REVELATIONS OF DIVINE JUSTICE (unpublished book manuscript, 2010)

REVELATIONS OF DIVINE JUSTICE (Draft as of 12/2/10) Copyright 2010, Little Flower Media, Inc. Prologue This book recounts nine experiences that give insight into the nature of the justice of God. The experiences, or “revelations” pertain to the problem of evil and the atonement, as well as to various aspects of the spiritual life. When understood together, the nine revelations provide a coherent theory of the redemption. The author makes no claim of personal holiness or spiritual proficiency in the relating of these experiences, and the mystical or private revelation elements of the text are not necessary for the support of the theology presented herein. Each conclusion can be deduced independently from Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterial teaching. The revelatory nature of the text has been preserved out of respect for the means by which the author came to recognize these truths. Each of the nine experiences described in this book is integral to understanding every other. The experiences are described in the order in which they were received with as much brevity as possible so that a reader can comprehend them in a short time. Because the entire account must be read in a linear way, and cannot be apprehended in a single act, there will be many questions that are left unaddressed until all of the revelations are presented. The descriptions of the experiences (in italics) are followed by commentary that explains some of what was shown intuitively. Only that which is essential to understanding the basic content of the message is included. Much more could be written, but would greatly encumber the flow of the work. Footnotes are included throughout, which further express important points that are not part of the main exposition. These notes are, in most cases, as important as the main text. Due to the unusual means of presentation, it may seem that large gaps are being overlooked, or that there is an uncomfortable rapidity in moving from one apparently unrelated concept to another. Because the harmony between the experiences comes only through each being understood in conjunction with the others, it is recommended that the book be read in one or two sittings. It is necessary to have the early details present in one’s mind for the sake of understanding the later experiences. Everything expressed in this book presupposes the truth of the teachings of the Catholic Church and the essential aspects of the doctrine of the Orthodox Church, but is pertinent to the common ground of all Christian faiths. It is presumed that the reader has some familiarity with basic Christian concepts (at least in a skeptical capacity), such that the meaning of certain terms is already understood. The revelations are offered as a gift to the Church for the sake of the reunification of all Christian churches to further the proclamation of the one true gospel to the world. Concerning the theological soundness of the conclusions expressed herein, the author submits all to the judgment of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. 1 The First Revelation I did not understand how the suffering of Jesus brought about the forgiveness of sins. It seemed that if God were willing to forgive sin, then he could have done so without the pain of Jesus. I asked the Lord to give me an insight into the meaning of the atonement. A long time after this prayer, having forgotten that I had asked for insight, I unexpectedly experienced an interior voice that said, “A suffering and dying being cannot be doing my will.” I understood that this voice was speaking for God, and that “my will” referred to the perfect divine will. I did not hear the voice audibly, but received the message interiorly. At the same time that I experienced this interior voice, I was given the understanding that through the pain of Jesus, the separation between God and suffering humanity is healed. Apart from Christ, no suffering and dying person can be doing the perfect will of God, but, through Christ, this state of alienation is overcome. GOD CREATES FOR THE GOOD OF PERSONS God is perfectly good, and his intention in creating the world is only love. Being entirely perfect, and eternally happy in his own nature, God does not need anything from creation. He creates gratuitously as a pure and simple gift. God’s perfect will is that created persons receive the fullness of his generosity, and that they not be deprived of any good that is fitting to the created nature that he has given to them. In accordance with this goodness, God has never willed that any of the persons he created experience any kind of suffering.1 THE JUSTICE OF GOD In willing only the highest good of persons, it is impossible for God to directly will something that is second best, or to approve of some situation that deprives a person of a due good. This uncompromising fidelity to the highest possible degree of charity is God’s justice. In his justice, God does not directly will or in any way approve of something that involves deprivation or disorder for any reason. Hence, because of God’s justice, no suffering or dying person can be doing the perfect will of God.2 ORIGINAL JUSTICE In the original order of creation, all would have worked harmoniously in man’s experience, for all