CatholicTheology.info

Choose a topic from Part 1:

• God and His Attributes
• The Blessed Trinity
• Creation
• The Angels
• The Days of Creation
  • 65. The Creation of Bodies
  • 66. The Order of Bodily Creation
  • 67. Light: Work of the First Day of Creation
  • 68. Work of the Second Day of Creation
  • 69. Work of the Third Day of Creation
  • 70. Work of the Fourth Day of Creation
  • 71. Work of the Fifth Day of Creation
  • 72. Work of the Sixth Day of Creation
  • 73. The Seventh Day
  • 74. Meaning of the Seven Days
• Man
• The Divine Government

73. The Seventh Day

1. The perfection of the universe is ascribed to the seventh day when the work of creation is seen completed. Perfection in a thing is either (a) its being completed as a thing, or (b) its doing what it was made to do. And the first perfection is the cause of the second. By the seventh day creation was complete,and, in this sense, perfect. But its purpose in existence, the salvation of men through Christ and his grace, will be fulfilled at the end of time, when it will have given all the help that bodily creatures can give to the serving and saving of mankind.

2. We read (Gen. 2:2) that "God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work." God rested, not as one tired out by labor, but as one who ceases from his operation. And rest as referred to God means his complete blessedness or beatitude in himself which needs no creatures.

3. Scripture tells us (Gen. 2:2) that "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." God sanctified all creatures. And the special blessing and sanctification of creatures is their rest in God. The day itself is blessed and sanctified; it is properly a day of rest for creatures. Further, the blessing of creatures is expressed to them in God's word, "Increase and multiply."

"Though the path is plain and smooth for people of good will, those who walk it will not travel far, and will do so only with difficulty if they do not have good feet, courage, and tenacity of spirit. "
St John of the Cross, OCD - Doctor of the Church

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"Spiritual persons ought to be equally ready to experience sweetness and consolation in the things of God, or to suffer and keep their ground in drynesses of spirit and devotion, and for as long as God pleases, without their making any complaint about it."
St Philip Neri

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"O Lord, my God, who will seek you with simple and pure love, and not find that you are all one can desire, for you show yourself first and go out to meet those who seek you? "
St John of the Cross, OCD - Doctor of the Church

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