Excerpt from Walter Farrell, O.P., A Companion to the Summa, Volume IV, Chapter VII

CHAPTER VII -- VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD
(Q. 27-34) Woman and the world: The criterion of an age
THE housewife bustling about her kitchen, the tired shop-girl smilingly meeting the discourtesy of customers, the product of a finishing school stepping into a world that is always glamorous to youth, these may all seem far removed from the abstract philosophies of life which mold the thought and action of an age. Actually, the status of woman, any woman in any age, is a concrete expression of the philosophy of life on which the citizens of that age proceed in the living of life. This statement does not demand mental gymnastics for its comprehension, nor does it ask philosophy to work the modem miracle of standing erect in a careening street-car serenely powdering its nose. It merely demands a consideration of the solid fact that the life of woman is one of the most vivid and accurate of all the norms of judgment of an age and its philosophy.
Bases of a philosophy of life: animal, rational, divine
A moment's examination of our age, or any age, will bring out unmistakably the only three bases for human life: the animal, the human, and the divine. The life of every age is physical, human or divine; built up on the basis, that is, of strength, justice, or charity. It is true, of course, that some men of every age have acted like animals; it is also true that in the most debased ages there were some men who were uprightly human, even some who were saints. The question here is not of the exception but of the rule, of the ideal to which an age looks and the things that it condemns or mocks. Considered in that general light, there is nothing in an age that so sharply mirrors its philosophy as the lives of its women.
Perhaps this fact can be brought out most briefly by a short comparison. A sea-plane can stagger through pounding seas for a while, for it has something in common with the sea, some bond of unity; but in a very short time it is pounded to pieces. When it soars above the sea into the air, its flight is swift, accurate, though, often enough, quite rough; the air is its proper medium; that is where it belongs. If it is equipped with superchargers, variable-pitch propellers, and a sealed cabin, it can get above the level of ordinary air to travel in the stratosphere; there its night is of such speed and grace as to stagger the imagination.
Fundamental tests of woman's life
Woman has something in common with the animal level of life, some bond of union with it; but if she is forced to live on that level very long, she must break up. Physically she is no match for a man; in an age whose philosophy is based on strength, she becomes a toy, an instrument of pleasure, an inferior creature, for the principle of such an age is that might makes right. She was made to live on a human level, on that plane she is the equal of the mightiest and the wisest. Yet, because on the purely human plane strength so often usurps the place of justice, the course of her life may often be very rough. On the supernatural, the divine, plane, where she can expect not merely justice but also charity, she reaches her highest perfection; there her life is one of smooth grace for there, above all other planes, is where she belongs.
Every age has had a practical opinion of woman because every age has had a philosophy of life whose expression has thundered ceaselessly on the shores of woman's life. Strangely enough, in the ages most unkind to women it is women themselves who are often the most aggressive champions of the debased philosophy by which that age lives. It may be that such women have actually become convinced of the philosophy of that age; it may be that they have been tricked by the specious promises such an age always holds out to its victims; or it may be that woman's championship of such a philosophy is merely another expression of that subtle, feminine practicality which knows so well how to listen and to say the things that men most willingly hear. The repercussions of a philosophy of life upon women has been so clearly seen that the attempt to dodge them has produced queer results in the history of humanity. In some ages, the nineteenth century for example, the result was an hypocrisy that approached the comic. Apparently the nineteenth century was a romantic age; actually, its romantic glorification of women was fatalism that tried to hold to the Christian respect for women. It found itself helpless to do so except by glorifying the only weapons its philosophy had left for women in a world of brute strength and mechanical inevitability, namely, youth and beauty. Women, trying to live up to the demands of their age, lived in a nightmare of absurdity that found a feeble reflection in the very clothes they wore. Still other ages attempted to hold to an animal abuse of women in an age of a human philosophy of life by maintaining that woman was something less than a human being.
More frequently, however, there has been a frank application of a definite philosophy of life to the women of that particular age. In an age based on animal philosophy, woman is a toy, a domestic instrument, or a necessary nuisance; in any case, she is to be used and discarded. In a rational age, she will be an equal who could yet be taken advantage of when the need arose. In a divine or supernatural age, she is the daughter of the mother of God, a member of the mystical body of Christ, coming directly from God and going to Him, redeemed by His blood, and cooperating in one of His greatest works, the generation of human beings.
Sanctity
To discover the status of woman, it is not necessary to carry on extensive researches into the philosophy by which an age lives. No more is necessary than the application to woman's life of the basic tests of human and divine life for a woman. We need only ask a few questions. What value does she, and her contemporaries, place on sanctity; i.e., has the divine any place in her life? What is her estimate of virginity? What is the attitude of her contemporaries and herself to marriage? What part has the consecration of love and the stability of justice in the living of her life? What is a child, what is the evaluation of infant life? In a word, has reason any place in her life ?
Virginity
More concretely, it can be said positively that an age which mocks sanctity, considers virginity a matter of taste or lack of opportunity, declares marriage a legal convenience for the satisfaction of passion, and strips the child of rights, giving it consideration only in accord with parental convenience -- such an age is based on an animal philosophy of life. Its norm of living is purely physical; its yardstick is brute strength.
Marriage and childbirth; evaluation of the infant
Ultimately, of course, the difference between an animal and a rational age boils down to the difference between the denial and the admission of the spiritual nature of the soul of man. If the vote of an age goes against the spiritual character of man's soul, then the only basis of judgment is the material; the weaker must, of course, suffer. And the weaker are always the women and children. It may seem fairly safe to deny a child's rights, since the child is, after all, quite helpless; so the thing is promptly done by abortion and its cousins. But once the lie has started, it is hard to stop. If the child presents an opportunity for the expression, in a particularly cowardly way, of materialism's social principle that might is right, why should the principle stop there? It does not stop there. We talk half laughingly today of the battle of the sexes; but it is not a very good joke. There was never such a thing except in a materialistic age; even then, the war has never lasted very long. In such a war, on such a basis, woman always loses.
All this is on the negative side. The positive side can be seen, clear-cut and decisive, by even a hurried glance at womanhood's model, Mary, the mother of God. There we can see not only what woman can be but what she is. This is woman's place and her titles to it.
The exemplar of womanhood -- the mother of God
The perfection of Mary's womanhood stands out most sharply in the supreme moments of her life: in her divine maternity and her preparation for it. To put the same thing in the words we have been using up to this point, Mary's perfection is brought out from the confused detail of her age by the application of these basic tests of any woman's life: sanctity, virginity, marriage, the evaluation of the infant. Mary, seen from the vantage point of these basic tests, leaves no room for doubt of the basis upon which woman's life is lived to its fullest. It must, of course, be remembered that Mary is a model in the order of nature as well as in the order of grace. Grace does not destroy but rather perfects nature. Mary, then, is the exemplar for women, not only in so far as she is the holiest of women, but also as the most womanly of women, the most free, winning the highest possible place in the hearts and minds of men.
Preparation for divine maternity: Preparation of soul -- perfect sanctity:
Immaculate Conception
Mary's preparation for her divine maternity began in the first instant of her life in the womb of her mother by that singular privilege which is called the Immaculate Conception. It is necessary to stop here for a moment and remark on a world-wide instance of that obtuseness which is the despair of teachers. An explanation is given, made very clear, repeated again and again, and every student agrees that he understands perfectly; then a recitation is called for and the student not only have the matter backwards, they give it that way. It has been explained again and again that the Immaculate Conception has nothing to do with Mary's conception of Christ, that it refers to Mary's conception by St. Ann and it has nothing to do with a virgin birth. Yet year after year, it is taken as a statement of the virgin birth of Christ. The Immaculate Conception is not a statement of a miraculous conception; but of a miraculous preservation from sin in the entirely natural conception of Mary by her mother.
In a previous volume, it was explained at great length that all the seed of Adam contract the sin of nature (Original Sin ) in receiving nature from nature's head. Christ was not an exception to this general rule; for He was not from the seed of Adam, as will become more clear later on in this chapter. The one solitary exception to the general rule was Mary, and the exception in her case was made in anticipation of the merits of Christ. Though from her natural origin she should have contracted it, she was preserved from Original Sin; and that preserving grace of the merits of Christ freed her from all rebellion of the lower appetites, from every least motion of sense against the regime of reason.
St. Thomas, in his treatment of the original sanctity of Our Lady, insisted on three things: her purity from sin; her redemption by Christ; and the fact that the grace of her sanctification was also a grace of preservation. On these same principles, Pope Pius IX declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception to be of faith. But there is a serious dispute among theologians as to whether Thomas taught or denied the Immaculate Conception itself. The argument hinges fundamentally on a distinction Or priority of time and of nature; in other words, the question at issue is whether Thomas was arguing that we must think of Mary as conceived before being sanctified, or whether he maintained that Mary was, in time, conceived and later sanctified. The defined doctrine of the Immaculate Conception makes it clear that Mary was preserved from original sin in the very instant of her conception; so that never, even for the shortest period of time, was there a stain of sin on her soul.
The argument as to the stand of Thomas is sharp, sometimes even bitter. Really it does not merit sharpness or bitterness. In the light of the humanity of Thomas, it seems small to begrudge him a single mistake or to gloat over his having made one. In the light of the incredible accuracy of his far-reaching mind, he might well have foreseen and taught this truth of faith as he did so many others. Certainly it would be a contradiction of evident facts for any man to challenge Thomas's love for and appreciation of the sanctity of the mother of God.
Freedom from actual sin and the inclinations to it
He insists, for instance, that never in all the course of her life did Mary commit any actual sin, either venial or mortal. She was the mother of God. As the honor of parents reflects on their children, much more does the shame of a mother reflect on her child; Mary would not have been worthy to be God's mother had she been guilty of sin. Then, too, she above all others was so close to Christ, the Holy One; He took flesh from her and dwelt so intimately in her, not only in her womb but in her heart.
Fullness of grace
