Devotional: By His first coming...

By his first coming our Lord raised us up only in soul; by his second coming he will raise us up in body, too. As we now serve God with both-the body and the soul-so then in both shall we enjoy perfect happiness with God. At his first coming he gave us the faith that enables us to believe in him. At his second coming he will endow us with the capacity to see him, not as the wicked will see him on the day of judgment-for on that day of judgment the good and the bad alike will all see him in the likeness in which he bore his sufferings for us and in which he rose and ascended into heaven-but we shall see him as those who are pure of heart will be able to see him. For the Lord says: Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God. That is to say, we shall see his godhead too, that excellence and that beauty which now the angels see. For we shall be like the angels of God in heaven. Yet if we love him now and long for him and scorn all worldly pleasures and honors, then surely we shall see him confidently in the likeness in which he will judge the living and the dead. And we shall have the happiness of seeing him in that likeness in which he will show himself only to the good whom he will take with himself from judgment into the kingdom. ...Aelred of Rievaulx