of all that is empty or vain, or disagreeable or selfish; and we shall be delighted in the society of companions, when nothing trivial shall engage our thoughts, and no misunderstanding shall arise, for sin and sorrow are long since wiped from the heart.
"For a nobler state are we destined," says Tertullian. "We shall arise, and enter a spiritual society, where we shall know our friends as fully as we do ourselves."
"Oh! what a blessed meeting," cries out Saint Cyprian, "when there on that shore a multitude shall await us a multitude of those we knew and loved! And our eyes shall see one another, and our hearts shall beat with gladness, and the whole of that crowd shall be suffused with one common joy." - De Immortalitate
To know one another! Oh, if we could but know one another here, we should have more patience than we have with one another. We should then judge no one rashly; we should make allowances and excuses for them, as we do for ourselves. We should even see how innocent in their hearts they are, those whom perhaps we bitterly blame. Earth were more like a heaven did we know one another.
(4) And not alone in heaven, the blessed will also see the friends they left on this earth. The little sister that went in the early days, with the blue and white dress, and the flaxen locks from heaven she looks down, and prays for the little brother or sister that played with her in the summer days long ago. The lonesome eyes and the breaking heart (and whose is like to hers?), the poor dying mother, and the little children peeping in at the door, or stealing round her bed, and they bidden to be silent the lonesome eyes close and the broken heart is still, but from heaven that loving mother still looks down on her little children, and guards them with all the old wistful longing and affection.
Saint Gregory says: "Our brethren that are gone before us. do they not see those who are still in danger, and do they not tremble with anxiety? Or, are they who know God all in all, and who drink of Him who is all charity, so devoid of charity as not to remember them?"
"For although," says Saint Cyprian, "they be sure of their own happiness, still they are full of anxiety for ours."
And the Council of Sens says: "For the blessed the Divinity is a continual and faithful mirror, in which there is shown to them whatever could interest them."
(5) "The blessed do not know all things absolutely, the present, the future, or what is possible; for to know all these has nothing to do with their happiness, nor is it any where mentioned in the Scriptures that they have such knowledge granted them. Nay, regarding even the day of judgment, Christ expressly denies that they know it. "But of that day and hour no one knoweth, not even the angels of heaven." (Matthew 24:36) "According to several, they do not know the thoughts of men's hearts." (Bonal) They know, however, our thoughts when we turn to them and beg their intercession.
What means have they of knowing about all these things?
Here on earth we have various means of knowing about things. If things are present, we see them. If our friends are present, we speak to them, we hear them. If they are absent, they write to us or telegraph to us, or we learn about them from other persons, or from the public papers, and so on. That is the way we on earth know; but in heaven how do they know? It is hard to explain. It is easy to answer and say, "They know all these things in the Beatific Vision." That is true; but how, in what way, or what does that mean? With our limited knowledge, and our dependence on sensible signs, it is difficult for us to comprehend it. We may say, as men see a thing in a glass, so the blessed see in God all things that He wishes them to see. Or again, as in dreams we sometimes understand certain appearances or signs to signify certain things - we ask ourselves, when we awake, why, and cannot tell - so, if we might thus express it, by that dream-like spiritual alphabet, but in a sense immensely more dignified and distinct, the blessed understand rather than see things in God. It is almost wasting time trying to explain; the man blind from his birth has as much idea of the colours of the rainbow, the child deaf and dumb has as much notion of the lapping of the waves on the seashore, the singing of the birds, the laughter of the children, the sighing of the evening gales, or the music of the wind-played harp, as we could conceive of the Beatific Vision; for human eye never saw, and human ear never heard, and human heart never conceived the rapturous things God has in store for those that love Him.
What shall be the love of the blessed for God?
It is de fide that in heaven we shall love God fully and perfectly.
"God is charity, and who remaineth in charity remaineth in God, and God remaineth in him" (1 John 4:16). "Of the torrent of Thy delight shalt Thou fill them. I will be satisfied when the glory of the Lord shall appear." (Psalm 16:15)
The blessed, therefore, seeing God, shall love Him fully and perfectly, and He shall so overwhelm them with the fulness of His love, as with a torrent of delights, that their hearts shall be filled and they shall have no desire for more. In this matter we may expect the highest and most glowing oratory of the Fathers. Nor are we mistaken.
Saint Augustine says: "How great shall that happiness be where no evil shall come and no good shall be denied! Life shall be given up to one thing, the praises of God, who shall be all in all to the Blessed. He will be the object of all their desires, who will be beheld without faith's obscurity; He shall be loved without satiety, and hallowed without weariness."
