Salesian Literature

Chapter 5:  Divine providence furnished mankind with the richest of ransoms

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People have only one motive for planting a vine – grapes.  Therefore the fruit is the first thing wanted, sought for, even though the vine produces leaves and flowers before the grapes finally appear.  Thus, the world’s great Saviour held the foremost place in God’s intention, in the eternal plan of his providence to fashion creatures.  The vine of the universe was planted for the sake of that longed for fruit; successive generations were determined, to precede him like leaves and flowers – heralds, as it were, fitted to prepared the way for the coming of that tuft of cypress (Cant. 1:13) so praised by the bride in the Song of Songs, of that wine that both God and man delight in (Judges 9:13).

 

Surely, now, Theotimus, the means of salvation are ample beyond all doubt!  So great a Saviour is ours; for his sake we were made, by his merits we have been redeemed.  He died for us all, who had all become dead men (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14,15); his mercy was the antidote to Adam’s misery – ransoming the human race, rather than ruining it.

 

So far as Adam’s sin from getting the better of God’s good-natruedness, it stimulated, it inflamed it.  The kindness of God, reacting gently and lovingly to human opposition, intervened to overcome it: as our fault was amplified, grace has been more amply bestowed than ever (Rom. 5:20).  So that holy Church, in an ecstasy of wonderment, cries out at the Easter vigil: “O truly necessary sin of Adam, which Christ’s death blotted out; and happy fault, that merited such a redeemer!”

 

Most assuredly, we can echo that ancient Greek (Themistocles): “Had we not been lost, we were lost indeed.”  In other words, our loss proved to be our gain – human nature, to be sure, received more grace through being redeemed by its Saviour than ever it would have received from Adam’s unsullied innocence.

 

God’s providence has left on mankind vivid traces of his severity – for example, the necessity of dying, disease, troublesome toil, the revolt of sensuality.  Yet, for all that, his heavenly graciousness holds sway over all; he delights in transforming all these hardships into blessings for those who love him (cf. Rom. 8:28) – drudgery can give birth to patience, the necessity of dying can lessen our attachment to this world, concupiscence can know a thousand defeats.

 

Among the angels in heaven, our Lord tells us, there will be more rejoicing over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine souls that are justified, and have no need of repentance (Lk. 15:7).  So our present condition of being redeemed is a hundred times better, more valuable, than that of innocence.  Sprinkled by our Lord’s blood, as by a wand of hyssop from the cross, we recovered a purity incomparably lovelier than the pure snow of innocence (Ps. 50:9); that is certain.  Like Naaman (2 Kings 5:14), we stepped from the stream of salvation purer, cleaner, than if we had never been tainted.

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