The unity of God's designs ->
The Person of Christ ->
The work of Christ ->

FROM GOD TO MAN

The unity of God's Designs

EVERYTHING, material and spiritual, all men and each of us separately, have, from all eternity, existed in the Mind of God. The life of all of us pre-existed in the Word. Quod factum est, in ipso vita erat (John i, 3-4). ln begetting the Son, in knowing himself in the Son, God conceived us, called us and loved us from all eternity. Pater dicendo se dicit omnem creaturam (St Anselm). By the Word, the Father expresses in himself all things; the Father and the Son, by the Holy Spirit, love one another and all men. Creation is thus an external reflection, an ever-changing and diffused mirror of the riches contained in the divine Essence. The universe — the divinely uttered word which vibrates and projects itself into time and space — is none other than an echo of the uncreated Word. It is his secret, the unique secret that God pronounced in what St Augustine calls 'the hymn of the six days' — universa saeculi pulchritudo velut magnum carmen ineffabilis modulatoris — and above all in man : for man is the resumé and conclusion of all creation.

God has only one secret, and that is his own being. What he has created for himself and himself alone, must therefore in some way return to him. The imperfections of sin can in no way upset the divine plan, which is beyond (at the same comprising and bringing to their final purpose) the acts of free causes in the same way as it does those of necessary causes.

Adam was created to know and love God: Homo nexus Dei et mundi. Man must therefore cleave to God and restore to him the world as a vast sacrifice. Still more, God raised Adam to a supernatural state, and in consequence invited him to share in his intimate life, and made all the preparations in him necessary for this return to the primal Being, which is to complete the work of creation. Adam was thus a son of God, but sin to sever the bond of that filiation. Man's disobedience opened an abyss between God and the creature. By the promise of a Redeemer, however, God made known his mercy towards him who had offended against his justice and, from the moment of man's fall, at once began to raise him up, the Fall being but a pretext, it would seem, to reveal the splendours of the divine goodness. The demands of the sovereign justice required that a man-God, as son of man, should, as son of man, expiate man's sin and, as the Son of God, reconcile us with the Father by the infinite value of his expiation. And this wonder of love was realized. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John i, 14).

We can, in considering the realities that divine Providence has created and their order of dignity, follow, as the Apostle is constantly telling us to do, the main lines of the plan of Providence itself. It is a continuation of the divine processions in an external circle. Amor extasim facit. The love which causes the Father to give himself to the Son, and which the latter in the Holy Spirit returns to the Father, is the cause of both creation and redemption, with the return to the Father of those souls that are sanctified and transformed in Christ.

It is by nature that the divine processions take place. By nature the Father begets the Son, whilst both breathe forth the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, it was by a free act of the will that God decided from all eternity to create the universe, but by the same design and the same act to create it, not only by the Word but for the Word incarnate. The Person of Christ, indeed, is infinitely superior in dignity to all creatures, both heavenly and terrestrial, and it is in Him de facto, that they find their end and the very reason for their existence and consummation. The creation of man, capable of the Fall, and the glorification of the humanity of Christ — the fact that God permitted the Fall, and the will to give man a Redeemer — have never been separated in God's intention.

When we contemplate the mysteries of divine Providence and Love, let our gaze be simple. The simpler our concepts the deeper and truer they will be. For it is in the measure of their simplicity that they will approach the concepts in the Mind of God.

Whether he is creating the world or resting on the seventh day; whether he is redeeming fallen man or permitting him to share in his glory, there is no change in God. He does one thing only — He is who is (Exodus iii, 14). It is his being that he contemplates and loves in his Word: speculum sine macula (Wisdom vii. 26). It is his Word that he looks upon with infinite complacency in Christ: imago Dei invisibilis (Colossians i, 15). It is his Christ whom he sees and loves in sanctified souls: conformes imaginis Filii sui (Romans viii, 29). It is in uttering the Word that he operates all things, and it is in this same Word that they return to his substance in the Holy Spirit. The Adam who had to leave the Garden of Eden was also a figure. His archetype — the eternal Adam and the new Man — is Christ: Ecce Homo (John xix, 5)! The Son of his love... the image of the invisible God; the firstborn of every creature. For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and in him. And he is before all, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church; who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may hold the primacy; because in him it hath well pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell; and through him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the Blood of his Cross, both as to the things that are on earth and the things that are in heaven (Colossians i, 13-20).

Thus all things are restored in Christ, and gathered together again under the primacy of the Word, who rejoins eternally the Father in the breathing forth of the Spirit, in the plenitude of the Essence.

'There is need to consider in creation' says St Thomas, 'a certain cycle, according as all beings return to the Source from whom they came, so that the First Cause is also the End. All beings, therefore, must return to the End by the same causes in virtue of which they came from the Source. And just as the procession of Persons is the reason for creation, so it is also the cause of our return to the End. It is by the Son and the Holy Spirit that we have been created, and it is by them that we shall rejoin him who has made us' (St Thomas: In I Sent: Dist. XIV, Q. 2).

