The title of the first book of the This We Believe Series is “God, Man, and God-Man” by Rev. Leo J. Trese. It carries a 1954 Imprimatur from Edward Cardinal Mooney, Archbishop of Detroit.
The first two questions of the Roman Catholic Catechism are “1. Who made you?” the answer to which is “God made me.” And “2. Why did God make you?” the answer to which is “God made me to know Him, love Him and serve him in this world, and be happy with Him forever in the next.” But both what we need to do in this life in this world and the next are directly linked. If we do not know love and serve him in this world, we cannot be happy with him forever in the next. The following partial quote from the book under review’s second chapter entitled “What must I Do?” (which correspondingly answers the second question the first being answered in the first chapter entitled “Why am I here?”) brings this out:
“. . . But heaven is something more than a family reunion. God is the one Who will matter, to all of us. On an infinitely higher scale, it will be something like having an audience with the Holy Father. Each member of the family who are visiting the Vatican is glad that the others are there. But when the Pope steps through the door into the audience chamber, it is to him that all eyes and thoughts are mainly directed. Similarly, we shall know and love each other in heaven – but we shall know and love each other in God.
It cannot too often be emphasized that the happiness of heaven consists essentially in the intellectual vision of God – the final and complete possession of the God Whom we have desired and loved weakly at a distance. And if that is to be our destiny – to be eternally united with God in love – then it follows that we must begin to love God here in this life.
God cannot fulfill something that does not even exist. If there is no beginning of love for God in our hearts here upon earth, then there can be no fruition of love in eternity. That indeed is why God has placed us here upon earth: so that, by loving Him, we may lay the necessary foundation for the happiness of heaven. [my emphasis]
In the previous chapter we talked about a soldier who, at a distant post, sees a girl’s picture in the paper and falls in love with her. He begins writing to the girl, and ends up by having her for his very own when he eventually returns home. It is evident that if the boy had not been impressed by the girl’s picture in the first place, or if he had lost interest after the exchange of a few letters and had stopped writing – it is evident that the girl would have meant nothing to the boy when he got back home. Even if she happened to be on the station platform when the train arrived, she would be just another face in the crowd to him.
Similarly, unless we begin to love God in this life, there is no way in which we can be united with God in eternity. For one who would go into eternity with no love for God in his heart, heaven would simply not exist. Just as a man without eyes cannot see the beauty of the world around him, so the man without love for God cannot see God; He goes into eternity blind. It is not a case of God’s saying to the unrepentant sinner (sin being simply a denial of love to God): “you do not love Me. I want no part of you. Go to hell!” The man who dies without love for God – that is, in unrepented sin – has made his own choice. God is there, but he cannot see God; just as the sun still shines, thought the blind man cannot see it.
Discussion: 1. Why are we sure that we shall know our loved ones in heaven? 2. Will reunion with our loved ones be the principal happiness of heaven? 3. What is the principal happiness of heaven? 4. Why does that make it necessary for us to love God in this life? 5. Does God reject the sinner, or does the sinner reject God?
It is evident that we cannot love someone we do not know That brings us to another duty which we have in this live. We must learn all that we can about God, so that we may love Him, and keep our love alive, and grow in love for Him. Going back again to our imaginary soldier: If the boy had never seen that girl’s picture, he certainly never would have loved her. He could not love someone he had never heard of. Even after seeing the picture and being impressed with the girl’s appearance, if the boy had not written and found out through correspondence what a swell girl she was, his first impulse of interest would never have developed into an ardent love.
That is why we “study religion.” That is why we have catechism lessons in school, religion courses in high school and college. That is why we listen to sermons on Sunday and read Catholic books and periodicals. That is why we have religious discussion clubs. It is all part of what we might call our “correspondence” with God. It is all part of our effort to know Him better, so that we may develop a love for Him, grow in love for Him, and preserve our love for Him.
There is, of course, only one rock-bottom way of proving our love for anyone. That is by doing the things that will please the one we love, by doing what the loved person wants us to do. Taking once more the example of our soldier boy: If, while claiming to love his girl and wanting to marry her, he at the same time spent is time and money on prostitutes and drunkenness, he would be a liar of the first water. It would not be real love at all, else he would try to be the kind of man his girl wanted him to be.