Mary's proximity to her child and its effects is brought out beautifully in Corregio's "Holy Night" which, I believe, hung in Dresden before night fell in Germany. In it, Mary is bending over the Child Who, however, does not appear in the picture; over Mary's shoulder, Joseph can be seen standing tn the shadow. The Virgin's whole face and body is alight with a brilliant, soft splendor as though she had just put her arms around the sun. The moving beauty of the picture has solid foundations in the profound truth of the effects on Mary of her divine Son. The farther we take her away from Christ, the less we know about Mary herself; the closer we bring Mary to Christ, the better we understand her. It is this proximity to the source of all grace that makes it so easy for us to understand something of the fullness of the grace of Mary; He was the fountainhead; she was the closest of all men and women to this source of living water.
Perhaps we can get a still further insight into the perfection of Mary's grace through a homely example. An oaken log, lying in the damp underbrush, is only a potential source of the comfort of fire. When it is first exposed to the flames, it undergoes a period of disposition, of drying out. When that is over, the form of the fire invades the log and we see miniature flames, dancing like elves, catching tentatively at its huge sides with finger-tips that slip again and again; as they grow bolder and stronger, the flames seem to rush at the log in solid ranks, are repulsed, to try again and again. Finally, the whole log, entirely aflame, is a holocaust worthy of the dignity of an oak. In the perfection of Mary's grace, we can distinguish three somewhat similar stages. The first, the stage of disposition, make her worthy to be the mother of God and called the Immaculate Conception. The form of perfection really took full hold on her soul in the conception of Christ and her constant life with Him. Finally, in the glory of heaven, she is a blazing holocaust of grace, one with God in the beatific vision.
Mary's preparation of soul was perfect. She was sinless in her conception, spotless through all the days of her life. Others had been sanctified in their mother's womb, Jeremias and John the Baptist for instance, but only she was immaculately conceived. Others all through their lives had avoided mortal sin; she alone passed through the course of human life without the slightest stain of even venial sin.
Preparation of body: In relation to God -- absolute virginity:
Its universality
Normally, we speak of virginity in its spiritual sense, meaning the abstention from all voluntary venereal pleasure, whether lawful or unlawful. When we speak of Mary's virginity, over and above this we include that physical integrity which, in other women, may be lost in various ways and which is virtuously surrendered in the consecrated act of marriage. Even in this physical sense, Mary was a perfect virgin though she conceived and bore a son.
This virginity was flatly miraculous. Its challenge today a part of the universal challenge to the supernatural. The challenge is not made in the name of the progress of science, though it is under that heading that many reject it today; rather it is made in the name of the decadence of faith. There is no scientific question involved here at all; for the point at issue is not what a secondary cause in the physical order can do, but rather what the first cause can do. Philosophically the possibility of this miraculous virginity represents no difficulty whatever. If the secondary cause of natural conception, the natural father, operates by virtue of the first cause, as everything must, then surely the first cause can produce the same effect without the secondary cause which is so entirely dependent. To put it more plainly, God can do anything which He has put within the power of any of His creatures.
We do not expect a worm to jump up and run down to the beach for a swim. We are quite sure the best a worm can do by way of locomotion is to crawl along flat on the ground; that is the only mode of operation open to it, since it is a worm. A man can, of course, crawl along on his stomach if he wants to; but we see no difficulty in admitting that he has several other means of locomotion. After all, he is not a worm, his nature is not limited to one avenue of action as is the material creation which does not enjoy his intellectual knowledge. The critics of the supernatural, in denying to God the power of His creatures, demand that the action of God be as limited as the action of nature, even of irrational or unknowing nature. Since the operation of any being follows the nature of that being, of course the operation of God follows the omnipotently perfect nature of His being. The possibility of the virgin conception and birth of Christ is plain philosophically; the fact of it is something to be accepted by faith.
For us the fact is certain. In the conception of her Son, the power of God entered the womb of Mary as serenely enriching and undamaging as a thought entering the mind. In the birth of Mary's Son, the Son of God left her womb, leaving the seals unbroken, with the same divine ease with which He came to the Apostles after His resurrection, the doors being locked. Ever after, Mary's loyalty to her divine Lover and the humbly unselfish love of Joseph preserved that virginity intact.
The fact is sure. The beauty of the fact is worthy of a work of God. Mary's Son was the eternal Son of God. It was beneath the dignity of the eternal Father to share His parenthood with a man. Christ was the Word of God; He should have proceeded from His mother as He does from the mind of God, without corruption, with no destruction of integrity. He came that He might take away the sins of the world, yet a natural conception would make Him guilty of the sin He came to destroy. He came that men might be born again spiritually of the Holy Ghost; so He himself was conceived through the power of the Holy Ghost. He came to restore integrity to human nature; should He take integrity from His mother? He it was Who commanded that parents be honored; would He overlook the opportunity to give His own mother the sublime honor of virginity?
Perhaps because those who bow before the altars of the animal are always blind to beauty, this enduring virginity of Mary s taken today as an unnatural condemnation of sex. That mistaken estimate has missed the whole beauty of virginity and the whole meaning for all her daughters of Mary's spotless purity. This is a divine emphasis of the sacred significance of sex, not its condemnation. Here it was plainly said that sex is not a toy, not a master, not an instrument of pleasure, but a messenger of love, the physical expression of spiritual sublimity. Separated from love, sex is not human but animal. In Mary, that love was a divine love, a love that needed no physical expression; indeed, from the side of the divine Lover a physical expression was an impossibility. To that love, Mary brought purity as every woman should. Her virginity was absolute, to emphasize the high place of purity and the sacredness of divine consecration; in all other wives, Mary's virginity is paralleled by faithful chastity, that is, by adherence to the human significance of sex.
Its stability and merit
In order that the preparation of her body be absolutely perfect, Mary gave her virginity the stability and perfection that cling to a vow like perfume to a flower. She consecrated not merely her act, but her very power to act; the whole substance of her body, not merely its use. This vow of virginity was probably made absolute only after her espousal to Joseph and in conjunction with him; for the Old Law seemed to make generation an obligation, a part of the race's preparation for the Messiah. It was only after the glorious news of Gabriel that Mary knew she could take an absolute vow of virginity.
In relation to men; marriage to Joseph
In her preparation for life, Mary could not, of course, slight the virtue of justice which regulates the relations of men to men and men to God. In justice to her Son, to herself, and to society it was necessary that she be married. In that prosaic statement lies a wealth of significant truth: the truth, for example, that the strength of Rome needed the stability of the carpenter's home in Nazareth; that God needed the protection, name, and care of a father; even the strange truth that the devil himself could not penetrate the mystery of this family. There, too, is the truth that the mother so protected by God needed a husband to escape the blundering penalties of men, to preserve her good name, and for the love he would give her, a love that would make care, thoughtfulness, protection completely sure.
Joseph's position as head of that family was necessary for our stumbling hearts centuries later; that, by an added witness to the mystery of the Incarnation, we, who are so slow to believe, might have a confirmation of the word of the mother of God. From Joseph's part in that family life, we are given a divine approbation of virginity for both sexes; and in the vivid language of his action, we see the blessing of God on marriage. Joseph was truly the husband of Mary; this is not to be forgotten. We must remember that Joseph was deeply in love with Mary, and she with him. In their union, there was that complete consecration of soul that is the essence of human love; the mutual surrender of rights which is the essence of marriage, though the exercise of rights was suspended in the name of a greater love which the constant presence of the divine Child would not permit them to forget; here there was even a God-given child to be moulded by a human mother and father.
In the contemplation of Mary's perfection, it would not do to overlook Joseph. A dogged, humble, unquestioning devotion marks all of his recorded life. The uneasiness about his wife's condition as they approached Bethlehem, the shock of the news that every place was taken, the panicky search for quarters, all this was Joseph's worry. The warning of Herod's murderous intent was given directly to Joseph; the hurried flight into Egypt was a matter for him to manage. The long return from Egypt to Nazareth was something for Joseph to plan and carry out He faced a routine of daily drudgery that hardly brought in a living when he would have liked to lay kingdoms at the feet of his beautiful young wife.
In fact, Mary's entry into the life of Joseph was a signal for unceasing trouble. Before his espousal and marriage to the mother of God, Joseph's life was one of serene, uneventful peace; he was a humble artisan in a tiny village completely off the trade route which was the artery feeding men's desires for power and wealth. Quite probably nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened to Joseph; his was the serene routine of quiet, daily labor. But that was before Mary came. There was the immediate worry about her miraculous pregnancy, a terrible agony for one who knew Mary as Joseph did and one that well deserved the prompt assurance of the angel to put an end to Joseph's search for an easy way out for Mary. He was rushed to the other end of the land with a wife whose time had almost come, and forced to find lodging where there were no lodgings to be found. Kings visited him and his family who had never thought to come within miles of a king. Kings pursued him and tried to put his Child to death. He was driven into exile and forced to earn substance for his family among strangers. Mary brought trouble to Joseph, plenty of it; and he loved every instant of it. He rejoiced that he had been chosen to protect her, to give her unselfish devotion. In other words, Joseph was in love.
It is impossible to think of Joseph without loving him; He was indeed a father and we have seen his likeness on earth. For love is always a call to things above ourselves, to unquestioning sacrifice and complete consecration; it is an invitation to heroism which, somehow, we do not hesitate to answer. It is the natural parallel, in the lives of men and women of every age, of the Annunciation of the angel to Mary.
In relation to the angels; the Annunciation
This was Mary's preparation in the sight of the angels: an unquestioning response to the proposal of God. The Annunciation was an instance in which the human heart most closely imitated the enduring embrace of angelic love. It was right that Mary be told of the mystery beforehand. It was right that she receive the Son of God in her mind and her heart before receiving Him in her body; certainly that faith in Him would bring her more joy and more merit than the mere physical bringing of Him into the world. It was right that she who was to be the principal witness of the mystery should, above all others, be certain; and how could she be certain except by divine instruction?
Mary, it must be understood, was not an ignorant peasant girl pushed into divine things unwittingly. This was the Queen of heaven in her youth. Her offer of herself to God was a willing surrender of youth and beauty made with eyes wide open and heart unwavering; her gesture was regal, majestic, marking one of the heights achieved by human nature, for her acceptance was an "I will" of human nature to a spiritual matrimony with God. The Annunciation was a hushed moment in the history of the universe when the fate of the world hung on the response of the Virgin Mary.