human actions would have been consistent with God’s justice. While remaining obedient to God, man would possess freedom to choose from among various goods, but because of the providential harmony that would have characterized the created order, any legitimate choice would be consistent with the choices and desires of all other human persons. Everything and 1 Throughout this book, the term “suffering” will refer to any situation in which a person experiences something less than the fullness of happiness that is willed by God. It is a deprivation of a due good, namely the absence of a good that a created person has a right to enjoy by the fact of God having the intention of bestowing a state of complete joy upon him. Things such as sickness and physical harm as well as psychological and emotional pain fall under this broad definition of suffering. Also included under this definition are things that may typically be considered trivial, such as a delay in having one’s wants met or a brief experience of loneliness or boredom. 2 This is to be understood only as pertaining to suffering and death apart from what Christ has accomplished in the redemption, which will be discussed over the course of this book. 2 everyone would have been in a unified providential relationship for the sake of the good of all. Each would always have what is proper, and the human experience would be one of happiness and wholeness. In the order of original justice, through perfect correspondence with the will of the creator, human beings would have been immune to all suffering and death. 3 SIN CAUSES DEPRIVATION Personal entities such as men and angels are endowed by God with a gift of free will. Used rightly, free will allows one to choose between goods and makes it possible to both give and receive love.4 It is an essential attribute of persons. However, through the abuse of freedom, it is possible to choose to act in ways that are contrary to the order of creation that God has established. Such an abuse of free will is called sin.5 God, in his perfect charity, has willed only that which is consistent with the highest good of persons in accord with their natures. By violating the just order of creation, sin causes man to experience something less than the perfect justice which God intends for humanity. Sin, being an event that is contrary to the harmony of the created order, interferes with the providence of undiminished happiness which God has desired for created persons. FALLEN MAN CANNOT RECEIVE THE GIFT OF GOD By the mere fact of being in a world that has ceased to correspond to God’s perfect justice, all human beings begin to experience at least some deprivation of the due good which God has intended. As man was never meant to sin, so it is that he was never meant to be in a world containing any measure of the suffering caused by sin. 6 Even a person who is innocent of any personal crimes against the created order is born separated from the perfect will of God because, in being part of a world that contains some measure of suffering, he experiences something less than the full beatitude which God intends. 7 God wants to give a gift of perfect joy that suffering humanity cannot receive.8 Those who are born after the original sin are born as displaced beings who are alienated from their proper destiny of undiminished joy. In justice, God has only willed man’s good; after the original sin, God’s love for man has not changed and cannot change. 9 3 This would have been the case regardless of whether or not there was conflict in the animal kingdom, or whether the body of man evolved through some evolutionary process over a period of time. Nothing in this book is meant to presuppose either the truth or the falsity of evolution, but only to affirm the particular dignity of man as taught by the Catholic Church. The immunity to suffering and death that would have characterized the life of man would have occurred through preternatural gifts, and does not depend on a denial of evolutionary hypotheses. The principle here is simply that God does not will anything that would deprive any person of a due good. The questions of evolution and the origin and implications of suffering and death in the animal kingdom are addressed at a later point in the text. 4 In its essential form, freedom is the ability to offer oneself in love to another. God, being perfect self-gift, is therefore perfectly free though he always chooses the highest and best thing for the sake of others. Apart from creation, God’s freedom is exemplified in the perfect act of self-offering which is the life of the Trinity. 5 The question of why God would not prevent the abuse of free will cannot be adequately treated until later in the text. 6 It is typically thought that some sufferings are small, and that right perspective necessitates a kind of insensitivity to those sufferings that would be considered insignificant. Children in particular are often thought of as being prone to exaggerate the importance of small matters. However, considering the original destiny of the human person, any suffering heralds the end of the world; it is the communication to the soul of the shattering of the original order of providence, and it signifies this destruction of right order both to the one who suffers directly and to those who share the world in which this suffering occurs. 