Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 285 – Part I.

YOUCAT Question n. 285 - Part I. What is eternal happiness?

(Youcat answer) Eternal happiness is seeing God and being taken up into God’s happiness.

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 1720) The New Testament uses several expressions to characterize the beatitude to which God calls man: - the coming of the Kingdom of God (Cf. Mt 4:17); - the vision of God: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Mt 5:8; cf. 1 Jn 2; 1 Cor 13:12) - entering into the joy of the Lord  (Mt 25:21-23); - entering into God's rest  (Cf. Heb 4:7-11): There we shall rest and see, we shall see and love, we shall love and praise. Behold what will be at the end without end. For what other end do we have, if not to reach the kingdom which has no end? (St. Augustine, De civ. Dei 22, 30, 5: PL 41, 804). 

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) In God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit there is unending life, joy, and communion. To be taken up into it will be an incomprehensible, infinite happiness for us men. This happiness is the pure gift of God’s grace, for we men can neither bring it about ourselves nor comprehend it in its magnitude. God would like us to decide in favor of our happiness; we should choose God freely, love him above all things, do good and avoid evil insofar as we are able.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 1721) God put us in the world to know, to love, and to serve him, and so to come to paradise. Beatitude makes us "partakers of the divine nature" and of eternal life (2 Pet 1:4; cf. Jn 17:3). With beatitude, man enters into the glory of Christ (Cf. Rom 8:18) and into the joy of the Trinitarian life.

(This question: What is eternal happiness? is continued)