The longer we study the scene of the Annunciation, the deeper it digs into our heart with that quietly mysterious penetration we notice in loving regard of the strange familiarity of a loved face. How thoughtful of God to send an angel! It was in complete accord with His general order of providence which makes angels the leaders of men to divine things as it makes all higher things the leaders of the lower; but it was more than that. It was a gesture of apology from angelic nature for the original betrayal by an angel of that nature through a woman. What a pair they make, the virgin and the angel! How close they approach one another; if St. Jerome was right in maintaining that to live in the flesh but not according to the flesh is not an earthly but a heavenly life, never did human nature approach closer to the angelic.
It was a divinely clever touch to have Gabriel appear in bodily form to announce the visible coming of the invisible God. Mary was to receive the Son of God not only in her mind but also in her womb; it was, then, not only her mind but also her bodily senses that were refreshed by the angelic visitor. This was a story to which the world must hold with certainty, even though for that certitude it be necessary to make tangible an angelic spirit and to record in sound the flashing message of angelic intelligence.
No angel ever did a better job than Gabriel. If he had been told of his mission at the beginning of his long angelic life and had sat down in a corner of heaven in a grim concentration of his angelic mind through the centuries, he could hardly have improved on the composition of that brief message. He was a messenger with a story to tell to a virgin, a story which must win her consent. Really, then, he had three things to do: he must catch her attention, announce the mystery, and win her consent. Notice that he took no gamble on his angelic beauty and majesty alone riveting the attention of Mary. Maybe he was a particularly humble and modest angel; maybe, knowing Mary's absorption in God, he thought she might sniff at a mere archangel. At any rate, he took no chances; he promptly astonished her beyond measure by his very first words.
To a really humble mind, as Mary's was, nothing is more astonishing than to hear oneself praised. Here was unlimited praise, and from an angelic source: "Hail full of grace"; as if that were not enough, there was a hint of the miraculous conception, "The Lord is with thee"; finally, an indication of the blessings that were to follow on that vaguely hinted privilege, "Blessed art thou among women." This was indeed a cautious angel who took no chances.
With Mary's astonished eyes fixed on him in rapt attention, the first part of his work was done; he went rapidly on, instructing her in the mystery of the Incarnation: "Behold thou shalt conceive and bring forth a Son." Then telling her of the dignity of the Child, the Son of the Most High, he explained to her how it would take place: "The spirit of the Most High shall come upon you." Sweeping on to the convincing conclusion, he cites the example of Elizabeth and states the root of all these wonders, the omnipotence of God, "for no word shall be impossible with God." It is a breathless scene, moving with the rush of love. Who can say how love enters a human heart; how could Mary say what the angels' words had done to her heart? There is no hint of doubt in the Virgin. She did not ask, "how shall I know this," as Joachim did, stating his disbelief; rather, she declared her firm belief, asking, not how she could know, but how it could be done. Whether this question was asked in a moment of anxiety for her cherished virginity or in a thoroughly justified curiosity, it was a question wonderfully becoming her age and her sex.
Her answer put the mystery of love into human words that would resound within the walls of the world until there were no more human hearts to love: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word." Complete surrender, complete dedication; unconditional, joyous, eager; words whose garments are faith, hope, humility, absolute trust.
The Infant conceived: Material of the flesh of Christ:
Remote material: the ancestors of Christ
Then the Son of God was made man. He took flesh from a child of Adam, but he was not from the seed of Adam. He was prophet, priest, and king as a worthy descendant of His ancestors; more than that, He was God and the Author of His ancestors. There is much discussion about the genealogy of Christ as given in the Evangelists who give it through Joseph. Some have claimed that Mary and Joseph were so closely related that the genealogy of one would be that of the other; the Evangelists' accounts, then, give us the actual ancestors of Christ while preserving the Jewish custom of tracing ancestry through the male line. If this is so, it is not hard to detect the divine humor smiling at our ponderous theories of selective perfection of the race, for most of the women, besides Mary, mentioned in the Gospel account of Christ's ancestry were disreputable. Others maintained that this account is strictly the line of Joseph, explaining that among the Jews an adopted or legal sonship was considered as strong and true a bond as natural sonship. If this be the case, then we know nothing of the ancestors of Mary; and, again, there is reason for a divine smile at our pride of family and race.
Proximate material: furnished by Mary
The proximate parent of Christ was beyond all question the Virgin Mary. She gave to Him what every mother gives to her son; He was flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood. It was to this that all her preparation was directed, for this it was necessary; her Son was the Son of God.
The active principle of conception
Christ was conceived of the Holy Ghost; that is, the active principle of generation was God Himself. Since this conception was a work extrinsic to God Himself, it was, of course, the work of the whole Trinity; but it is attributed to the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Love, for it was a work of love and by the Holy Ghost we ourselves are also made sons of God. The first cause, God, did what is ordinarily left to the causality of the second cause, a human father. Not that the Holy Ghost is spoken of as the father of Christ; the Son of God already had an eternal Father in heaven. This generation was not according to that substantial likeness that is essential for the establishment of the relationship of father and son. It was miraculous, for it was a generation by the direct action of God; yet, since it was from the material offered by the Virgin, on this count it can be called natural.
Characteristics of this conception
However, through all the Incarnation, it is the miraculous that holds our attention, as it is through the life of Christ. Here, in the very first instant of Christ's life, the miracles piled one on another might shock our minds into incredulity if we did not remember the infinite power of the active principle in this generation. Because God Himself was the generator, the body of Christ was a perfectly formed human body at once; it was informed by a rational soul in the very first instant and, in that same instant, was assumed by the Son of God. All this we have seen, at least in principle, in a previous chapter in studying the essence of the Incarnation.
Perfection of the infant in the womb
The perfection of this divine Infant was spiritual as well as physical. From the first instant, His soul possessed sanctifying grace, the use of free will, infused and beatific knowledge. For God was the generator, and the Son of God was the Person involved in this assumption of a human nature. The perfection of the Infant obviously has a deeper significance than fittingness to the Son of God and the mother of God. Here is underlined a truth that marks the sharp difference between the pagan and the Christian world. For here is written, in capital letters of perfection, the truth that the infant, helpless though it be, is the equal on human grounds of any adult; and this from the first instant of its life. Where justice and charity are the bases of human life, this truth is evident; where physical strength is the foundation of human living, what chance has the infant?
Conclusion: 1. Mary and the woman of the modern world:
In the light of the fundamental tests
The material of this chapter might well be summed up in a comparison of Mary with the woman of the modern world, if it be soundly understood that the modern part of that comparison does not dignify this or that woman, or group of women, but the modern ideal. What is said of modern woman, then, is by no means a wholesale condemnation of the women of the twentieth century; rather, it is an exposition of the position of woman today in the light of the things approved or disapproved, applauded or mocked by the philosophy by which our age directs its life. With this caution well in mind, we may ask: what is the result of the application of the fundamental tests of woman's life to Mary's and the Christian woman's life as against the woman of the pagan world?
We have seen something of Mary's sublime sanctity, her absolute virginity, something of her regard for marriage, and her justice to herself, her Child, to Joseph, and to society. We hive seen her response to the high call of love. What of the modern woman?
What chance has she to strive for sanctity when the very existence of the soul is denied, the freedom of her will rejected, and the moral code scoffed at as a mere convention? Virginity? A personal matter of fastidiousness or of social fitness, when it is not something to be tossed away quickly in the name of development of personality. Is marriage thought of in terms of justice to the child, to the husband, to society; or rather in terms of physical beauty and social convenience? The question is, of course, rhetorical. Is there a high, unselfish, even reckless response to love's demand for sacrifice; or a careful reckoning of personal advantages, a clinging to an avenue of escape in love's most sacred acts, with a door left open for a quick retreat at the moment when love's price becomes too high ?
From their preparation for life
We have looked at Mary's life as a preparation for divine maternity: a preparation of soul through sanctity, of body through virginity; an enveloping the lives of men in relation to marriage, and as reaching to the heights of the angels in the Annunciation. What would be the preparation of the woman of our time if she were to follow the ideals of her age? Surely not sanctity. Hardly virginity. For marriage, there would be some physical, financial, emotional, and social reasons considered; but that would pretty well sum it all up. A shorter summary could be made by simply listing the considerations of self.
Fruits of the lives of Mary and the moderns
The fruits of such lives are fruits worthy of the sowing. Mary was blessed among women. In her lifetime she won unselfish love, the joy of caring for her Son, the triumph of Calvary, the sorrows of earth and the glories of heaven. Just such fruits have come to the Christian mother ever since. The pagan earns the scorn of men for her cowardice, her shallowness, her selfishness, her lust or her weakness, though it was at the behest of men that these things were cultivated. She wins indifference from her child who returns what he has received. There is none of the triumph or exquisite joy of sacrifice, for there is no sacrifice. The shallow pleasures of earth will not drown earth's sorrows. In eternity, at least there will be many questions to answer.
After all, a woman was not made to live in a world whose philosophy of life is on an animal basis, where strength alone counts, where might is right. In such a world it is the weak who suffer, the women and children; in such a world, woman has but two strong points, her youth and her beauty. Who shall blame her for clutching so desperately at them; who shall blame her for not exposing others to such a burden, for refusing to weaken her own precarious position by the burden and dependence of children ? Certainly not one who embraces the philosophy by which she is asked to live; yet, in the end, it is precisely such as these that give her the bitterest scorn.
The only choice: Madonna, Virgin, Magdalen
Her life was meant to be lived at least on a human basis of justice. In the divine life of charity, she attains her fullest development, her fullest happiness; for here justice and love rule, not strength. On such a basis, she has open to her a life of fullest perfection, the kind of life portrayed by the model of women, Mary, the Virgin and Mother. In these two alone a woman can find happiness; she must be either the mother or the virgin, with virginity maintained or, by the bitter path Magdalene walked, regained.