Saint Bernard: "If faith and hope so initiated them that in this land of exile they were called children of God, without doubt knowledge and love shall perfect them once they enter their Father's home."
Our own reason would tell us that the child, after its wanderings, on its return to its parent, will be received with all the warmth and hospitality that the father can command, especially if, during the darksome and weary years of its absence, that child had been all along engaged about "his Father's business". We may make a guess, then, at heaven. A poor man will have but a poor feast, common fare, plain furniture, when his child returns. A rich man will have rich apartments, a rich banquet, rich furniture, wine, and lights, and attendants. A nobleman will have something still more elegant, and a king will welcome back his child in sumptuous, regal style. But the King of heaven how will He act? Will He hide away and grudge the riches of His kingdom to His children? Will no new garments be ordered, and no ring put on their fingers? - the garments that typify the beautiful knowledge, the clothing of the soul; the ring, the torrent of His love? These are the riches of the heavenly kingdom - knowledge and love; and these in abundance the good God shall pour out on each child of His that was lost and is found, dead and come to life again.
Will this love be equal in all?
No; it will be unequal; some of the blessed being more inundated with the torrent of God's love than others, just as. some will be more illuminated with know ledge than others. And the reason of both is because some have merited more, some less, during their term of probation on this earth of ours. But, as has been said, knowledge and love will in themselves be equal in the same person.
What is one blessed effect of this know ledge and love?
That we shall never sin again. Illuminated with this knowledge, and inundated with this love, the soul will never feel a desire for anything else but to praise, love, and enjoy God. It is a question between the two great mediaeval schools of theologians - the Dominicans and Franciscans, or, as they are known to the student of theology, the Thomists and the Scotists - whether that impossibility does arise intrinsically from the Beatific Vision; i.e., that the Beatific Vision by its illumination would remove all ignorance from the intellect, and by its charity would possess the heart so absolutely that sin could not be even thought of - that is the opinion of the former; or, as the Scotists teach, that even though the Beatific Vision illuminated the intellect and inundated the heart, that still the blessed may sin, and that therefore there is furthermore required a special assistance of God's goodness. There are beautiful arguments in favour of both sides, equally honourable to God and equally consoling to man. For ourselves, it is enough to know that God uses no coercion with the blessed to prevent them from sinning. If coercion were there, heaven would not be heaven. There is coercion in hell. The demons and the damned can never leave it. They are not at option even to turn to God, for God will not give them the grace. In heaven it is different. Absolutely speaking, the blessed are at option to turn from God. So much does God even still desire to pay homage to human liberty, and so much does He desire to be served by none but willing hands. That, however, never will be. Tomorrow's sun may not rise, the young offspring may refuse the mother's nursing, the trees may refuse to raise their leafy tops to heaven, the rivers may turn inland and forget to run towards the ocean, the needle may not answer to the magnet. All these things may be: when will they be? Sooner than the blessed in heaven shall turn away from God.
Is God a liberal rewarder?
In Genesis 22 we read that God ordered Abraham to sacrifice to Him his only son, Isaac. He was the child of promise and the son of the patriarch's old age. Yet he did not hesitate. And when he had his hand stretched forth to obey God's command, God said to him, "Do it not." But because Abraham had shown his readiness to obey Him, God said: "By My own Self have I sworn, because thou hast done this thing. . . . I will bless thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the sea-shore . . . and in thy seed shall be blessed all the nations of the earth, because thou hast obeyed My voice."
In the second book of Kings (7) we read that King David, in his own mind, was comparing his beautiful palace with the poor tent in which was lodged the Ark of the Lord, and he resolved with himself to erect a house and temple for the Ark. He merely resolved to do so. He did not do it. Yet the Bible tells us God rewarded him. "But it came to pass that night that the word of the Lord came to Nathan the prophet, saying: Go and say to My servant David . . . The Lord will make thee a house. And when thy days shall be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will raise up thy seed after thee . . . and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever."
What God will give us is a kingdom in the world to come. What wonderful sacrifices men have made to reach a kingdom on earth! Those even are accounted happy that have amassed wealth for themselves. But where is the monarch that will bestow a kingdom on us? And if a king gave a kingdom to his servant, the reward would be counted exceeding great. But what is an earthly to a heavenly kingdom? What is one year, one moment, one second, to millions of millions of years! And then what the uneasiness, uncertainty, trouble, anxiety of the earthly kingdom compared to the unchangeable, unalloyed, tranquil bliss of the eternal one? God is, then, a most liberal Rewarder!
Is there any difference between Grace and Glory?
