CatholicTheology.info

Choose a topic from Part 3 Suppl:

• Penance (Continued)
• Extreme Unction
• Order (Holy Orders)
• Matrimony
• The General Resurrection
• The Last Things
  • 87. Knowledge in Risen Man
  • 88. Time and Place of the General Judgment
  • 89. Persons to be Present at the Last Judgment
  • 90. Christ, the Judge
  • 92. Heaven: The Beatific Vision
  • 93. The Happiness of Heaven: Mansions
  • 94. The Saved and the Damned
  • 95. The Endowments of the Blessed
  • 96. Special Heavenly Rewards
  • 97. The Punishment of the Damned
  • 98. The Will and the Intellect of the Damned
  • 99. God's Mercy and Justice Towards the Damned
• Appendix I (The Innocents in Limbo)
• Appendix II (Two Notes on Purgatory)

95. The Endowments of the Blessed

1. When the blessed, or the saints-for the names mean thesame here-are brought to the glory of heaven, they are dowered withsuitable gifts.

2. These endowments do not constitute beatitude. Beatitudeis perfect happiness in the beatific vision; this happiness orbeatitude is what the soul has merited through Christ and by hisgrace. But endowments are gifts that are not merited in anysense.

3. Christ our Lord as man has all possible perfections andevery gift and endowment, for his humanity is united to Godhead.Still, strictly speaking, it is not proper to say that Christ asman is adorned with gifts and endowments. For Christ is God as wellas man; endowments are his to give, not to receive.

4. Now, an endowment is a dowry, and a dowry suggests awedding and a bride. Human nature is wedded to the divine nature inChrist; Christ himself is wedded to the Church. Hence, whenspeaking of human beings, we may use the term dowry or endowmentwith propriety to indicate the perfections of the blessed. But thisis not the case when we speak of angels, for the metaphor ofmarriage and bride does not apply in their case. Of course, angelshave all the perfections that can adorn a rational being in heaven.The point we make here is merely that the term dowry or the termendowment is not suitably employed to express angelicperfection.

5. The dowries or endowments of the blessed are: vision,love, and fruition. These gifts may be said to correspond,respectively, to the theological virtues of faith, hope, andcharity. Faith is fulfilled in vision; hope, in loving possession;charity, in the fruition or full enjoyment of what is loved.

"The supreme perfection of man in this life is to be so united to God that all his soul with all its faculties and powers are so gathered into the Lord God that he becomes one spirit with him, and remembers nothing except God, is aware of and recognises nothing but God, but with all his desires unified by the joy of love, he rests contentedly in the enjoyment of his Maker alone."
St Albert the Great

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"Obedience is the true holocaust which we sacrifice to God on the altar of our hearts."
St Philip Neri

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"God looks neither at long nor beautiful prayers, but at those that come from the heart."
The Cure D'Ars

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