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 for ever 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 will 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.

So it is with us in a moral point of view. Our human nature was bitten and poisoned by the infernal serpent, in the earthly paradise, and although a powerful antidote was

given us in the Redemption, some of the venom remained in us; and as long as we live here below, we shall feel its effects. We shall always feel the sting of concupiscence, and retain an inclination to evil, to seek ourselves inordinately, and to follow our own will. We shall always experience a certain languor in the practice of virtue, which involves a continual effort and struggle.

What an exquisite consolation it is to us to be assured that none of this poison will follow us into heaven! Yes, the day will come-blessed and glorious day !-when all that perversity of will, all that inclination to evil, and all the passions of our depraved nature will be no more! All these will die in our temporal death, and be buried-never to rise again in our glorified bodies. The Beatific Vision will glorify our will, and change us, as it were, into new creatures.

Then shall we find ourselves joyfully willing to do what God wills, as He wills it, and because He so wills it-without the least repugnance on our part. We shall no longer have peculiar views, private interests, or natural inclinations to clash with the will and interests of God. His Divine will and ours shall become so totally one, that we shall seem to have no will of our own, so completely, and, at the same time, so sweetly, shall it be identified with the will and good pleasure of God. In a word, as our intellect is elevated by the light of glory, and filled

with the purest knowledge in the Beatific Vision, so also our will is purified, sanctified, and made like God's will, in rectitude and perfect sanctity.

But not only shall our will become holy and conformed to God's will, we shall also love God above all things, purely, unselfishly, ardently, and for His own blessed sake; and in that love shall we, at last, find the perfect happiness we vainly sought in the love of creatures.

Human love is a source of partial happiness in this world, and it is in this human love, as in a mirror, that we see faint reflections of the unspeakable happiness which will inebriate our souls in the Beatific Vision. But they are emphatically faint reflections; for whether it be conjugal, parental, or fraternal love, or whether it be the love of pure friendship-whether it be even elevated by grace to the supernatural virtue of charity, it never did, and never will, bestow perfect happiness in this world. It depends for its existence and perfection on conditions which can never be completely fulfilled in our present state of imperfection; and, therefore, the short-lived happiness to which it gives birth is always mingled with a certain amount of bitterness.

It is in heaven, and only in heaven, that all the conditions of love can be fulfilled; and hence it is there only that love will produce pure and perfect happiness, unmingled with the disappointments, cruel