These terms are here taken in their usual signification. The soul is clothed in Grace here, in Glory hereafter. The one is but the commencement of the other. God, by baptism, has made us His own children, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven; and just as parents will put infants dress on their children, and by and by will clothe them in men's attire, so God clothes the soul, while it is here, in Grace, which is, as it were, the children's suit, compared to the beautiful vesture of Glory that is awaiting its maturity in the land beyond the skies. Hence it happens that when a man puts off by mortal sin the raiment of Grace here, he at the same time puts away from him the complement vesture of Glory that was awaiting him in heaven.
"For we know that if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven. For in this also we groan, desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from Heaven, yet so that we may be found clothed, not naked. For we also who are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; because we would not be unclothed, but clothed over, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." (2 Corinthians 5:1-4)
"Grace is a participation in the nature and life of the Divinity; so that faith and charity are a participation even in that divine act whereby the Father begets the Son, and from Father and Son the Holy Ghost eternally proceeds. Wherefore, nothing can be thought of more incomparably excellent than a participation in that life, in which the very essence of the Deity consists." - Bonal
"Grace and glory are both referred to the same class, for grace is nothing else than the commencement of glory in us." - Saint Thomas
Grace is the highest perfection of man here, glory is his ultimate perfection hereafter.
Bossuet says: "The life of grace and the life of glory is the same, and there is no more difference between the one and the other than between childhood and mature manhood. In glory, life is consummated; here below it is but growing; yet is it the same life. Like the pearl, hidden and concealed, is our life in this world; like it shining in its brilliancy, studded and enchased, is our life in the next." - Sermon on the Feast of All Saints
What, then, are the special effects of Glory?
Its effects are threefold:
(1) It elevates the created intellect, and makes it not alone angelic in its insight and perception, but even God-like.
(2) It disposes the intellect - it gives the intellect strength to receive and support the unveiled, unshadowed vision of the Deity. We put up our hands before our eyes when we look at the sun. The eagle looks at it directly. Moses could not see God and live. The Israelites could not even bear to look on the face of Moses, their fellow-man. Our intellect could not bear to see the full glory of God. Nor, again, would our weak love stand the strain. People have died of an unexpected joy. So with us; our souls could not bear the sweetness and richness of that torrent of delights - God's love in heaven. It therefore disposes the intellect.
(3) And after disposing it to do so, then it elicits or produces in our created intellect, and by our created intellect, an act participating in the essential acts (as above said) of the Deity. So that, being now installed as the children of God, we (with our tremendously elevated and strengthened intellects) do as we see our Father doing.
Do the souls, then, who, on leaving this world, have by penance or indulgences wiped away all punishment due to sin, enter immediately into heaven?
Instantaneously. "It is easy before God in the day of death to reward everyone according to his ways." (Ecclesiasticus 11:23)
Tradition - Council of Florence says: "We believe that the souls of those who, after baptism, have incurred no stain whatsoever of sin, as well as of those who have washed away the stains of their sins, will be received into eternal glory, and there behold face to face the very God Himself, Three and One, as He is."
It is not here said that there shall be delay. Nor is there any reason to suppose there shall be delay; for if no delay and no respite is given to a soul condemned to hell, but is hurried off at once, surely it would be saying that God was more prone to punishing than to rewarding if a soul were, on the other hand, detained from entering immediately into glory.
Apart from that, God's history with man has been one long unbroken series of anxiety and eagerness and desire to have man near Him. He came down to him in the twilight shades of Eden; He died for him on the Cross; He lives for him in the Blessed Sacrament; His delight is to be with the children of men. Will He then delay, when an opportunity offers, and no decree stays His hand - will He delay to take the human soul that He has so yearned after to the realms of joyful bliss, where He and the soul - if we might reverently say it - will live in a happy and blessed union for ever? The very moment then the soul leaves the body, if there be no penalty to be paid, no stain to be washed away, that moment the soul enters the glory of God.
Did anyone while here on this earth enjoy the Beatific Vision?
Yes; the Soul of our Divine Lord, from the first moment of Its young life in the sacred womb of His Virgin Mother, and all along during Its life on earth, enjoyed it.
Of our Blessed Lady, Suarez says that it may be piously and probably believed that this singular grace was at times conceded to her.
Of all other men, no one has ever seen God face to face. Of Moses and Saint Paul it is doubtful. God Himself said to Moses: "You cannot see My face; for man may not see Me and live." And Saint Paul says that he was rapt indeed to the third heavens; and he tells us for what, that he would hear secret words, but not that he would see God (ut audiret verba arcana).