Transcript

St. Thomas Aquinas never completed the writing of his great work, the Summa Theologiae.

Rather, while he was in the middle of writing the third part of the Summa, he had a mystical experience during the celebration of Mass on the feast of St. Nicholas.

After that, he refused to write any further.

To this day, no one knows exactly why.

We have only a mysterious statement coming down to us from his lips: Everything I have written is straw by comparison to what has been revealed to me.

Some people have taken this in an anti-intellectual way to mean that St. Thomas dismissed all his work or even condemned theology as such.

But that's not true, since we know that as he was approaching death, he offered an oral commentary on the Song of Songs.

Rather, we should understand his statement to mean that the promise of theology had been fulfilled.

A lifetime of theological contemplation and study of God and His revelation led St. Thomas to a place in his own spiritual life where he could enter into a more profound union with God and enjoy the light of God in a higher and better way.

Although the Summa was much less by comparison than such abundance of divine light, it was not simply worthless or bad.

Thus, after St. Thomas passed away, his assistants finished the Summa for him by using some of his older writings to answer the questions he would have taken up if he had finished, and this part of the Summa is called the Supplement.

One topic treated extensively in the Supplement is that of the last things: death, particular judgment, purgatory, heaven, hell, and the final judgment of the human race.

It is a vast treatment of questions, but among the last things, the topic that receives the most treatment is that of the condition and properties of human beings who are glorified, that is, living in heaven after the final judgment of the world and the resurrection of the body.

What will such a life be like?

Of course, it says in Scripture that no eye has seen and no ear has heard what God has prepared for those who love Him.

But the same Scripture also tells us a lot about the glorified body of Jesus Christ after His resurrection, and in Philippians 3:21, Scripture also tells us that God will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body.

So, St... Thomas reasons that we can gather something of the condition and qualities of human bodily life in heaven by studying the resurrection life of Jesus as depicted in Scripture.

Following this approach, St. Thomas speaks of several qualities that fully embodied glorified human beings will enjoy in heaven.

First of all, the glorified body will be whole and complete, without any defect of human nature.

There will be no missing limbs, disfigurations, or any physical defects; the body will rise again perfect.

They will be male and female, since that is the natural order, and it pleases God to save the natural order.

Their bodies will be those of a youthful age, just at the point when childhood growth ceases, but before any decline of aging sets in.

They will also be impassable, or incapable of suffering.

They will have a certain subtlety and agility, meaning that the body and its movements will be perfectly subject to the soul.

The bodies of the glorified will be clear or brilliant; they will radiate a kind of spiritual light.

Now, if we ask why the glorified bodies have these qualities, the answer draws on and summarizes many teachings of St. Thomas.

Let us recall that the soul is the form of the body, or makes the body to be what it is.

The loss of the grace of original justice has affected the manner in which the soul forms the body in this life.

For example, we are mortal, and our passions are unruly.

When God gives grace to people through baptism, His grace is poured into the soul, but it overflows to some extent into our bodies.

For instance, grace gives someone the virtues of temperance and fortitude, and these virtues form and shape our physical appetites and, consequently, our bodies.

However, grace only begins to affect and reform our bodies in this life, and the overflow is limited.

What happens at death is that the soul separates from the body.

If, at the moment of death, the person lives in grace and charity, the person goes towards God, but first the process of purgatory purifies the soul of any and all residual inclinations towards evil still lingering in the soul.

Additionally, all debt of punishment still owed for sins committed in this life is fulfilled.

Having passed through the purging of all residual evil in one's soul, the graceful soul finally sees God, and the very sight of God is heaven—the beatific vision, the happy sight of the One whose divine happiness is now ours to enjoy forever.

After the final judgment and the resurrection of the body, when God raises our bodies from the dustbin of history, our souls will again be the form of our bodies.

However, this time around, unlike what it was in the days of our years and time, in eternity our souls will be perfect.

Our souls will be purged of all evil, and grace will overflow from the soul to the body and form the body completely.

It is the overflow of grace from the soul to the body that will make the bodies of the saints so splendorous.

Indeed, every act of love and repentance we make during our days and time will shine forth in our bodies for all eternity.

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