VISIO QUINTA, cap. XLIX
The Completed Work of Creation
The completion of heaven and earth is mirrored in the soul adorned with virtues, justice, truth, and good works.
"So the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their beauty."✦ Here's what you should consider: those heavenly and earthly virtues, and all their adornment, are brought to perfection in a person through justice and truth, along with good works.
God Rests and Perfects Through the Son
God's rest on the seventh day signifies how Christ perfects every good work in the soul and how the Father's labor began in the Incarnation.
"God completed on the seventh day the work he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had done." And God, through the seventh day — which is his Son, in whom every fullness of good work has arisen — brings the good work to perfection in a person, with every perfected virtue, just as a craftsman places precious stones on the work he is about to make, because every good work in a person who works through the grace of the Holy Spirit is fully adorned.✦1 Then too, God rests in his Son from all work — namely, from that work in which a person is now perfected — because he himself, according to the works, began to work in the Son of God (who was the seventh work) in the womb of the Virgin Mary.2
The Blessing of the Seventh Day in the Believer
God's blessing and sanctification of the seventh day is fulfilled in the person united to Christ, who is called to imitate the Son's obedience and so return to life.
"And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he had ceased from all the work that God created to make."✦ "God blessed the seventh day in the perfection of good works — that is, the person who is a member of his Son in him."✦ How so? Namely, so that the person may imitate the inner blessing — that is, that same Son of his who went forth from his heart — so that through the examples of the one who was made obedient to God the Father, that person may return to life.3
Sanctification, Forgiveness, and the Opened Kingdom
The believer is sanctified and glorified so as to forgive every debt, for through the Son the Father now opens heavenly joys, and the faithful must receive this truth with humility.
In that same person, too, he sanctifies those heavenly works mentioned earlier, since he grants him glory and honor alongside himself, so that he may forgive every debt owed to his neighbor whenever he chooses. And the Father now sets aside this severity of works — the severity by which, before the Incarnation of his Son, he allowed no one to enter the heavenly kingdom; but now, in that same Son of his, he opens the entrance to heavenly joys, since every debt that a person confesses from the heart, he remits through that same Son of his.4 Let the faithful one therefore understand these things faithfully, and not despise in these things the one who is truthful.
Read the original Latin
« Igitur perfecti sunt coeli et terra, et omnis ornatus eorum . » Hoc considerandum sic est: Illae coelestes et terrenae virtutes et omnis ornatus eorum in justitia et veritate cum bonis operibus in homine perficiuntur. « Complevitque Deus die septimo opus suum quod fecerat, et requievit die septimo ab omni opere quod patrarat » Et Deus per septimum diem, qui Filius ejus est, in quo omnis plenitudo boni operis orta est, in homine bonum opus cum omnibus perfectis virtutibus complet, ut faber pretiosos lapides operi suo quod facturus est imponit, quia omnia bona opera in homine, qui per gratiam sancti Spiritus operatur, pleniter ornantur. Tunc etiam Deus in Filio suo ab omni opere requiescit, scilicet ab opere illo in quo homo jam perfectus est, quia ipse juxta opera in Filio Dei, qui septimum opus erat, in utero Mariae Virginis operari coepit. « Et benedixit diei septimo et sanctificavit illum, quia in ipso cessaverat ab omni opere quod creavit Deus ut faceret . » Benedixit Deus septimum diem in perfectione bonorum operum, hoc est hominem, qui membrum Filii ejus est in ipso. Quomodo? Scilicet ut interiorem benedictionem, id est eumdem Filium ejus, qui de corde ipsius exivit, imitetur, quatenus per exempla ejus, qui Deo Patri obediens factus est, ad vitam revertatur.
In ipso quoque homine praefata coelestia opera sanctificat, cum illi secum gloriam et honorem concedit, ut proximo suo unumquodque debitum, cum voluerit dimittat. Atque ab hac Pater operum severitate jam cessat, qua ante Incarnationem Filii sui nullum coeleste regnum intrare permittebat; nunc autem in eodem Filio suo introitum supernorum gaudiorum patefacit, cum unumquodque debitum homini quod ex corde confitetur, per eumdem Filium suum remittit. Haec ergo fidelis fideliter intelligat, nec in his illum qui verax est contemnat.
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.
- ↩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.
Notes
- 1 ↩The author allegorizes the seventh day as Christ himself (the Son), in whom the fullness of good work arises. This is a tropological reading of Genesis rather than a plain-sense statement, so 'which is his Son' reflects the author's typological identification, not an ontological claim about the day.
- 2 ↩The phrase 'septimum opus erat' identifies the Son of God as the 'seventh work,' continuing the allegorical reading of the seventh day. 'Began to work' (operari coepit) in Mary's womb refers to the Incarnation as the inauguration of the redemptive work.
- 3 ↩The 'inner blessing' (interior benedictio) is identified with the Son who 'went forth from his heart' (de corde ipsius exivit), echoing Trinitarian language of generation. 'Return to life' (ad vitam revertatur) refers to restoration through Christ's obedience.
- 4 ↩The 'severity of works' (severitas operum) refers to the pre-Incarnation economy in which entry into the heavenly kingdom was held closed; the temporal contrast (ante... nunc) is central to the vision's theology.
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