God, in creating man, did not limit His Divine Paternity to the exercise of a fatherly care of him here on earth. He destined him for a far more complete sonship. He endowed him, at his first creation, with supernatural gifts which rendered him in a far higher sense the son of God than did the mere fact of creation and preservation. He stamped upon him a supernatural likeness to Himself, so that man is truly, as St. Peter says, a partaker in the Divine Nature. (2 St. Peter i. 4). How truly then may man call God his Father, since there is no truer mark of sonship than to share the nature of the father.

But God was not even satisfied with this. He determined to raise man to a far closer union with Himself, and a far more complete resemblance to Himself than was possible on earth. He prepared for man, body as well as soul, a place in His own Heaven, where man would live in the closest intimacy with Himself that was possible for one whom God had created. Our Father in Heaven desired that all His sons should share His own glory and splendour.

What was the gift that God intended to bestow on man as His choicest gift? He was not only to dwell with God for ever, but he was to see his Father face to face, and that sight was to perfect his likeness to God, and to fill his heart with an overflowing and unspeakable happiness, a happiness like to that of God Himself. What greater proof could God have given to man of His love than this? "We shall be like to Him because we shall see Him as He is" (St. John iii. 2).