God resteth on the seventh day and blesseth it. The earthly paradise, in which God placeth man. He commandeth him not to eat of the tree of knowledge. And formeth a woman of his rib.
Only when we rest in God, are we sanctified.
“It is right that the seventh day should have been sanctified, since the special sanctification of every creature consists in resting in God.”(4) -St. Thomas Aquinas
We will be filled with His blessing and sanctification when we rest in God. The symbolism of the Sabbath as an eternal rest.
“Heaven, too, will be the fulfillment of that sabbath rest foretold in the command: ‘Be still and see that I am God.’ This, indeed, will be that ultimate sabbath that has no evening and that the Lord foreshadowed in the account of his creation: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. And he blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work that God created and made.’ And we ourselves will be a ‘seventh day’ when we shall be filled with his blessing and remade by his sanctification. In the stillness of that rest we shall see that he is the God whose divinity we desired for ourselves when we listened to the seducer’s words, ‘You shall be as gods,’ and so fell away from him, the true God who would have given us a divinity by participation that could never be gained by desertion. For where did the doing without God end but in the undoing of man through the anger of God? Only when we are remade by God and perfected by a greater grace shall we have the eternal stillness of that rest in which we shall see that he is God.”(4) -St. Augustine
We are nothing without God. All we are is owed to God.
“‘God took of the dust of the earth and fashioned man.’ In this world I have discovered the two affirmations that man is nothing and that man is great. If you consider nature alone, he is nothing and has no value; but if you regard the honor with which he has been treated, man is something great.”(4) -St. Gregory of Nyssa
We are members united in one body in Christ.
“If the union of Adam and Eve is a great mystery in Christ and in the church, it is certain that as Eve was bone of the bones of her husband and flesh of his flesh, we also are members of Christ’s body, bones of his bones and flesh of his flesh.”(4) -St. Ambrose
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states in paragraph 795:
Christ and his Church thus together make up the “whole Christ” (Christus totus). The Church is one with Christ. The saints are acutely aware of this unity:
“Let us rejoice then and give thanks that we have become not only Christians, but Christ himself. Do you understand and grasp, brethren, God’s grace toward us? Marvel and rejoice: we have become Christ. For if he is the head, we are the members; he and we together are the whole man…. The fullness of Christ then is the head and the members. But what does “head and members” mean? Christ and the Church.” (4) -St. Augustine
“Our redeemer has shown himself to be one person with the holy Church whom he has taken to himself.” (4) -St. Gregory the Great
Discussion: Do we grasp that we are truly the body of Christ? How do our lives show this to be evident?
Women's Prayer Group In Christ 