Choose a topic from Part 3 Suppl:
1. In heaven the blessed will directly see the veryessence of God. "We shall see him as he is" (I John 3:2).God is supremely intelligible or understandable, and is himself thedetermining of the creatural intellect to know him in hisessence. To know God thus is to behold the beatific vision.
2. After the general resurrection when bodies and soulswill be reunited, the blessed will not behold God's essencewith their bodily eyes. For bodily eyes, even when theyare glorified, behold bodily things, and God's essence is notbodily. Those that see God in heaven (before or after theresurrection of the body) see him with the mind, theintellect-strengthened, elevated, and illumined by the Light ofGlory.
3. No creature can know God exhaustively, so as to knowall thatGod knows. This would mean the encompassing of theinfinite by a finite understanding; this is utterly impossible.Therefore, the blessed see God in his essence, but they do not seeall that God sees. Even the angels "who know all things inGod," do not know all that God knows. The term "allthings" means "all that they know."
"Lord, take from me everything that hinders me from going to You. give me all that will lead me to You. Take me from myself and give me to Yourself."
St Nicholas Flue
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"God has no need of men."
St Philip Neri
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"If, devout soul, it is your will to please God and live a life of serenity in this world, unite yourself always and in all things to the divine will. Reflect that all the sins of your past wicked life happened because you wandered from the path of God's will. For the future, embrace God's good pleasure and say to him in every happening: "Yea, Father, for so it hath seemed good in thy sight." "
St Alphonsus de Liguori
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