The Personality of Christ by Dom Anscar Vonier, OSB - Chapter V

THE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST BY DOM ANSCAR VONIER, OSB

CHAPTER V

AN ATTEMPT AT DEFINING PERSONALITY

THE word personality is a word to conjure within our own days. The power of personality is the theme of every good work of fiction as well as of every good biography. A theological writer is of all writers the one who might be seen biting his quill for long moments of embarrassment for lack of the proper word, as society has taken his word from him and given it a different meaning. The term personality holds as great a place in theology as in literature, but the roles it acts are vastly different. It is true that the more modern meaning of personality a powerful individualistic character is not unwelcome to a theologian, as his Christ is the most winsome of all persons ; but he has a much older right to the term personality/ and in his attempt to explain Christ s attractiveness he has to delve down in the hidden mysteries of much more austere concepts, and personality is winsome because it is something so solid ; and it is with this view of personality, as the austere foundation of being, that the theologian is primarily concerned.

Locke s definition, or rather description, of person is as good as any other, outside the Aristotelian and scholastic sphere of thought. This being premised to find wherein personal identity consists, we must consider what person stands for. Which, I think is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times .and places ; which it does only by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me, essential to it : it being impossible for anyone to perceive without perceiving that he does perceive. 1

With Locke, the orthodox theologian says that a person is (essentially) a thinking, intelligent being ; that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself, as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places. The scholastic applies a similar definition to Deity itself, to the pure angelic spirit and to man. Yet, to the scholastic mind, Locke s definition of a person is not adequate. The scholastic asks with Locke why is it that a thinking being can think of itself, as itself, and it is his answer to that question that shows in him the deeper metaphysician. The English philosopher says that a thinking being thinks of itself, as itself, by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking.

Locke makes consciousness the reason of self-consciousness, which is evidently a tautology. It is as if I denned my power of running through that movement that makes me run. The scholastic, though denning a person a thinking being, with self-consciousness ( to consider itself as itself is another expression for self -consciousness), has a deeper underlying metaphysical element which saves him from Locke s tautology, and it is that deeper under lying element which is the cause, so to speak, that makes the individual person. Self-consciousness, deep and mysterious as it is, is not so deep and so mysterious as self-being. The first is merely a result of the second. Now, the scholastic maintains that self-being underlies self-consciousness, as the cause underlies its effect, and he says that a person is constituted primarily through self-being, through the fact of having one s being as an exclusive and total property.

We all know Tennyson s immortal verses describing the gradual formation of the individual self-consciousness .

The baby new to earth and sky,

What time his tender palm is prest

Against the circle of the breast,

Has never thought that this is I :

But as he grows he gathers much,

And learns the use of I/ and me,

And finds I am not what I see,

And other than the things I touch.

So rounds he to a separate mind,

From whence clear memory may begin,

As thro the frame that binds him in

His isolation grows denned.

This use may lie in blood and breath,

Which else were fruitless of their due,

Had man to learn himself anew

Beyond the second birth of Death.

In Memoriam, XLV.

Yet this very evolution of the thought of the isolated supposes an isolated possession of existence at the start. Now it is that perfect appropriation of being by the I long before there is a conscious distinction of oneself from other beings, the scholastic considers as the thing that makes a person. Scholastics are divided amongst themselves how to explain such an exclusive appropriation of being. Such differences of opinion cannot detract from the metaphysical value of the main principle, that a person is radically and eternally sui juris, a rational being with rights, and responsibilities, and duties that can never be shifted on to someone else s shoulders. Personality means incommunicable appropriation for weal and for woe of one s deeds. The highest manifestation of personality is moral merit and moral demerit, the fact through which a free act of the rational will is so entirely the property of the rational agent that God Himself cannot be held responsible for it, in the last instance, without contradicting Himself. Moral responsibility is well calculated to open out to us a view of the might of personality. Let us think for one moment that both highest bliss in heaven and profoundest misery in hell are states for a spirit which God Himself could not transfer to another spirit without injustice.

Self-consciousness the pet metaphysical reality of modern philosophies is not so deep and so permanent a thing as moral responsibility, that all-important factor of Christian philosophy. A man may be perfectly conscious of his doing a certain act without his being responsible for it, as there is the possibility of his not having been a free agent in the matter.

The fact of moral responsibility is the most immediate result of the element that makes a person. Moral responsibility is not that element itself, but it is its first fruit its direct result. In moral responsibility we show that we have our being in our own hand. How could I ever be made to answer eternally for an act of mine, if that act were not mine with the exclusion of every other moral or ethical partnership ?

Self-consciousness is near the root of our being, but it is not the root yet, and there is even the possibility of the act of which I am conscious not

being all my own act.

Moral responsibility is much nearer that root, for it implies in the last instance an exclusion of every other created will in my act of will. But it is not the root yet, just as will is not the whole man, the whole spirit. It springs from the root, and the root itself is personality. For a person is essentially a rational being that has responsibility, or, anyhow, may acquire it in time.

Moral responsibility is to my mind the natural key to the mystery of personality.

It may be objected that moral responsibility is too theological a fact to be made into a starting-point for the quest of personality, chiefly moral responsibility that stretches into the next world. My answer is that I am writing a theological book, not a philosophical one, for people to whom moral responsibility, implied in the words merit and guilt/ is an intellectual certainty.

Moral responsibility and self -consciousness almost seem to touch in the phenomenon of the consciousness of duty, of the conviction intellectual if there ever was one embodied in the notion : I ought. Yet the two things, though converging, are still different. Moral responsibility is a fact quite independent of inner consciousness, or rather we know that we have the merit as well as the guilt of our practical answers to the I ought as we have followed the voice or have disobeyed it.

There is an old scholastic axiom, Actiones sunt suppositorum Acts belong to the person/ Nothing could be truer, if we bear in mind the mystery of personal responsibility for our deeds.

I should describe personality as that reality within the creature that makes the creature s acts to be entirely his acts, with their full responsibility a responsibility stretching into eternity. It matters comparatively little how we explain that great appropriation of being that underlies responsibility. That it is a wonderful and potent reality is clear to all those who admit moral responsibility. That it is a reality that pervades and dominates our whole being is again manifest from the results of responsibility, which affects our whole life, for weal or for woe. It is necessarily what schoolmen call a substantial reality, a reality that is not merely accidental but one that is co-extensive with the individual being itself.

Before leaving this chapter I must say a few more things in order to remove certain misgivings that might arise in our minds at the hearing of some expressions made use of here as, for instance, appropriation of being, exclusive possession of being, exclusive responsibility of one s moral acts. Is it not the first rudiment of piety to believe firmly that our being is the property of God, from whom we have received it ; that our good acts, chiefly of the higher, the supernatural order, are the doings of the Spirit of God within our own created will ?

