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Why We Live with Vigilance

  • FATHER WILLIAM R. BONNIWELL

When we arrive at our Father’s house, it will not be as a stranger…. 


ourlady76There will be the resplendent throngs of angels and saints, our truest friends, who so many times interceded to God for us throughout our whole life.  But of all this joyous, welcoming throng, there will be one who will give us a welcome that will be unique; it will be the welcome given us by that Mother whom Christ gave us on Mount Calvary, the Blessed Virgin Mary.  She will greet us as only a mother can greet one of her children who, after a long and dangerous journey, has at last returned safely home.

And then, our enraptured eyes will behold the beatific vision!  By a special grace, called the light of glory, infused in our intellect, elevating and perfecting it, we shall be able to see almighty God face to face.  We shall be transported with ecstasy at the vision of the beauty, glory, splendor, and perfection of the Lord God of Hosts, and beholding the glory of the Lord, we shall be transformed into his very image, from glory to glory, by the spirit of the Lord.

The ecstatic rapture caused by this glorious beatific vision will never lessen, will never vary in its intensity, because God’s ineffable attributes are really and truly infinite, really and truly inexhaustible.  Nor can we ever grow tired of gazing at this vision of Goodness and Love, because our glorified body will not be susceptible of weariness; it can never grow tired.  And so, every moment throughout the endless ages of eternity, every moment we shall be discovering more and more dazzling beauties and perfections in the God of infinite holiness.  And in that marvelous vision of the Godhead our restless, unsatisfied heart will at last find perfect peace and perfect contentment, for it shall have finally found what it had been seeking all throughout life — perfect love.

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Acknowledgement

Father William R. Bonniwell, o.p. "Why We Live with Vigilance" from What Think You of Christ? B. Herder Book Company (1958).

This book is in the public domain.

The Author

bonniwellFather Bonniwell († 1984) was a Dominican priest, preacher, and historian. He is author of What Think You of Christ?

Copyright © 1958