The Person of Christ

The second Person of the Blessed Trinity became man. He took our human nature — assumed it, in the language of the theologians — in the unity of His Person and of his being. Thus two natures subsist in Christ, but by the sole subsistence of the divine Word.

The acts which the Word accomplishes by his human nature are called theandric. They have value and dignity corresponding to the Person positing them. The Son of God being infinite, the least of his acts have an infinite value, since acts are attributed to the Person — actus sunt personarum. The least act of the incarnate Word would thus have sufficed to redeem the whole of kind. But the mysterious exigencies of the divine justice and love carried the Son of dilection to that excess which utterly surpasses our reckoning of reasons and causes: supereminentem scientiae caritatem Christi (Ephesians iii, 19). Obedient to that wisdom in the eyes of men, he desired to immolate himself even to the shedding of the last of his most Precious Blood . . . becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross (Philippians ii, 8).

The work of Christ

IN his priestly prayer after the Last Supper, Our Lord bore witness to the fact that he had made known to the world an unknown Name: I have glorified thee on earth, I have finished the work thou gayest me to do . . . I have manifested thy Name, O Father, to men (cf. John xvii, 4 and 6).

What is this mysterious Name? According to St Hilary and St Cyril, it is the very name of Father. 'The greatest work of the Son has been to make known to us the Father' (St Hilary). The whole meaning of revelation and of redemption is comprised in this : to open to men the divine circle of the personal relations, and to draw men's souls into the stream of God's own life. Not only to make good the fault of our first parents, as one would pardon a slave a moment of revolt, but much more — to make of this unfaithful servant a child of adoption. Such is the amplitude and depth of the gesture of mercy on the part of divine Love. In caritate perpetua dilexi te, ideo attraxi te miserans — I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee (Jeremias xxxi, 3).Because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father. Therefore you are no longer servants but sons, and if sons, heirs also through God (cf. Galatians iv, 6 and 7). Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity. Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children, through his well-beloved unto himself (Ephesians i, 3-6).

The incarnation of the Word is continued through the sacraments, above all in the Holy Eucharist. The Bread of Life is not changed into our nature like earthly food; on the contrary, it transforms us into him. 'Nor shalt thou convert me, like common food, into thy substance; but thou shalt be converted into me' (Augustine: Confessions, Bk. VII, 10: Nec tu me in te mutabis, sicut cibum carnis tuae, sed tu mutaberis in me). By the sacramental life and by our life of interior prayer and contemplation, given birth to and sustained in souls by the sacraments, we become 'sons of the Father', identified in some way with the Word, and truly divinized. The Word was made flesh in order to give to all who receive him the 'power to be made the sons of God (John i, 12). God became man, that men might become God (St Augustine).

The infinitely gentle yet powerful action of Our Lady who loves us and protects us as her children, develops in us this resemblance to and assimilation with Christ, which makes us truly sons of the Father. One understands better the role of Mary as co-redemptrix if one thinks on these lines: the whole of the supernatural life consists in our becoming 'other Christs'. And as it belonged to Mary and to her alone to give birth on earth to Christ, so it is by Mary, in Mary and from Mary, that we receive all spiritual gifts. It is Mary, co-redemptrix, who introduces us into the life of God. In te et per te et de te, quidquid boni recepimus et recepturi sumus, per te recipere vere cognoscimus (ibid).

The Christian thus becomes aware that he is surrounded, enfolded and encompassed on all sides, by the divine Reality. In ipso enim vivimus et movemur et sumus (Acts xvii, 28). Far more, he truly enters into this Reality, he penetrates into the very intimacy of God, he is son of the Father, not by a metaphor, not by the mere accident of a hyperbolic phrase, but as St John attests: Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and should be, the sons of God — ut filii Dei nominemur et simus (I John iii, 1) ... For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son; that he might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans viii, 29).

Jesus is thus our brother, and the Holy Spirit likewise our spirit. Qui Spiritus Christi non ha bet, hic non est ejus — if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his (Romans viii, 9). It is he who speaks and prays in us, who makes known to us the mysteries of divine truth, who is our essential life, making us partake of the very breathing of God. God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts . . . For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you . . . But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord (Galatians iv, 6; Matthew x, 20; 2 Corinthians iii, 18).

By the sacred humanity of the incarnate Word the soul is raised up even to the divinity. Then will it feel crushed by the divine justice; yet drawn by his mercy it will plunge into the divine love, where it will contemplate for ever the eternal beautty, goodness and truth. Reconciled by Christ and in him, we have access to the Father in the Holy Spirit. Per ipsum habemus accessum ambo in uno Spiritu ad Patrem — for by him we have access both in one Spirit to the Father (Ephesians ii, 18). Here we have in a word the economy of all the divine mysteries revealed in time. Creation, incarnation, redemption, glorification — these miracles of love but to make known the mystery of infinite Love, one in three Persons: the mystery which hath been hidden from ages and generations, but now is manifested to his saints (Colossians i, 26).