The answer to such difficulties will be a further illustration of the greatness of created personality. Nothing is truer than the fact that all our being comes from God, by creation. But God s creative power is, so to speak, at its best in the production of a being that is so complete as to have a responsibility all of its own, just as God has responsibility. Pantheism, which means emanation of things from God, as opposed to creation of things ex nihilo, is warded off most conclusively by that duality of responsibility.

That God should be able to produce outside Himself a being whose very constitution brings about within itself a responsibility that may put it eternally into opposition to the God that created it is the greatest achievement of God s creative power. So likewise with the share of God s grace in our moral acts, both natural and supernatural. No amount of divine influxus will ever take away the fact that it is my own act. St. Thomas would say that the divine influxus is of such a nature as to make my act more mine than ever. Such is his constant answer to objections about the preservation of free will under the divine influxus. Just as God s creative act at its highest results in a personality distinct from Him, so God s elevating act this is a good expression for the supernatural influxus of grace results in a meritorious deed that is the free will s own glory.

I have said already that even amongst school men there are accidental divergences of opinion as to the precise definition of that far-reaching element in the created being that makes for absolute duality between God and His rational creature, even when God fills His creature with the graces of His own Spirit.

The older philosophy takes a personality to be something entitatively static. The modern philosophies make it into something that is practically all dynamic.

The older philosophy has the great advantage over its modern sister that it does the one thing and omits not the other. It allows for all that love of life which is the characteristic of dynamic philosophy. The older philosophy grants all and every one of the transient phenomena of psychic life postulated by modern thought. But behind the phenomena of conscious life there are for the schoolmen the static and stable elements from which life with its endless variations flows, and which give it continuity and oneness.

Personality is one of those static elements ; perhaps it is the principal static element ; it is the centripetal power in our very complex individualities centripetal precisely because it is static. Such stability is not only perfectly reconcilable with the perennial flow of our conscious psychic life ; it is its salvation, just as the deep banks of a river keep the river from becoming a nondescript swamp. Or better still, personality, the static thing in man, is to consciousness, the dynamic thing in man, what the mighty mountain range is to the stream : in its soaring solitude and unbending solidity flows the winding stream with all the charm of its rippling motion and babbling song.

Before concluding the chapter I want to emphasise once more that the thing which I call moral responsibility is not personality itself, but that it is an element of personality, and in its brightest manifestation responsibility allows us a deep plunging peep into the abysmal mystery of personality.

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P., Fifth Part: Metaphysical Synthesis Of Thomism, CH36: CHRIST'S VICTORY AND PASSION

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P.

CH36: CHRIST'S VICTORY AND PASSION

We consider here three important problems.

1. How is Christ's passion in harmony with His beatific vision?

2. How did His passion cause our salvation?

3. Why did He suffer so much, seeing that His least suffering would suffice to save us?

1. According to St. Thomas [811] our Savior's sufferings were the greatest that can be conceived. In particular, His moral suffering surpassed that of all contrite hearts, first because it derived from a transcendent wisdom, which let Him realize, far beyond our power, the infinite gravity of sin, and the countless multitude of men's crimes; secondly because it derived from a measureless love for God and men; thirdly because He suffered, not merely for the sins of one man, as does a repentant sinner, but for all sins of all men taken together. Hence the question: How under such intense pain, physical and moral, could our Lord simultaneously preserve the boundless joy of the beatific vision?

This mystery, as theologians generally teach, is the consequence of another mystery, namely, that Jesus was simultaneously a viator (on the road to ultimate glory) and a comprehensor (already in possession of ultimate glory). [812] How is this possible? The truest answer is that of St. Thomas, an answer that is full of light, though the mystery remains a mystery.

We must distinguish also in Christ, says the saint, [813] the higher soul faculties from the lower. Hence, as long as He was simultaneously viator and comprehensor, He did not allow the glory and the joy of the superior part to overflow on the inferior part. Only the summit of His soul, that is, His human mind and will was beatified, while He freely abandoned to pain all His faculties of sense. [814] He would not permit His beatific joy in the summit of His soul to send down the slightest softening ray upon that physical and moral pain, to which He would fully surrender Himself, for our salvation. In Illustration, think of a lofty mountain, the summit Illumined by the sun, while a violent storm envelops the lower slopes and the foundations, and, as analogy, think of the contrite penitent, whose higher faculties rejoice in the affliction of his lower faculties, and rejoice the more, the more he is thus afflicted.

2. How did Christ's passion cause our salvation? [815] In five different ways: as merit, as satisfaction, as sacrifice, as redemption, as efficient cause. Is this series a mere juxtaposition of scriptural terms? No, we have here an ordered process, rising from general terms to terms which are specific and comprehensive. All acts of charity are meritorious, but not all are satisfactory. An act may be satisfactory without being, properly speaking, a sacrifice, which presupposes a priest. And even a true sacrifice, as in the Old Law, may not of itself be redemptive, but only as prefigurative of a perfect sacrifice. And, lastly, even a redemptive sacrifice may be only a moral cause of grace, whereas Christ's redemptive sacrifice is also the efficient cause of grace.

Christ's passion, then, wrought our salvation under the form of merit because, as the head of humanity, He could pour out grace on us from His own fullness, and, as divine person, His merits have an infinite value. [816].

His passion was, second, a perfect satisfaction, because by bearing that passion with theandric love, He offered something for which the Father's love was greater than His displeasure at all sins of mankind. And the life He offered, the life of the God-man, had infinite value. Personally then, and objectively, satisfaction was completely adequate. [817].

His passion, further, was sacrificial cause of our redemption, for it was an oblation, in the visible order, of His life, of His body and blood, made by Him as priest [818] Of the New Covenant. [819].

Hence, also as redemption, His passion is cause of our salvation, because, being an adequate and super-abounding satisfaction, it was the price paid for our deliverance from sin and penalty. [820].

Merit, satisfaction, sacrifice, redemption are forms of moral causality. But Christ's passion is also an efficient cause of our salvation, since the suffering humanity of Christ is the instrument by which the divinity causes in us all graces which we receive. [821].

Recapitulating, [822] St. Thomas speaks thus: The passion of Christ's humanity compared to His divinity, has instrumental efficiency; compared to Christ's human Will, it energizes as merit; considered in His flesh, it energizes as satisfaction; it energizes as redemption, in delivering us from the captivity of guilt; lastly, it energizes as sacrifice, by reconciling, by making us the friends of God.

We should note here that St. Thomas sees the essence of satisfaction in our Savior's theandric love rather than in His great sufferings, since these sufferings draw their value from that love which pleases God more than all sin displeases Him. [823] This love makes Christ's satisfaction superabundant, and, further, as Thomists hold against Scotus, intrinsically, of itself, superabundant, not merely extrinsically, by God's acceptance. And this satisfaction, they add, being of itself superabundant, has the rigorously strict value of justice.

Let us note another conclusion. Jesus is the one sole Redeemer, [824] the universal Redeemer from whom alone all others, even His mother, the Virgin Mary, receive their sanctity. [825].

The effects of Christ's passion, to recapitulate, are deliverance and reconciliation, deliverance from sin, from the domination of the devil, from the penalties due to sin; and reconciliation with God, who opens to us the gates of heaven. Here we see, in mutual order and Illumination, the various terms and truths whereby Scripture and tradition speak of our Savior's passion. The conclusions thus presented are not, strictly speaking, theological conclusions, even when at times they proceed from two premises of faith. They are rather explanations of the truths contained in the "doctrine of faith," truths that precede theology, and of which theology is itself the explanatory science.

3. Why did Jesus suffer so much, seeing that the least of His sufferings offered with such love would superabundantly suffice for our salvation? [826].

In answer, let us look at our Savior's sufferings from three points of view; our own, His own, and that of God the Father.

a) We need to be Illumined on how to receive the greatest testimony of love, accompanied by the highest example of heroic virtue. Now there is no greater love than giving life for those we love. [827].

b) Christ Himself must fulfil His redemptive mission in the highest manner. Now, as priest, no victim but Himself was worthy. And to be a perfect holocaust He must be completely victim, in body, in heart, in a soul "sorrowful unto death." Further, having the fullness of charity, and being both viator and comprehensor, He necessarily suffered with boundless intensity from mankind's sins taken on Himself, seeing in these sins both the offense against God and the cause of the loss of souls.

c) God the Father willed by this road of suffering and humiliation to give our Savior the grandest of victories, a threefold victory, over sin, over the devil, over death. The victory over sin was gained by the greatest of all acts of charity, victory over the devil's disobedience and pride by the supreme act of obedience and the loving acceptance of the lowest humiliations, victory over death, the consequence and punishment of sin, by the glorious external sign of the two preceding victories, a victory culminating in His resurrection and ascension. "Christ humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to death on the cross. Hence God exalted Him, and gave Him a name above every name, a name before which all kneel... while every tongue, to the glory of God the Father, confesses that Jesus Christ is the Lord." [828].

This treatise on the redemptive Incarnation, like that on God, shows that Thomism is not a mere sum of haphazard theses, but a mental attitude of research, a method of expounding truth in the order of nature and of grace, a unified grasping, a living synthesis, of the natural order of truth in its essential subordination to the supernatural order of truth. Such a synthesis radiates from one mother-idea. In the treatise on God that parent-idea is this: God is subsistent being, in whom alone essence is identified with existence. In the treatise on the Incarnation, the parent idea is the divine personality of our Savior. This unity of person in two natures implies first, unity of existence, [829] secondly, substantial sanctity, thirdly, a priesthood supremely perfect, fourthly, a royal dominion over all creatures. Lastly, since person is the substantial principle of all acts, the theandric acts of Christ have a value intrinsically infinite in the order of merit and satisfaction.

