Beatific Vision
Three Latin words comprise the phrase, beatific vision; beatus, happy, the verb, facere, to make, and finally, visio, which means sight. In other words, a beatific vision is a sight that makes one happy. What is the cause for happiness? It is the sight of God the Trinity. The mystics assure us that to see God’s beauty is worth enduring all manner of hell on earth. Imagine some sight that makes you intensely happy, then multiply it by a billion. There you have a morsel of what happiness flows from the vision of God.
Finally, we come to the experience of the ultimate reality of heaven: beatitude. This experience flows from the vision of God. St. Thomas Aquinas defines beatitude as the perfect good that satisfies the inmost desire of the rational being. “Only the uncreated and infinite good,” he says, “can fully satisfy the desire of a creature which conceives universal good.” In other words, nothing finite, be it pleasures, riches, talents, power, or prestige, can ultimately satisfy the hunger for infinite happiness found within the human heart.
Only infinite beatitude, namely God, can satiate an infinite hunger. Moreover, since He is an endless ocean, there is no limit to how deeply one can plunge into Him. The happiness of the saints in heaven is to give and receive God’s own tide of happiness. “The essence of their supreme joy,” says Père de Caussade, “is but the tide of the very happiness of God ebbing and flowing into their souls, according to the capacity of their hearts.”
Hence, if God is infinite happiness, beauty, and love, how easy it will be to reciprocate His love. Consider a person who has loved you more than any other: perhaps it is a parent, spouse, or friend. In their presence, love naturally flows out of your being. If God is the source of all goodness, then how simple it will be to love Him in response.
