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God Made Us for Heaven

Soul Carried to Heaven – William-Adolphe Bouguereau, c.1878

It is the simple truth: God created us for happiness.  Not jealous of the good He has (or rather is), God fashioned finite intellectual beings—angels and men—capable of sharing His good through knowledge and love, and thus capable of entering into His eternal joy. We honor and love Him by seeking and welcoming this gift from His hands. Indeed, it would be a sin to despise this gift of blessedness, to consider oneself “unfit” for it if one has received the grace of Christ through the sacraments, and, by the aid of that grace, is striving to lead the Christian life.

But as we know from history, some Christians, especially the more theologically sophisticated among them, have been tempted to consider heavenly happiness a goal to which one could not aspire without being guilty of selfishness; a goal, indeed, that one must not have in mind, much less act for the sake of. In short, there have been theories that, in the name of achieving “pure” love, in the name of self-sacrifice, or in the name of moral unworthiness, would set at naught even God’s own repeated desire for us to be happy with Him forever, as if He did not really want us when He made us, or as if the Son of God did not come to earth and die on the Cross to open heaven’s gates for those who believe in Him.

Praise the Lord

Read the Whole Article at https://onepeterfive.com/