We add one remark. These two treatises, that on God and that on the Incarnation, are the foundations of the theological edifice. On their solidity all else depends.

Excerpt from Walter Farrell, O.P., A Companion to the Summa, Volume IV, Chapter VI

CHAPTER VI -- THE DIVINE MEDIATOR

(Q. 22-26)

THE contention that the obvious is most easily missed by the human eye or the human mind, while it may be well argued, seems to place a very low estimate indeed on the content of human knowledge. For it is quite certain that it is a strong human trait to stop at the obvious for the very good reason that a little extra labor is demanded to go beyond the obvious to the hidden. The spectator, for example, idly watching archaeologists excavating a buried civilization, say in Egypt or Greece, is usually quite content to spend his wonder on the time, labor, and expense necessary to unearth the traces of that lost culture. Yet a moment's reflection would impress him with the fact that much more time, much more labor, and incredible expense went into the actual burial of that city, particularly if he were a spectator who had somehow managed to live through the nineteen forties.



In our own lives, there can be no doubt of the effort, the discouraging labor, and the amount of time necessary to unearth truth; the long hours of study, the dogged years of relentless pursuit that is never nearly as successful as we would wish it. Yet all this is even more true of the burial of a truth, particularly of a fundamental truth. In our own short, personal experience with the lives of men, we cannot have missed the difficulty, the time, even the expense that go into the deadening of a man's conscience, into his burial of the truth of sin. Perhaps the uneasiness, the worry, the torturing remorse of the process cannot be measured accurately in terms of time or money; but if labor is to be measured by what it takes out of a man, no one has worked harder than the man who is finally able to take sin for granted.



Time and truth: The difficulty of truth and error



Such personal experience is well buttressed by the evidence offered, for example, by a contrast of primitive and later civilizations. In the former, for instance, marriage was almost universally monogamous, only later developing into the varied forms in which it is found in history; the mythical state of promiscuity so blithely talked of today is not a landmark in the history of man but a threat upon humanity's horizon. Among the primitives, worship of God, as far as the evidence allows of a conclusion, was originally monotheistic; it is only much later that those perversions developed that are to be found among the present peoples of the world. In fact, all this can be safely generalized; the field most likely to contain more fundamental truths more deeply buried is precisely the field enclosed by the fences of "higher civilizations." If, for example, we are in search of the perversions of the truth of sacrifice, it is to the higher civilizations we must go to come upon the ultimate perversion of human sacrifice; if sex perversions are the goal of our research, then we waste time laboring among the records of the primitives.



The field of buried truths



The burial of truth with the same determined eagerness with which a dog buries a bone is not to be considered as an historical peculiarity that has long since died out. The practice was never more common than in our own time. Take, for instance, the essential, the fundamental truth of leadership, a truth which proceeds from the fundamental fact that a man has some place to go. In our own very high civilization, men are enthusiastically, fanatically, following leaders who champion the denial of a goal for men, or who deny all motion to the individual man as such; leaders, in other words, who explicitly surrender all valid claim to leadership and so all solid faith in leadership. Some modern leaders have called forth goals that can have no meaning to the individual, goals of a race, a party, a class which exclude the individual as such; still others insist upon following the people as a mother follows a spoiled child's aimless wanderings.



Modern burial of fundamental truths: Leadership and its goal



From time immemorial, a leader has been a man who stood out in front, between the people and their goal, so that they could be sure of the direction of their goal by a glance at the leader. Today, a leader is not expected to stand between his people and something else; rather, he represents the blank wall where all hope must end. In the spiritual world, the leader should take up the awful position between God and His people; today, spiritual leaders, though seriously laying claim to leadership, insist that there is no God and, consequently, no purpose in leadership. What has happened to so fundamental a truth as that of leadership if it hasn't been buried?



Priesthood and sacrifice



Then, too, there are the fundamental truths of sacrifice and of the priesthood. Surely there is no truth more thoroughly buried today than these two; yet there is little more fundamental, if for no other reason, because there is little more fundamental than the recognition of primary truths. And these are primary truths. From the beginning, men have seen that a child cannot effectively deny that he has had parents; on the same basis, they saw that a man cannot deny his Creator, for his very dependence is an acknowledgment of that creator. The recognition of man's dependence is, at the same time, a recognition of God's dominion. These are truths that must be recognized if man himself is not to be denied.



The recognition of the dominion of the Creator is made by each creature according to its nature. Man, the intelligent creature naturally in harmony with the rest of creation, sought to acknowledge this truth in a human way; universally, men have hit upon sacrifice, and so upon priesthood, as the means of human acknowledgment of their own position and of the dominion of God. Since sacrifice was, for the most part, an act of a group, of a community, it was to be offered by one who could speak in the name of all the people, by a community official who was called a priest.



The recognition of man's position and of God's dominion, over and above the need for-sacrifice, also made clear the necessity of winning to that final position which is the destiny of the human race, to that God Who is the goal of life. It meant going to a goal and making reparation for the endless wanderings and recessions from that goal. In other words, by the recognition of the truth of his position, man recognized that he had a place to go and that he needed spiritual leadership to get him to that spiritual goal. The work of the priest, then, has always been to furnish that spiritual leadership, to stand out before the people in that no man's land between God and men with the souls of men depending for eternity on the exercise of his office.



Christ came to remove the debris from buried fundamental truths as well as to give us new truths. Of the buried truths, none received greater emphasis in His life than those of priesthood and sacrifice.



Hidden treasure in the Christmas cave



The birth of the babe in Bethlehem has always been a shock and a comfort to the world. It is a simple, homely expression of an unthinkable truth. The ages have rightly stressed the homeliness of that scene: the family group of mother, father, and the Child Who had no father but God. That first Christmas throws us off our guard by putting God at our mercy; its surprise blow strips us of all the protective armor with which we cover our heart from the incursions of the outside world. The helplessness of God has pierced the armor of man. Yet we see the scene no less truly when we see it as the cave where God began to unearth buried truth.



Mary kneeling at the manger, offering her Son to God as every good Jewish mother would, made the first offering of the Perfect Victim; this was, too, the first act of the Perfect Priest, for the infused knowledge of Christ dated from the first moment of His life. Priest and Victim was her Son, and God; she knelt in adoration before Him; He, the High Priest, interceded for her. In that picture alone we have all the material of this chapter.



If the priesthood were subject only to human explanations, then it could be said securely that only one who was very young, very foolish, rashly presumptuous, and absurdly gallant would dare to undertake it. Fortunately the explanations are not limited to the human order. These men are not those who have chosen but rather who have been chosen, and that by God. However, the human side is not neglected or wasted by God; there is still the element of eternal youth, of divine foolishness, of the reckless gallantry of love in the priesthood. When these things die out of it, the priesthood will be only a name. So to our time, as to all times, the celebration of a first Mass or the ordination of a priest is a gala event; even the most casual acquaintances and complete strangers crowd into the church to drink in some of that intoxicating atmosphere that envelops the departure of reckless love down the hard road.



Such presumption as may be present cannot linger long. The saints among the ordinary people to whom the priest ministers, the helplessness of his wisest words, and the divine efficacy of his fumbling efforts keep the priest well aware of his own failings. Indeed, the very consideration of his principal work of spiritual leadership makes his own helplessness and the efficacy of divine help the central truths which furnish the support by which alone it is possible for him to face his work.



Christ's part in sacrifice: General characteristic of priesthood



For the work of the priest can be summed up in one sentence: he is to stand between God and the people. On the one side there will be the desperate, trusting dependence of these men, women, and children spurring him on; on the other, the unutterable perfection of God shining upon him with a brilliance that throws his every weakness into bold relief. If this were a merely human office, it would be a lonely, terrifying, comfortless thing to strike terror into the heart of any man. Because it is a divine office, it has depths of serene joy that only God can sound.



As the intermediary between God and His people, the life of a priest is an endless series of journeys of heart and mind from God to men and back again; in time, he becomes like an old pack horse who looks naked without a burden. Coming from God, he carries the precious burden of divine gifts -- truth, love, the divine life of grace; coming from man, he carries to God the stuttering prayers of the human heart and the petty satisfactions we are able to offer for the sins we have committed.



The chief act by which the priest accomplishes his office of mediator has always been the act of sacrifice; it is that act, indeed, which has called the priest into being. In Christianity, the sacrifice of the New Law is the Mass, the central act of the Christian religion and the principal reason for the existence of the priesthood. It is in sacrifice, then, that the priest is most truly a priest; it is then that he stands most squarely between God and the people. The sacrifice is a vain gesture, the priesthood a useless office, if the victim's destruction does not attain to the ends of sacrifice.



Work of the victim



The Old Testament distinction of offerings for sin, for peace, and as a holocaust is a succinct statement of the ends or goals of sacrifice. Sacrifice, after all, must do just two things: it must pay man's debt to God, acknowledging His position; and acknowledging man's position, it must fulfill his double need of dealing with sin and winning that divine life which is his peace. these are noble ends indeed for a human act: a holocaust to God, remission and satisfaction for sin, the conservation and increase of that share of divine life within us which is grace. It is small wonder that men looked with awe on the simplest act of solemn sacrifice.



