Our
Lord said: “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Perfect, not
merely like the angels, but as our heavenly Father is perfect; because we have
received sanctifying grace, which should be constantly increasing in us and
which is a participation, not in the angelic nature, but in the divine nature
itself. Since, then, every passing day ought to see in our lives a gradually
increasing participation in these infinite perfections of God, we should
frequently make them the subject of contemplation in our prayer, by slowly
meditating, for instance, on the Our Father. (Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Providence:
God’s Loving Care for Man and the Need for Confidence in Almighty God [trans.
Bede Rose; 1998], Chapter VII: The Divine Simplicity)
In
baptism a supernatural life and inclination were given to us, far surpassing
our natural faculties of intellect and will. We received sanctifying grace,
which is a participation in the divine nature and the intimate life of God; and
with grace we received faith, hope, and charity, which give a vaster and more
exalted range to our higher faculties. (Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Providence:
God’s Loving Care for Man and the Need for Confidence in Almighty God [trans.
Bede Rose; 1998], Chapter VIII: The Infinity of God)
That
God, who is pure spirit, cannot be seen by bodily eyes, is quite evident, since
these perceive only what is sensible. But neither can He be seen by a created
intellect when this is lift to its purely natural resources. Not even the
highest among us the angels can directly see God through the purely natural
power of their intellect; for them, too, God is a light overpowering in
its intensity, a naturally inaccessible light. For the angels, the sole natural
means of knowing God is in the mirror of spiritual creatures which are their
proper object, this mirror being their own essence or that of other angels.
They have a natural knowledge of God as the author of their nature, but they
cannot have a natural knowledge of Him in His intimate life or see Him face to
face. (Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Providence: God’s Loving Care for Man and
the Need for Confidence in Almighty God [trans. Bede Rose; 1998], Chapter
XI: The Divine Incomprehensibility)
