Praise be to Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
Today is Memorial Day and it's also the memorial, for us it's the feast, of Our Lady as Mother of the Church and we actually don't have a homily prepared for Our Lady as Mother of the Church, so we're going to have to make it up to her, hopefully on the feast of the Immaculate Heart, we'll try to make it up to her on that day.
Today we're going to continue our reflections on Franciscan spirituality, which we've been doing for a number of months, reflecting on love or charity as the soul of Franciscan spirituality.
Today we're going to talk about how that relates specifically to eternal life, to the next life.
The Church teaches that the eternal beatitude or blessedness of heaven consists in the direct vision of God and in the possession of God without fear of losing Him.
In other words, heaven is the full development and the fruit of our life of grace down here on earth.
St. John Chrysostom says, in heaven we find no wheat, no barley, no different kinds of products, but we do find everywhere in heaven love, the first fruit of the Holy Spirit.
St. Augustine adds, on that last day we shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise, for this is to be the end without end of all our living, that kingdom without end, the real goal of our present life.
So the life of grace, the life of charity, already begins here on earth.
We say that we live the life of grace in the obscurity and in the mystery of faith, we say.
So on earth we believe without seeing.
Those who live in a state of grace have in them the seed of what will be their glory in heaven because they already live in God, they already live in His love, already in His grace down here in this earth.
As long as we're in this life though we can still lose the one true good who is God.
As Catholics we know that we have the moral certainty that we're, we can have the moral certainty that we're in God's grace.
We can't have the absolute certainty because again we're still on this side of the veil as it were.
We don't see God, we don't enjoy or possess Him as the blessed do in heaven.
That vision and that possession are what make up what we call eternal blessedness in heaven.
St. Augustine says, whatever will be there in heaven will be good and the supreme God will be the supreme good and He'll be present for the enjoyment of those who love Him and the culmination of all this blessedness will be the certainty that it will be so forever.
But in heaven we ask what's the essence, what's the main reason for our happiness up there?
Is it the vision of God or is it the possession of God?
Is it knowledge or is it love?
If you frame the question in that way I think the answer is pretty obvious but what's called the Aristotelian intellectualism which was adopted by a number of scholastics including St. Thomas Aquinas, has tilted the answer more in one direction than in another than what the Franciscans would say is in the right direction.
So in heaven what has first place, what has primacy, is it knowledge or is it love?
Franciscan doctors give a response to that question which is in harmony with their whole conception of God, their whole conception of the universe and their understanding of grace too.
If God is uncreated charity as we believe and if grace is created charity that we participate in then the beatitude of heaven will essentially be the possession and the enjoyment of God in charity.
The Apostle Paul says the habit of charity is the most perfect, more perfect than faith and hope and he also says it will endure into the next life too.
Love never ends.
You read that in 1 Corinthians 13, 8 and he says make love your aim, 1 Corinthians 14 verse 1.
St. Augustine again echoes this thought in his work on the Trinity saying among the gifts of God no gift is greater than charity or equal to it and blessed John Duns Scotus affirms that our perfection and therefore our happiness is reached by means of the human faculty which allows us to adhere to God in the most intimate way possible.
He's talking about the faculty of the will not the intellect and we adhere to God in our will through love.
Scotus says that the act or the action of the will unites with its object in a way which is more perfect than how the intellect or the intelligence unites with something and He says the will unites to its object as the object is in itself while the intelligence or intellect unites to an object as the object is or appears in the knower so as the person who's thinking appears the thing to be.
He applies that to heaven too.
He says Scotus says in heaven the act of the will unites us to the beatific object who is God as God is in himself.
While our intellect unites us to God as we perceive him so how he appears to us in our intellect not quite the same Aquinas in his Summa notes that the will is inclined to the thing itself as existing in itself in itself which Scotus agrees with and also St. Thomas Aquinas admits in the same question that quote the love of God is better than the knowledge of God he says.
So in the end it's very clear St. Thomas is a Franciscan if you look at what he says right I don't think that the Dominicans would agree with that but just quoting St. Thomas here we don't want to misquote him but he says that the love of God is better than the knowledge of God even the well-known Thomistic philosopher Cornelio Fabro says that the apex of union with God is by means of charity which is proclaimed as the form of all virtues so the force or the power by which we adhere to God is the force of love grace or infused charity on earth becomes beatific charity in heaven in heaven we will see God as he is as the beloved apostle tells us first John 3 verse 2 it's not that we'll know God completely because he's infinite unlimited you can never know him completely and our intellect in heaven will still be finite it'll still be limited because we're creatures but our knowledge of God will be a vision of God an intuition of him similar to what he has or what he is in himself that being said our Beatitude will be completed as Saint Bonaventure says in the full flowering of the gift of wisdom a gift which both gives light and inflames the heart and allows us to taste God as it were quoting from the psalmist taste and see the goodness of the Lord Psalm 34 verse 8 so in heaven we'll have the enjoyment of God which comes from our union with him in love can even think of an analogy here on earth which which has first place on earth our knowledge of someone or a love for them which is more essential which is more important well yes it's true I can't love someone without first knowing them that's true right but once I know someone I can choose to love them that love becomes the bond of our relationship it becomes the perfection of our relationship in a marriage or in an intimate friendship the two become one not simply by means of knowledge but through love so it's really in heaven in the love and the possession of God in eternity it's in heaven that the prayer of Jesus will be truly accomplished when he prayed father that they may be one even as we are one I in them and you and me that they may be perfectly one because you have loved them even as you have loved me that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them he says in John 17 to this we'll just close with a thought from st. Gregory the great on heaven st. Gregory says that in heaven quote the good rejoice the more to see their loved ones in happy eternity with them but there's something even more wonderful in store for God's chosen ones they will recognize not only those whom they knew on earth but many saintly men and women whom they never seen before will appear to them as old friends and so when they meet the saints of the ancient past they will not appear unfamiliar to them for they always knew them through their deeds so we have a whole bunch of friends up in heaven who we don't know down here but in heaven it'll be like we always knew them forever so let's ask our lady the queen of heaven and the mother of the church whose feast we celebrate today for the grace to love her more and to love her son more so we can better prepare for an eternity of love and joy in paradise in the heavenly Jerusalem praise be Jesus and Mary now and forever 

If you would like to grow in love and knowledge of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, consider a subscription to the Missio Immacalatae magazine.
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Every issue of the Missio features articles about Our Lady's privileges and her mission in the Church and world for the sanctification and conversion of souls.
The Missio takes to heart the ancient saying of the Church, De Maria Numquam Satis, of Mary you can never say enough.
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Ave Maria.