Yet, before Christ, only the benign tolerance of God could look with favor on the victims offered by men, could accept a holocaust, a supreme act of worship, from such feeble hands, inevitably weary and soiled from wielding weapons in the war for the priest's own soul. With Christ came the perfect priest and the perfect victim. Swaddling clothes may seem strange clothes for a high-priest; we hardly expect to see a high-pries: lying in a manger under the watchful eye of a mother or nailed naked to a cross under the glaring eyes of an angry mob. These are garments more fitted to a victim than to a priest; but, then, human nature was a strange cloak for God to take up in His short walk through the world. No doubt it was because He knew it would always be more difficult for us to see Him as a victim than as a priest that He left that indelible record of His victimhood, of the beginning and the end of His human life.



Christ the perfect priest and perfect victim



But priest He was; and the only priest on Calvary. It was He Who offered the sacrifice there, not His executioners. Indeed, He was the perfect priest from the very beginning. His Christmas gifts were the kind of burden we should expect ta tire the back of a worthy priest: for He brought truth, love, grace, even God Himself to us; His gift to God was full satisfaction for all sins and the prayers of all the centuries of fighting Christians who would accept His challenge to set out on the hard road of the cross.



The effects of Christ's priesthood: In general



He was priest and He was victim. He accomplished, as the victim should, the remission of the sins of men, peace with God, and a union such as only God Himself could have conceived, a union in His own Person and in the lives of each man by grace now, by glory in eternity. The offering for sin, the offering for peace, the holocaust, found their perfection in the life and death of Christ. The sheep and goats, victims in the Old Law, were accepted by God in lieu of better things; the Son of God made man was an adequate victim, perfectly accomplishing the ends of sacrifice and loosing a flood of grace on the souls of men of all ages.



For others



Christ the priest stood between God and man. On Calvary He was raised a little above the earth; for three hours He hung there, far below heaven, a little apart from men, very close to God. The hopeful men of all ages can look over His shoulder, sure of the goal and the direction of the goal; on the other side, there was the white glare of the divine light which could find no fault in Him. All other priests, in the very act of sacrifice, are a part of the multitude for whom they pray, for they are sinful men themselves dependent on divine mercy; Christ, alone of all priests, sinlessly approached divinity and made His plea in His own divine name.



Christ the eternal priest



In a wider sense the whole life of Christ, from beginning to end, was the act of a priest; for the wider sense of sacrifice includes all that is offered to God that the spirit of men might be lifted up to God. Surely, every act of Christ's life was directly aimed at that end; it is not lightly that we call Him Redeemer and Savior. Indeed, the priesthood of Christ still endures, it is unending. The act of a priest, after all, is not the offering of sacrifice to the exclusion of the consummation of that sacrifice; and that consummation is accomplished only when the people for whom the sacrifice is offered attain the final union with God which is the end of the sacrifice and the eternal holocaust of all who are saved.



The type of Christ the priest



The priest of the twentieth century, continuing the work of the perfect Priest, is also a spiritual leader standing between God and men. Nor is his office a lonely, burdensome, terrifying one for he stands there, not in his own person, but in the person of Christ. He need make no excuses for the priest who is offering the sacrifice, no apologies are necessary for the victim; for the priest and the victim are still Christ Himself. This poor human instrument standing on the altar is no more than an instrument in the hands of the High Priest. As Mary was on the first Christmas and on Calvary, the humble Catholic of today is present at the perfect sacrifice accomplished by the perfect Victim and the perfect Priest; now, as then, the people need only look over the shoulder of their leader for sure direction to the goal. What there is of imperfection, of unworthiness, is not material for worry for the people, but for the priest. Though he was chosen and did not choose this life for Himself, the standards to which he must measure up, to which he will be held, were set by that High Priest during His life in Palestine; it was Christ Who died on the Cross, not His loved ones, and it is the priest who must run the risks, face the dangers, and assume full responsibility, not the people.



In that same wide sense of sacrifice, of which we have spoken above, it is true that the whole priestly life of a twentieth-century priest is a sacrifice from beginning to end. He is set apart in order that all of his life, all his actions, might focus on the one effect of bringing men to God; it is for this that he exists, that he studies, that he works, that he lives. In a sense, his priesthood, too, is eternal. No priest counts his work done when the Mass is over or the confessional slide shut; it is finished when the gates of eternity swing shut on those who were committed to his care, when the eternal consummation of his sacrifice is begun.



The place of the priest and the victim in the divine plan



Through all the long chant of the priesthood the same melody has rung out clearly: gifts to men, worship and satisfaction to God. And it is through Christ alone that all things have come to all men, that all sins have been satisfied for, that the perfect holocaust was offered to God. The priesthood of the Old Law was a figure and a promise of that which was to come; what efficacy it had was by anticipation of the merits of the perfect Priest for whom the chosen people waited so anxiously. That this might be clear, the priesthood of Christ had early been foreshadowed in the strange figure of a priest, Melchisedech, who comes from nowhere into the pages of Scripture and disappears into the void from which he had come. It was strange, among a people so careful of lineage, that no mention was made of the ancestors of the priest -- almost as though he were pictured as unbegotten; it was strange that his sacrifice should have been of bread and wine, as a kind of promise, even a description of the Mass; it was even more strange that all the priests of the Old Law, still in the loins of Abraham, should have made their gesture of subjection to this stranger in the tithes Abraham paid to him.



The priesthood of the New Law is a continuation of the priesthood of Christ, not mercy a memory of it. It is as dependent upon Christ the priest as an echo on the voice that gave it birth; in fact, it is as dependent on the priesthood of Christ as the existence of man is on the existence of God or the miracle of a saint on the efficacy of divine power. For in all the priesthood of the New Law, it is still Christ Who is actually the priest and the victim.



Even aside from the divine guarantee of its endurance, it would probably be extremely difficult to wipe out the memory of Christ's priesthood from the minds of men. For generosity is one thing to which we pay spontaneous tribute; particularly generosity that goes all the way, with no conditions spoiling its flavor. Of course we distinguish between generosity that reaches its heights by mistake, that, for instance, which leaves a child ruefully regarding the candy bag emptied by a generosity that thought there was more than one piece left; and that which makes no advance reckonings, such as that which enables a mother to send a son off to war with a smile veiling the tears in her heart, or which enables a wife to saunter out of the world she has known arm in arm with a husband who has brought disgrace or poverty upon the family. In our human estimation, this sort of thing makes up for many a defect; even the infamous and unlawful wife of Herod, Herodias, regains something of our respect when she passes out of history with one final, splendid gesture of generous choice, refusing to abandon her exiled and despoiled husband. If the sacrifice of Christ the Priest was no more than an incautious whimsy of God, it would have been a thing of wonder for what it gave away the very life of the Son of God.



But this was no divine whimsy. We come closer to an appreciation of the recklessness of divine generosity if we remember that in the mind of God, the intelligent Creator, there is a kind of architect's blueprint containing the smallest detail and the greatest item of the universe He has made. The small corner of these divine plans which deals with men we call predestination. Among the men whose every breath is detailed there is the man Christ Who was leader, king, legislator, above all, priest. Every detail, then, of the priesthood of Christ, every item of His sacrifice was clearly, serenely, wisely, eternally embraced in the plan of God. This truth has been the comfort of every priest since Christ and the perpetual humiliation of a human generosity which tries to match the divine. Indeed this was no divine whimsy.



The royal family of the priest: Sons by nature and by adoption



From our side, the purpose of Christ's priesthood was to bring us home. Because so much is so freely given to us, we may easily take too many things for granted, forgetting that the home to which He is bringing us is His home by right; it is ours only through still more generosity on the part of God. He is the natural Son of the family; we are members of the household only by an adoption that stooped the infinite distance between divinity and humanity to take us into the family of God. Nevertheless we are members of the family, brothers of Jesus Christ, and heirs of heaven.



Still we must not let the splendor of the home dull our appreciation of the adoption which is the means of our getting there. Not long ago, the newspapers reported that a couple had just discovered that their adopted baby of one year was feeble- minded. Since this condition could not be the result of environment, at least in so short a time, they demanded the right to return the child as so much damaged goods. The story was hardly any longer than that; yet it silhouetted perfectly the limitations of human adoption. In general, a man adopting a child is being generous, sharing his riches and his home with an unknown child. Of course, the child will not receive the wealth of the father immediately, since that kind of wealth cannot be shared and kept at the same time; it is clear, too, that considerations of his own comfort, his own companionship, and that exquisite joy that comes from caring for one who is as hapless and as grateful -- as a child have entered into the adoption. Even so, the adoption was a generous act. The present condition of the child, however, is not due to any generosity on the part of the adopter. He hasn't made the perfection of the child; he must institute a search for the perfect baby. In this particular case, the shop-lights were rather dim and the foster-parents considered themselves cheated.



