Salesian Literature

Chapter 6:  Some special privileges of providence in man’s redemption

​

Most assuredly, God gives a wonderful demonstration of the inexhaustible fertility of his power in that tremendous variety which meets our gaze in nature.  However, he gives us an even more splendid vision of the untold treasures of his goodness in the unparalleled distinction of blessings that we discern in grace.  He was not content – no limits set to his mercy – with sending his people (the whole human race) a collective impersonal redemption; he offers salvation to each individual.  So manifold are the ways of it, his generosity glows through their variety, a variety which in turn enhances his generosity.

 

In the first place, he predestined for his blessed Mother a privilege worthy of the love of a Son who owed it to himself – all-wise, all-powerful, all-good as he is – to fashion a mother to his own taste.  Thus he determined that she should be redeemed in advance by way of prevention, so that the flood-tide of sin, overwhelming generation after generation, should not rise to her.

 

A wonderful redemption, the Redeemer’s masterpiece, the prelude to all the rest, as the loving Son with happy auguries met his Mother on her way (cf. Ps. 20:4).  He did not merely preserve her from sin, like the angels; he also preserved her from all possibility of it, from every distraction, every impediment to the practice of charity.  Referring to his Mother, he declares that, of all rational creatures, of all his chosen ones, one there is beyond compare; for me none so gentle, none so pure! (Song. 6:8)  How graceful thou art, dear maiden, how fair, how dainty! (Song. 7:6).

 

God also prepared other privileges for a select few whom he intended to preserve from danger of damnation – St. John the Baptist certainly; probably Jeremias too, and a few others whom his providence secured in their mother’s wombs.  From that time on they were permanently confirmed in grace, to keep them loyal to God’s love.

 

Yet others God left for a time exposed to the danger, not of losing their souls, but of losing charity; he even allowed some actually to lose it, giving them no guarantee of possessing charity all their life long, but only towards its end.  The apostles, for instance, also David, Mary Magdalene, and several others, lacked charity for a while; but eventually, when they came back to God, they were confirmed in grace until they died (cf. Lk. 22:32).

​

​

Back to Top

​