rto had given you so little
satisfaction, now becomes the source of the most exquisite and
rational pleasure. For you now see in these countless worlds so much
beauty and magnificence, so delightful a harmony, that you can spend
whole nights in the contemplation of the heavens.

This sudden elevation and expansion of your mind to see such wonders
in the natural order, illustrates what takes place in heaven the
moment a pure soul enters there. In the supposition just made, you
receive an accession or addition of intellectual power, which enables
you to see clearly and to understand what was invisible and
unintelligible to you before the flash enlightened you. The Light of
glory produces a similar effect upon the soul at her entrance into
heaven. Our mind, which is now unable to see God except "as through a
glass, in a dark manner," is suddenly elevated in power, and enabled
to see God as he is, face to face, and to contemplate his divine
beauty and his other perfections. Our individual mind is neither
destroyed nor changed into another: it is only strengthened and
elevated in power and capacity far beyond anything we could ever have
reached by our own unassisted endeavors.

But we shall still better understand the meaning of the Light of
glory by contrasting it with the light of faith. What is faith? Faith
is also a supernatural elevation of the mind, by which we are enabled
to believe, as firmly as if we saw them, mysteries which are far
above our comprehension. It is called supernatural, because it comes
from God alone; for no man ever can bestow faith upon himself. Here,
then, the light of faith and the Light of glory resemble each other,
inasmuch as they both come immediately from God, and elevate man
above himself. But they vastly differ in intensity; for by faith we
see God imperfectly and unsatisfactorily, whereas by the Light of
glory we see God as he is in himself. Faith, therefore, is as the
first faint blush of the morning, while the Light of glory is as the
sun shining in his meridian splendor.

So, then, the Light of glory is a supernatural addition to our mind,
which enables it to cross the gulf between the Creator and the
creature. I say gulf, because no created intelligence can see God as
he is, by its own natural power. Hence, neither St. Augustine, nor
St. Thomas, nor any other giant intellect could see God as He is in
himself, any better than the man who never could learn his letters.
It is in this