Fittingness of adoption: On the part of God



Divine adoption is something else again. We need have no worry about being sent back because we are feeble-minded; God has not been cheated. His creative love does not-search out a good child to adopt; rather, He makes the goodness which He adopts. He shares His riches with His adopted children immediately, as well as giving them a share in the divine heritage; for from the beginning we participate in that by which God is rich -- His infinite goodness -- a treasure which can be shared and not be diminished, which can be given away with nothing of it being lost. Nor has God filled an empty house with the joyous laughter of children because He was lonely. The house was not empty; nor was He lonely; but He is good. It is His divine goodness which alone explains our right to the house of God.



On the part of men



Once we see something of the goodness of God, His adoption of men is understandable. We are the image and likeness of God. We have an intellect and will, as He has; we are capable of knowing and loving the infinite, though in our own humble way; with divine help, we are capable of knowing and loving God in His own divine way. In fact, there is nothing so much like God's own natural Son as a man in the state of sanctifying grace. Understand, this similarity is not that of a home to the architect's idea or of the student's knowledge to his teacher's idea. This is a family likeness ; through grace and charity we are one with God as the Son is one with Him by nature.



We are very much at home with the High Priest and Victim. Perhaps we are a little awkward and self-conscious at first; but only for a very short time. We are at home. There may be some of that strangeness and tension on our part that comes to a family whose new priest has just come home for the first time; but after all this is our brother and we are soon ourselves. When at last we reach heaven, we are one of the family who has long been looked for and at last has arrived. On arrival, we receive the rousing welcome given to one who might have strayed a little to reach home somewhat later, a little more the worse for wear, a little more ready for rest.



The adoration of men: Identity of worship given to humanity and divinity of Christ



Yet, for all that homely, lovable familiarity, we do not forget that Christ is God. His priesthood and sacrifice, never separated in our eyes from His life, are reminders and commands of that complete worship we owe to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We serve Him, love Him, live intimately with Him, yet every minute, as Mary did, we adore Him because He is God.



It is to the divine Person, of course, that we pay this tribute, as in the human world it is the person we praise or blame, not his hand, his foot, or his nature. If human nature could be separated from the Person of the Word, and thus from divinity, we would pay it the lesser tribute which we give to Mary, the tribute of supreme excellence among the saints. But it cannot be so separated; we must then, give the humanity of Christ adoration, though not absolute but a relative adoration. Thus, In adoring the Sacred Heart, or the Precious Blood we are really adoring the Word Incarnate.



This may become more clear from an examination of the tribute we pay the images of Christ. The Catholic, kissing the crucifix, does not imagine that that crucifix is alive, that it is God, that it is a mysterious power; certainly he does not consider it a representation of something that does not exist, never did exist, and never will exist. These might be the pagan's views of his idol. The ordinary Catholic would be astonished, and a little amused, at such notions; as amused as a man accused of falling in love with a piece of paper because he was caught kissing the picture of his young wife. Of course he gives honor and respect to the picture; not because it is a picture, but because it is a picture of his wife. This is a relative respect; by it he means to honor his own wife. So a Catholic, kneeling in prayer before a crucifix, gives the crucifix a relative adoration, an adoration that is referred to the Master who is represented on that crucifix.



The point should not really be so difficult; at least it is a general rule in all our human dealings that we give the same respect to a person absolutely that we give to his image or memory relatively. Our respect for the corpse at a funeral certainly does not flow from our esteem for dead bodies; it is an expression of our esteem for the person to whom this body once belonged. The relative anger of a mob burning a tyrant in effigy is not inspired by a hatred of effigies, nor is the mob under the delusion that it is destroying the tyrant in the destruction of his effigy. When a human mind has wandered so far as to make this kind of mistake, it is lost in the jungle of voodooism.



Other objects of supreme adoration in Christ; veneration of His mother; veneration of the saints



This respect or tribute to excellence varies according to the excellence it honors. The respect we give God, for example, is called adoration. To lesser degrees of excellence we give veneration, a tribute whose real basis is sanctity: for this is the preeminently human excellence; this is the respect we give to Our Lady, to the saints, to the very wise, the old. In Latin, the terms are much more precise. Adoratio is the generic term including all these tributes to excellence; that which is due to God alone (our "adoration" in English) is called latria; that which we give to Mary as the mother of God is called hyperdulia ; finally, the tribute paid to the saints is dulia .



All this may seem too technical a laboring of a perfectly clear truth; but history brings eloquent testimony to the importance of accuracy and clarity in this matter. Undoubtedly the identification of the Latin generic term adoratio with the English "adoration" contributed a great deal to the storm against images that swept Europe with the Reformation. At times this rioting was due to ignorance; at others, to a malicious preying upon ignorance by those who knew better. At any rate, the charge was that these images were being adored with the very same adoration with which we adore God. Notice the contrast: the modern pagans in Russia, Germany, and Spain destroy images in a petty gesture of hatred against God; the Reformers destroyed images in an ignorant gesture to protect the rights of God which, in fact, were not being violated.



The Reformers' charge was false. But the quarrel was an old, old one. The same error had been condemned in the Councils of the eighth century; and in all its long history, the error had given birth to vandalism, hatred, bloodshed, murder, general destruction. Why was all this argument made about so simple a thing as images? Why was the Church so stubborn about the whole thing; would it not have been much simpler for the Church to renew the Old Law prohibition against images and stop all this violence?



Well, there was first of all the matter of truth. The Church may surrender, in fact has surrendered, territory, wealth, power, but not truth; for the last bit of truth is more important than all the safety, security, peace, and beauty to be found in the world. Then, too, there is the very purpose of images as a more than sufficient reason for the stubbornness of the Church. These are the books of the little ones, the script that can be read by the most unlettered of men; and the souls of these little ones are worth any price that may have to be paid for them.



Images are a memory lesson that continues to be repeated as long as a church stands; they are the seal by which the mystery and example of the lives of Christ, Mary, and the saints are impressed on our minds. The world did not have to wait for modern psychology to discover that vision is an effective means for vivid, serious instruction, for the inflaming of affection, and for indelible memory. Men knew long ago that the horrors of war visible in the streets down which they walked were far more impressive than the most detailed story of a returning soldier. In the ordinary course of human events, some things are going to strike our eyes, impress themselves on our memories, and claim our affections; if among these are not the saints, the Mother of God, and her Son, then we leave the field open to the undesirable things of the world to pay court to our hearts without any rivals.



The priest at His work: the mediation of Christ



Within the easy familiarity of a family circle there is God, Christ His natural Son, and the adopted sons and brothers of the Priest and Victim. On our side, we adore Him, familiar as He may be with us, for He is God; on His side, the High Priest, our Brother, goes about His priestly work in our favor, standing between God and ourselves, bringing us divine gifts, offering our paltry gifts to God. Of course we have other mediators: saints on earth, saints in heaven, Our Lady herself, not infrequently the shamefaced sinner pleading the cause of one who has shown mercy. But no one of these can perfectly effect the work of mediation, no one can unite us perfectly to God but Christ, for only He established the bond of friendship on Calvary and released a flood of grace into our souls. Others can only work to this end. The union itself is God's work, a work proper to Him Who is one with us in human nature and one with God in divine nature.



The tragedy of buried truths:The tragedy of modern leadership



There is inevitable sorrow in the unearthing of a buried civilization for it is the revelation of a human tragedy. Looking down on the crumbling stone, we are gazing on the final defeat of all the thoughts the works, the hopes and struggles of a people who are gone. There is this mercy about it, however, that the citizens of that culture died with it; they did not have to live on after their world was dead. The burial of a fundamental truth, on the other hand, has all the bitterness of a buried civilization to which is added an ultimate agony; for the human beings to whom it was a pillar of home are forced to live on without it.



The burial of the fundamental truth of leadership was a bitter blow to humanity. It struck directly at the truth of a man, his dignity, his freedom. And men had to live on after the truth had been buried; they had to smile at its funeral, submit to the despoilers of humanity, and even, later, join with the champions of this rule of absolute tyranny.



The tragedy of modern irreligion



What has been true of leadership in general is above all true of the perfection of leadership, the spiritual leadership whose proper act is sacrifice. The burial of the fundamental truth of the priesthood has left the soul of man bewildered, lost. It had already been a little lonely in an entirely material world which gave it no spiritual companionship; but now, that soul has been snatched from home and country to a barren exile, alone. The wandering, exiled victims of our present war, miserable as their plight is, are a very mild likeness of the hidden misery of all men brought on by a more subtle attack that has pulled man out of the harmony of nature and forced him to live a lie.



The treasure cave of Bethlehem



The cave of Bethlehem sheltered more than the mother, her Child, and the foster-father; it contained, too, all the fundamental truths which the world had tried to bury throughout the centuries. These truths are never buried beyond recovery because God Himself was born in a cave; there we find such truths as the immortality of the soul of man, the validity of his intellect, the freedom of his will, his faith and hope, his virtue and merit, courage and high endeavor, the goal to which he goes. Fingering this treasure of truth, we must not overlook the truth of man's position and God's position in the universe; nor the absolutely fundamental truth of the priesthood and sacrifice.



The kings and the infant



There was a delicate divine irony in the providence which brought the kings of the East to the humble throne of the Infant with their treasures. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh were royal gifts offered by royal hands and a fitting tribute to a poverty-stricken Child Who yet was God. The kings brought the treasures of the world; they took with them the buried treasure of fundamental truths. In reality, it was the Infant who had brought treasures to the kings, not the kings to the Infant.