Likewise, there is only one way in which we can prove our love for God That is by doing what God wants us to do, by being the kind of human being He wants us to be. Love for God does not reside in the emotions. Love for God does not mean that our heart must turn handsprings when we think of Him. Some people may feel their love for God in an emotional way, but that is not at all essential. Because love for God resides in our will. It is not in how we feel toward God, but in what we are willing to do for God that our love for Him proves itself.
And the more we do for God here, the greater will be our happiness in heaven. That may seem like a paradox, to say that some in heaven will be happier than others, when already we have said that everyone will be perfectly happy in heaven. But there is no contradiction. Those who have loved God more in this life will find greater joy in the fulfillment of that love in heaven. A man who loves a girl a little will find happiness in marrying the girl. But a man who loves a girl a lot will find even greater happiness than the first man, in the fulfillment of his love. Similarly, as our love for God increases (and our obedience to His will) so also does our capacity for happiness-in-God increase.
Consequently, while it is quire true that every soul in heaven will be perfectly happy, it also is true that some will have a greater capacity for happiness than others. To use an old example: a quart bottle and a pint bottle may both be full – but the quart bottle will hold more than the pint bottle. Or to use another example: six different people may listen to a symphony concert, and each be happily absorbed in the music. But there will be six different degrees of enjoyment, depending upon the musical knowledge and musical appreciation of each person.
All of this, then, is what the catechism means when it asks “what must we do to gain the happiness of heaven?” and answers by saying, “To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love and serve God in this world.” That middle word, “love,” is the key word, the essential word. But there is no love without knowledge, so we must know God in order to love Him. And there is no true love unless it manifests itself in action – in the doing of what the loved one wants. So we must also serve God.
However, before we leave the question of “What Must I Do?” it is well to recall that God does not leave us to our own human weakness to this matter of knowing, loving and serving Him. The happiness of heaven is itself a super natural happiness. It is not something to which our human nature ahs any right. It is a happiness that is above (super) nature. Even though we love God, it still would be impossible for us to see God in heaven if God did not give us a special power. This special power which God gives to the souls in heaven, a power that isa not a part of our human nature, a power to which we have no right, is called the “light of glory.” If it were not for the light of glory, the highest happiness to which we could aspire would be the natural happiness of limbo. That would be a happiness very much like the happiness a saint enjoys in this life, when he is in close and ecstatic union with God but does not see God.
The happiness of heaven then, is a supernatural happiness. That we may achieve it, God gives us the supernatural helps which we call grace. If God left us to our own purely natural strength, we never could achieve the kind of love that will merit heaven for us. It is a special kind of love. We call it “charity,” and God implants the seed of it in our will at Baptism. So long as we do our part, by seeking, accepting and using the successive grace which God provides, this supernatural love for God will grow in us, and will bear fruit.
Heaven is a supernatural reward, to be achieved through the living of a supernatural life. To know, love and serve God, under the impulse of God’s grace – that is a supernatural life. It is the whole plan, the whole philosophy of a truly Christian live.
[Discussion question as before]. . .
MY APOSTOLATE:
- I shall scrutinize my family life to see whether I am honestly as interested in helping my loved ones get to heaven as I am in their material welfare.
- I shall lose no opportunity of increasing my knowledge of God, by attention to sermons, subscribing to one or more Catholic periodicals, participating in religious discussion clubs, etc.
- I shall do all that I can to help others to come to a better knowledge of God, especially by being active in the work of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, spreading religious pamphlets and literature, encouraging others to listen to religious TV and radio programs, [in these days also listening to blogs or creating blogs] etc.
- I shall be especially zealous in trying to get careless Catholics to return to the practice of their faith. I shall patiently explain to them the need for doing things for God. If they have unbaptized children, I shall do all that I can to bring these children to the supernatural life by Baptism.”
All the chapters are structured thusly and they have knowledge content, discussion questions, some times more knowledge content, more discussion questions, etc. then finally something to do to make the content relevant in our lives is a section called “MY APOSTOLATE.”
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 