‘STAND FAST IN THE FAITH’

New Zealand Tablet, 9 May 1912, Page 3

‘STAND FAST IN THE FAITH’

(A Weekly Instruction' specially written ; for the N.Z. ‘ * Tablet .by ‘ Ghimel.’). ’ < THE HAPPINESS OF THE RESURRECTION , . The various , considerations on the Resurrection already put forward lead up to the thought of the happiness that awaits the just.- : The happiness of heaven is twofold : Human and Divine. ■ (1) Human. The lifeless body will come to life, and, thanks: to » the merits of Christ, will rise in glory to enjoy with the soul the happiness of perfect human nature and to share in the divine happiness," The soul, whose very end is happiness, will find abundant objects of interest and love,\and having these, will have all the elements of bliss. The soul, with unflagging energy, will be allowed to roam about and pry into the secrets of nature, while its impulse to love will be satisfied in the affectionate companionship, of friends. For heaven is not a fairyland, where mortal man sleeps or dreams day-dreams through ages of unmeasured time,: but life, life everlasting, that is, a conscious, living state, where our faculties and powers will have full play, and where all that the human heart yearns for will be found in its perfection. Add to these elements of happiness the fact that ‘God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes : and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more’ (Apoc. xxi., 4), and especially the consciousness of having attained to God, the abyss of all that is good and beautiful, and of being able to worship Him, Our Lord and Benefactor, as knowable under the veil of cieatipn. Even if this were all, we can hardly imagine that there .would be anything wanting to fill up the natural measure of our happiness. But,since man has been elevated to a supernatural state, a higher form of happiness awaits him. (2) Divine.—We shall see God face to face, in that we shall have an immediate vision of Him, as of a man whom we see face to face. By this vision we are most of all made like to God, and are partakers in His happiness, for this is His happiness, that He essentially understands His Own substance. Hence it is said: ‘ When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John iii., 2). And the Lord said : I prepare for you, as My Father hath prepared for Mb, a kingdom, that ye may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom (St., Luke xxii., 29-30). They therefore eat and drink at the table of God who enjoy the same happiness wherewith God is happy, seeing Him in the way in which He sees Himself ’ (St. Ihomas). This face-to-face vision of God, this possession of Him, is the substantial joy of Heaven. In what the sight and possession of God exactly consists, we can hardly say, for ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love . Him’ (Isaias Ixiv., 4, quoted in 1 Cor. ii 9) But remembering , that the light of glory, like the impulse of grace, instead of destroying perfects our natural faculties, we may think of the intellect, will, and memory,' man’s noblest possessions, as being so strengthened and elevated by power from on high that t they pan stand even the fiery shock of the uncovered face of God. God, so to speak, takes hold of the soul, passes into it, and thus gives to the understanding the fulness of light, to. the will the fulness of peace/ and to the memory the fulness of eternity. The soul knows and rejoices in the' same Divine Good wherein God rejoices, nay to some extent it apprehends that Infinite Goodness with the same kind of act wherewith God apprehends it; and through the unitive force of love the soul enters into the very life of the Eternal Being.’ uung man s mortal career, God has been his Master God Kmg; n ° W He becomes His Friend, Father, and

St. Augustine, in the ninth book of his Confessions records the, touching and sublime discourse that took p ace between his saintly mother,: Monica, and himself on this subject. She had come to Ostia to die, and a

i| w days before her death, the mother and the son stood at the window, looking put into the garden, of their house. -./We : were discoursing then together, al one, very sweetly ; . . . enquiring between ourselves re. the presence of the Truth, which Thou art, of what sort the eternal life of the saints was to be. ' . h- .And when our discourse was brought to that point, that the vtsry highest delight of the earthly senses, in the very purest-material light,-was, in respect of the sweetness of that life, not only not worthy of comparison, but not even of mention; we raising lip ourselves with a more glowing affection towards the “self-same,” did by degrees pass through all things bodily, even the very hqaven, whence sun and moon and stars shine upon the ea rth; yea, we were soaring higher yet, by inward iriusing and discourse, and admiring of Thy works; we came to our own minds, and went beyond them, that we might arrive at that region of never-failing plenty, where Thou feedest Israel for ever with the food of truth, and where life is the Wisdom by whom all, these things are made, and what have been, and what shall be; and she is not made, but is, as she hath been, and so shall she be ever; yea, rather to “have been,” and “hereafter to be” are not in her, but only “to be,” seeing she is eternal. ... . We were saying then If to any the tumult of the flesh were hushed, hushed the images of earth, and waters, and air, hushed also the poles of heaven, yea the very soul be hushed to herself, and by not thinking on self surmount self, hushed all dreams and imaginary revelations, every tongue and every sign, and whatsoever exists only in transition, since" if any could hear, all these say : We made not ourselves, but He made us that abideth for ever. If then having uttered this, they too should be hushed, having roused only our ears to Him Who made them,-and* He alone speak, not of them, but by Himself, that we may hear His Word, not through any tongue of flesh, nor angel’s voice, nor sound of thunder, nor in the dark riddle of a similitude’, but might hear Whom in these things we love, might hear His Very Self without these (as we two now strained ourselves, and in swift thought touched on that Eternal Wisdom, which abideth over all) ; could this be continued on, and other visions of kind far. unlike be withdrawn, and this one ravish and absorb and wrap up its beholder amid these inward joys, so that life might be for ever like thajt one moment of understanding which now we sighed after; were not this, Enter into thy Master’s joy? ’