What is exactly is the Beatific Vision?

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Peace_Pilgrim

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Newly baptized Catholics like me have a whole new “Catholic language” to learn, so forgive me if this has already been hashed and rehashed.

Specifically, I am very fuzzy about what exactly is the Beatific Vision?

I just looked it up in the Catholic Encyclopedia and now have more questions than answers after reading it:
  • What does “immediate knowledge of God” mean?
  • How does it differ from “mediate knowledge”?
  • God is Spirit (and not body) and genderless – so how do we behold God face to face?
I apologize if this has been already been discussed in the past. Any clarification would be helpful.
 
In heaven, the blessed are given a gift called “the light of glory”. This allows them to gaze upon God and His perfections through direct vision as opposed to the darkness and obscurity of faith. Through the Beatific Vision we commune with God “face to face” which means there is an intimate communion between God and the soul. We see Him as He is and comprehend the mysteries of God to the degree our heavenly glory allows. The saints’ intense union with God and their perception of His beauty and perfections, in turn, produces within the souls of the just an indescribable joy which no mortal mind, this side of heaven, can comprehend.
 
There is no longer a “veil” that separates us from God. Although the Blessed Trinity will remail a mystery even through all eternity. The Beatific Vision is what they’re talking about when men in the Bible say, “No one can see God and live”. All of His Divine attributes of Love, Mercy, Beauty, ect. would overwhelm us to the point of death. St. Faustina mentions this frequently in her Diary. Heaven is real, and it is so great that we would literally die if we saw it. That helps me when I am going through the sorrows of earthly life. This life is not the end, it is a means of helping us choose Heaven.
God Bless
 
The joys of the Beatific Vision will be so awesome that all other love will seem like a shadow by comparision.

The saints in contemplation occasionally experienced just a bit of this joy in the higher stages of prayer, and that is what spurred them on to do such heroic acts for the Lord.
 
Peace Pilgrim:
Newly baptized Catholics like me have a whole new “Catholic language” to learn, so forgive me if this has already been hashed and rehashed.

Specifically, I am very fuzzy about what exactly is the Beatific Vision?

I just looked it up in the Catholic Encyclopedia and now have more questions than answers after reading it:
  • What does “immediate knowledge of God” mean?
  • How does it differ from “mediate knowledge”?
  • God is Spirit (and not body) and genderless – so how do we behold God face to face?
Click to expand...

When St.Paul uses the phrase, in 1 Cor.13, he is writing with OT & Semitic ideas in mind; him being a Jew and all 🙂 and in the OT, the Hebrew for face is pan - which also means “presence”. “To see the face of God”, was to come before His Presence in the worship of the Temple. We have been granted something better - we are the Temple of God as His People, because Christ in us is that Temple.​

What he is talking about, I think, is our being wholly present to God, and God being wholly Present to us: the important word being “wholly”. IOW, all that we are will be open to God - not that it is not now, on earth; but its effect on us will be complete and perfect, which it is not now. And whereas we cannot know God in this world without being horrified and ashamed of our lack of full conformity to Him, because He is Infinite Holiness & Infinite Love, in Heaven that Holiness & Love will be our environment - it will be sheer delight, and not a reproach to our unlikeness to Him.

After Moses had spoken with the LORD, his face shone - the Israelites were afraid to look on him. Yet Moses was a mere, sinful, man - not God. He was transformed by having been present with God, & God with Him - see also 2 Corinthians 5 That is a taste of what is in store for us, which is so great that “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” - that is how “great and wonderful God” is, except that He is far better. The wonderful thing about God is, that it is impossible to love Him enough - or our neighbour for His sake. To be with Him where He is, is to love perfectly Him, & our neighbour in Him. If we think of all the joy God has given to those who love Him, we shall have a dim idea of what the Beatific Vision is like. It as though God existed purely to be loved - which AFAIK is exactly the case 🙂 Love is a need for us: God has made us that way - God is the One Who satisfies that need, because He is Infinitely Lovable, and is Love, and Loves.

“Mediate knowledge” is knowledge A has of B, through medium C - “immediate knowledge” is A’s knowledge of B, & B’s knowledge of A, without medium C playing any part at all. Our knowledge of the Saints is mediate - we do not know them face to face either - but God does. And as they are “in God”, He is the medium whereby we know them & they know us. ##
I apologize if this has been already been discussed in the past. Any clarification would be helpful.
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