VISIO QUINTA, cap. XLVIII
The Completion of All Things in the Church
God declares the completion of heaven and earth, interpreting the seventh day of rest as the fullness of good realized in the Son and manifested through the Church for the salvation of souls.
"So the heavens and the earth, and all their splendor, are complete.✦ This is how it should be understood: All the heavenly works that reach toward heaven in the passage of earthly things are perfect, along with the earthly things that the necessity of the sons of men who are born into the world requires, and so all that perfect beauty of heavenly works is established in the Church. "And on the seventh day God completed the work he had made, and on the seventh day he rested from every work he had accomplished.✦1 All this establishment is complete in all these things, and this is so because in my Son on the seventh day, that is, in the fullness of all that is good, I have thus defined all my operation, so that all the Church's people, by seeing and hearing and by examining through teaching, may know well what must be done for themselves according to my precepts. And all my establishment was made so festive that I would display it in no other way than through my Son, sent by me, who fulfilled all my ordinances through his teaching and through his apostles, with manifest work, ordinances that the prophets had seen before in shadow. Then also the seventh day of my rest shone forth in the Church, so that afterward in open work I would work nothing else, neither in preaching, nor with signs of wonders, nor with the vision of the ancient saints, except that in my Son I would manifest the works of life and very many secrets, future as well as past and present, and would so kindly admonish my chosen ones that the Incarnation of this same Son of mine, which flourished in the first seed, might be imitated. "And he blessed the seventh day and sanctified it," because in it he had ceased from every work that God had created to do.✦ I blessed and sanctified this seventh day for the salvation of souls, while I sent my Son to be incarnated in the womb of the Virgin.2
Freedom in Christ and the Son's Authority
The seventh day is further unfolded as the era of the Church, where believers freed from the law freely bind themselves to Christ, and the Son's full authority is shown to be perfectly united with the Father's will.
And I blessed it and sanctified it, because on this day I greatly rejoice — namely in those who, like flowers of roses and lilies, freed from the yoke of the law, inspired by me alone, freely begin to bind themselves, so that even the Incarnation of my Son, which I had promised beforehand in prophecy, is not subject to the commandment of the law. And I ceased to work in that way in the Church, which now shines in holy work as it does, in a full and perfect constitution, because my Son, who is my seventh work, proceeding from the womb of the Virgin through his humanity, accomplished all these things with me in the Holy Spirit, according to what is said in the Gospel: 'All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.'✦ This is to be understood in this way: from God the Father has been given to me — I who am the Son of the Virgin — all power by hereditary right in heaven to act, and on earth to judge what is to be done and judged; yet not so that I might overstep the will of my Father, but so that I might look into it in all things, because I am in the Father and he is in me.✦✦ And again, in another way:
The Tropological Sense: Perfection in Each Believer
The same pattern of completion is applied tropologically to the spiritual progress and perfection of each individual believer.
Likewise, how these same things are brought to completion through the tropological sense in the progress and perfection of each individual believer.
Read the original Latin
« Igitur perfecti sunt coeli, et terra, et omnis ornatus eorum . » Hoc considerandum sic est: Perfecta sunt cuncta coelestia opera, quae in transitu terrenarum rerum ad coelos tendunt, cum terrenis rebus quas necessitas nascentium filiorum hominum habet, et ita omne illud perfectum decus coelestium operum in Ecclesia constitutum est. « Complevitque Deus die septimo opus suum quod fecerat, et requievit die septimo ab omni opere quod patrarat (ibid). » Completa est omnis constitutio haec in omnibus his; et hoc ita scilicet quod ego in Filio meo die septimo, id est in plenitudine totius boni, omnem operationem meam sic definivi, ut omnis ecclesiasticus populus videndo, audiendo, et per doctrinam scrutando, bene noverit quid sibi in praeceptis meis faciendum sit. Et omnis constitutio mea ita festiva fuit, ut eam in nullo alio nisi in Filio meo a me misso ostenderem, qui omnes ordinationes meas per doctrinam suam, et per apostolos suos cum manifesto opere complevit, quas prophetae prius in umbratione viderunt. Tunc etiam septimus dies requiei meae in Ecclesia refulsit, ita ut postea in aperto opere nihil aliud nec in praedicatione, nec cum signis miraculorum, nec cum visione antiquorum sanctorum operarer, nisi ut in Filio meo opera vitae, et quamplurima secreta, tam futura quam praeterita et praesentia, manifestarem; et electos meos tam benigne monerem, ut Incarnationem ejusdem Filii mei, quae in primo germine floruit, imitarentur. « Et benedixit diei septimo, et sanctificavit illum , » quia in ipso cessaverat ab omni opere, quod creavit Deus ut faceret. Istum septimum diem in salvatione animarum benedixi, et sanetificavi, dum Filium meum in utero Virginis misi incarnari.
Et benedixi ac sanctificavi eum, quia in isto die meo multum delector, scilicet in illis qui quasi flores rosarum et liliorum jugo legis emancipati, tantum me inspirante se constringere libere incipiunt, ut etiam Incarnatio Filii mei, quam in prophetia ante promiseram, praecepto legis obnoxia non est. Cessavique operari tali modo in Ecclesia, quae jam in opere sancto sicut nunc lucet, in plena constitutione perfecta est, quia Filius meus, qui meum septimum opus est, ex utero Virginis per humanitatem procedens, omnia haec in Spiritu sancto mecum perfecit, secundum hoc quod in Evangelio dicit: « Data est mihi omnis potestas in coelo et in terra . » Hoc considerandum sic est: A Deo Patre data est mihi, qui Filius Virginis sum, omnis potestas haereditario jure in coelo facere, et in terra dijudicare quae facienda et dijudicanda sunt, non tamen ut voluntatem Patris mei transcendam, sed illam in omnibus inspiciam, quia ego in Patre et ipse in me est. Et iterum alio modo:
Item quomodo haec eadem juxta tropologiam in profectu et perfectione uniuscujusque fidelis consummentur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.2.1 — Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their host.
- ↩Gen.2.2 — And God finished on the seventh day His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.
- ↩Gen.2.3 — And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God created to do.
- ↩Matt.28.18 — And Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.'
- ↩Matt.28.18 — And Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.'
- ↩John.14.10-John.14.11 — Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. John.14.11 — Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you cannot, then believe because of the works themselves.
Notes
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