Patristic Wisdom: Looking to All Saints' Sunday

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. (1 John 3:1–3)

The grace that our Creator has given us is great, so that we both know how and are able to love Him, and to love Him as children love their father, when it would have been a great thing if we were able to love Him in the way faithful servants love their masters, in the way lowly, faithful hired servants love their masters.…

Paul also says, “For you have died, and your life has been hidden with Christ in God,” died, namely, by snuffing out your former life which was in sins, and having a new life in Christ through faith, whose depth has not yet visibly appeared to us. And Paul also explains this in other words, saying, “When Christ, your life, appears, they you also will appear with him in glory. We shall be like Him,” he says, because when we shall enjoy with attentive regard His unchangeable and eternal divinity, we also shall be immortal and like Him indeed, because we shall be happy. And yet, we shall not be like our Creator, because we are creatures. For, “Who among the children of God shall be like God?” Although this can also seem to be said about the immortality of the body and in this we shall indeed be like God, but only like the Son who alone among the persons of the Trinity received a body, in which He died, rose and brought it to the heavenly heights. For we shall see Him as He is. For God to be means to be eternal and to remain unchangeable.…

Many say that they have hope of the heavenly life in Christ but they make this confession ineffective by living carelessly. He who is eager to strive vigorously to perform good actions gives clear evidence in his case of his hope from on high, being convinced that no one will arrive at the likeness of God in the future except by making himself holy with the holiness of God in the present, that is, unless he imitate by rejecting wickedness and worldly desires, however, and by living soberly and righteously and faithfully. For thus are we ordered to imitate the purity of divine holiness in accord with the capacity of our nature, as we are admonished to hope for the glory of the divine likeness in accord with our own, that is, created, measure.

Venerable Bede, On 1 John 3