Dominican Life_Joret_OCR_CK.pdf - the Catholic Kingdom!

22 DOMINICANLIFE
to that Being of infinite perfection.
The day will come
when it will be by our intelligence that we shall see Him
and shall possess Him for all eternity. The result will
be an immense love which will finally establish us in
beatitude. But here below, so long as we are without the
light which reveals the divine beauty, our heart goes
further than our mind, our love already lays hold of
that God of Whom we can only form a limited conception.
Thanks to charity we possess within us our God,
together with the assurance that we shall see Him when
the right time comes.
" He that abideth in charity
abideth in God, and God in him." x
What has been said above respecting the arts and
sciences holds good also with regard
they only give us relative perfection.
to moral virtues :
Yet here, at any
rate, these relative perfections are none the less requisite,
since it is not permissible for a child of God to be intemperate,
profligate, treacherous, etc. It is also desirable
for him to have, as far as possible, some artistic and
.
scientific culture. It is a good thing for him to develop
himself physically. But even the still more relative and
secondary perfections of which these things admit can
be derived, in due order, from the charity in which dwells
absolute perfection. Charity
is the first principle of that
harmonious blossoming forth of our whole being. It
implies all the other virtues which together form the
Christian and human ideal, and which appear as so
many manifestations of its profound life. "
Charity
is
patient, is kind," says St. Paul, "charity envieth not,
dealeth not perversely ;
is not is
puffed up, not ambitious,
seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger,
thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth
with the truth : beareth all things, believeth all things,
hopeth all things, endureth all things." 2
1 i John iy.
16.
8 i Cor. xiii. 4-7.
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