The
Beatific VisionThe
Beatific Vision"My child, none can view the great vision, the beatific vision; none can view this, for it would be that you would be removed from your earthly body. This awaits mankind only over the veil. We send to you only what your human mind can comprehend. Were We to show you, My child, what lies beyond the veil, the beauty, the full encompassment of your emotions would still your earthly heart. This We cannot give to you until you come across the veil." - Our Lady, April 13, 1974
Man will see God face-to-face, but how will this vision take place? It is of faith that we shall not see Him by representation, by an image formed in our minds. It is also of faith that we shall not rise to the knowledge of Him by the aid of reasoning, or by way of demonstration, in the manner whereby we apprehend universal and abstract truths in this world.
It is likewise certain that we shall not see Him partially and dimly like distant objects, of which we cannot discern all the features, but which we see only imperfectly and on certain sides. God will not be seen in this way. He is a single being, not made of parts. He is in the blade of grass and in the atom integrally. When we say that He is present in every sphere and in all places, our mind leads us astray: God is not in any place, but all spheres and places are in Him. He does not live in any time, but His eternity consists of an indivisible instant, in which all time is contained. So we shall see Him as He is in His simplicity, in His threefold personality, and in the same way as we see the face of a man in this world, sicuti est facie ad faciem.
This vision
will operate by an immediate impression of the divine essence in the soul with
the aid of a supernatural light called the light of glory. Suarez defines
it thus: “a created quality and a supernatural virtue of the intellect, infused
into the soul, which will give it the aptitude and the power to see God." This
light of glory will transform man, says St. Dionysius; it will deify him by
imprinting in him the seal and likeness of celestial beauty, and make him the
image of the Father; it will expand and augment the soul’s capacity for
knowledge to such an extent that it will become able to apprehend immense and
boundless good. Just as, by means of the light of the sun, the eye can see the
variety of tangible things
and, so to speak, comprehend the
whole extent of the universe; just as, aided by the light of reason, it knows
the reason for its own existence, and the intellectual truths; so, immersed in
the light of glory, it will have infinity as its domain, and, in a sense, will
comprehend God Himself.
Scripture teaches us that the light of glory is the
light of God: In
lumine tuo videbimus lumen.
(Cf. Ps. 36:10) By
it, our souls will be so immersed in the light of the divine presence that we
may say, with St. Augustine, that, in a sense, they will no longer know through
their own knowledge, but from the very knowledge of God, and that they will no
longer see with their so weak and limited eyes, but with
the very eyes of God: Erit intellectui plenitudo lucis.
The transports that the divine vision will arouse in the
elect will make their hearts superabound in the most unutterable joys; it will
be a flood of delights and raptures, life in its inexhaustible richness and the
very source of all good and all life. It will be, as
Eternal life, says St. Paul, is like a weight, like
being overwhelmed with all delights, all exhilarations, and all transports: "an
eternal weight of glory," aeternum gloriae pondus
(2 Cor. 4:17); a weight
that, by reviving man rather than annihilating him, will inexhaustibly renew his
youth and vigor. It is a source, forever fertile, where the soul will drink
substance and life in abundance. It is a marriage, in which the soul will clasp
its Creator in an eternal embrace without ever feeling any diminution of the
rapture it felt on that day when, the first time, it was united to Him and
pressed Him to its bosom.
Even so, the elect who see God will not comprehend Him;
for the Lateran Council teaches, "God is incomprehensible to all created
beings." We shall see God as He is, some more, others less, according to our
dispositions and merits. Nevertheless, we could not teach theologically that the
Immaculate Virgin herself, who sees God more clearly and perfectly than all the
angels and all the saints together, can attain an adequate vision and knowledge
of God. God is infinite, and all that can be said is that the creature sees Him;
sees Him as He is (sicuti est),
entire (in integro); and yet does not
see Him, in the sense that what he succeeds in discovering of His perfections is
nothing compared with what the eternal Being Himself contemplates, in the
splendor of His Word and in union with the Holy Spirit.
If we might be permitted to use a crude and incomplete
image — for it must be remembered that every comparison taken from tangible
things loses all proportion and analogy when it is applied to the realm of
uncreated life — we would say that, in comparison with God, the elect are like a
traveler standing on the banks of the ocean. The traveler knows that it is the
ocean, he sees with his own eyes the ocean, which stretches out and unfolds in
the immensity, and he says, "I have seen the ocean." Nevertheless there are
reefs and distant islands he does not discern, and his gaze has not encompassed
all the riverbanks and all the contours of the ocean. Accordingly, contemplation
of God will not mean immobility but, above all, activity, an ever-ascending
progression, where movement and repose will be bound together in ineffable
harmony.
In order the better to understand this, let us imagine a
scholar who has been given wings by nature; he would have the power of
traversing all the regions of the stars and the firmament; he would be enabled
to explore all the hidden marvels in the countless groups of constellations, and
this scholar would go from one sphere to another, from one planet to the next.
As he advanced further into the immensity, he would meet one surprise after
another, thrill upon thrill, seeing richer spectacles appear ceaselessly,
opening up vaster and more radiant horizons to his gaze. However, a moment would
come when he reached the limits.
But infinity has no limits, no bottom or shore. The
happy mariners of that fortunate abode will never cry, like Christopher
Columbus: Land! Land! They will say: God, God always. God yet
more . . . Forever there will be new perfections they will seek to gain;
forever more pure and more intoxicating delights they will aspire to taste. They
will go from glory to glory, from joy to joy; for, as
D25
-
Heaven (Part
1) 
PDF
D26
-
Heaven (Part
2)
PDF
D123
-
Catholic
Church, Part 1 PDF
D124
-
Catholic
Church, Part 2
PDF
Revised:
March 21, 2018