* …. Angeli superiores, inferiores a nescientia purgant. Angeli autem inferiores vident essentiam divinam: ergo angelus videns essentiam divinam, potest aliqua nescire. Sed anima non perfectius videbit Deum quam angelus: ergo animæ videntes Deum non oportet quod omnia videant…. Sic autem ignorantia non est poenalitas, sed defectus quidam: nec necesse est quod omnis talis defectus per gloriam auferatur. Sic enim etiam posset dici quod defectus esset in Papa Lino quod non pervenerit ad gloriam Petri.—S. Thom., Suppl. q. 92, art. 3.
CHAPTER IV.
THE BEATIFIC VISION. (CONTINUED.)
In the Beatific Vision our will is also to be glorified, and then we shall be happy in loving and being loved.
We have seen in the foregoing chapter that our intellectual faculties are glorified, and that our natural thirst for knowledge is forever quenched. But we have another faculty, called the will, or the loving power of the soul. This faculty is also to be glorified in the Beatific Vision. Then our continual desire for happiness, which we vainly sought in creatures, will be completely gratified. We shall now see that, in the Beatific Vision, our will or moral nature is elevated, ennobled, and made like God by a participation of His sanctity, beatitude, and love. But let us first cast a glance at ourselves, as we now are in our fallen state.
When our first parents revolted against God, they abandoned the eternal rule of rectitude, which is God's Will. Their passions, which heretofore had been under the control of reason, revolted against them, and their will was turned away from God. We, their children, have inherited all the consequences of their fall. We seek ourselves inordinately—follow our own capricious will, which leads us into excesses, at which we blush, in our sober moments. We stubbornly persist in seeking our happiness in creatures, though reason itself loudly proclaims that in them it cannot be found. Evidently, then, our will has been sadly perverted in the fall of our first parents.
One of the objects of the Christian religion was to bring back our will to a conformity with the Divine Will, and to cause it to love God above all things. Yet, in spite of its manifold teachings, in spite too of the sacraments, and the many graces we daily receive, in spite of prayer, meditation, and other spiritual exercises, this grand object is but partially attained in this world. For we find our perverse will again and again rising in rebellion against God. When a command is imposed upon us which does not chime in with our wishes, private interests, views, or natural inclination, we not unfrequently must drag ourselves by main force to perform what is commanded. And if we do obey, it is often only after doing all in our power, by excuse or pretext, to escape the obligation of obeying. Indeed, we all can say with the apostle: "I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man; but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me under the law of sin that is in my members."*
* Rom. vii. 22.
What a tyranny this law of sin exercises over the will, even of holy persons! How often do they discover, on close examination, that their will has departed from the eternal rule, which is the will of God! How often do they find that they had been seeking their own, instead of God's glory! After doing really great things, which they fancied were done purely for God, they find, to their grief, that, to a great extent, they had been secretly and artfully seeking themselves, and their own glory. And they have reason to fear that they have already received their reward in that human applause which they sought, or in which they took such complacency when it came unsought.
It is said that persons who have been bitten by a viper, and who have nevertheless recovered by the application of timely remedies, are never again the same in health as they were before. At times they are swollen, or feel acute pains, or have a morbid and depraved appetite for what they should not eat. At other times they feel a general languor, which takes away all their energy, so that whatever they do requires a most painful effort. Evidently, some of the poison is still lurking in their system, and so long as it remains there these infirmities will never be entirely healed.