7 The redemption ultimately reverses this situation, and allows a person to be in union with God even in their sufferings. This is discussed over the remainder of this text. Catholic doctrine holds that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was the first to participate in this new meaning of human life by the grace of God. 8 In this disunity, divine majesty is contradicted because the essence of God is self-gift. 9 God, being entirely perfect, is not subject to change. Therefore, necessarily, the immutable God does not change in response to sin. 3 However, God’s justice will not compromise to accept anything that is diminished from its original intent.10 MAN CANNOT RESTORE HIS LOST DESTINY Once sin has entered the human experience, some level of disorder begins to characterize all things in the life of man. After the original sin, all actions of human persons proceed from the context of an event that should never have happened. Consequently, the actions of fallen humanity necessarily stand in opposition to God’s desire for man’s highest good (and hence to right order) in at least some small way even if they are done with the very best of intentions. As such, no amount of human effort can restore man to the happiness which was lost.11 God is the source of all life and order, and now man exists in a state of disunity with the one source of life and order. This separation brings about increasing disorder in the life of man that eventually results in physical death. Because man was created with an immortal soul, his alienation from God is not ended with the physical disintegration of death. If left to itself, the soul would continue on in an unending estrangement from its creator. This disastrous contradiction of God’s intent for humanity is called hell.12 DISORDER MUST BE RECONCILED WITH GOD’S JUSTICE God, in his justice, has only willed the complete happiness of humanity, and the original sin has caused the horror of fallen immortality for all of mankind. God has not created man for hell, and does not will that anyone be lost.13 For mankind to be restored to correspondence with God’s justice, the deprivation and disorder in the life of man must somehow be harmonized with God’s perfect intention of highest charity for humanity.14 However, this reconciliation seems impossible because God would have to incorporate human suffering (which is, by definition, the deprivation of a due good) into his perfect will, which necessarily only seeks the highest good of persons. God cannot directly will suffering on another person because he is perfectly good and no person was created by God for the sake of pain, but only for happiness.15 However, if 10 In divine justice, God will not reduce his good intentions towards man to approve of the diminishment caused by sin. Because of this unwillingness to compromise with diminishment, it can be said that God’s justice results in a radical disunity between God and man which is (in a manner of speaking) tantamount to a condemnation of the entire human race. What seems like condemnation, however, is (paradoxically) a manifestation of unbounded charity; suffering man is alienated from his creator because God wills only what is highest and best for him, but man is unable to correspond to the gift. 11 This fact is confirmed in all utopian efforts. The disorder that characterizes man’s action after sin has entered the world is simply amplified by the consolidation of power, and any political effort of man to attain the perfect happiness that was lost brings about disaster in proportion to the amount of power that is put behind it. 12 The question of why God would not simply annihilate such a soul cannot be addressed until a later point. 13 God’s desire is to save humanity from the consequences of original sin, which (among other things) include suffering, death, and hell. God’s saving action towards fallen man is his mercy, but this saving action is also an extension of God’s just act of perfectly willing that which is highest and best for created persons. In this sense, God’s justice (the very thing which appears to bring about man’s eternal condemnation) and God’s mercy are convertible terms; they are both reducible to perfect charity. 14 It would not restore man’s lost destiny if God were to miraculously heal all of the disorder that sin has brought into the world. A suffering person, even if healed, has a life history that contains a time when he was not whole, and therefore was less than he should have been according to God’s original intention. Any apparent wholeness that a person would experience through healing would be diminished in some small measure by the broader context of past brokenness and frustration. When compared to the standard of perfectly integrated wholeness and beauty which God intends, a person who has suffered in any way (no matter how small) remains diminished and degraded by that suffering even if he is fully healed from it at a later time. Even the annihilation and re-creation of the world would not solve this problem, for the second creation would necessarily be degraded in at least some sense due to it being born out of the failure of the first world. As a world existing in a broader context of failure, it would be incompatible with God’s justice, which admits of no compromise with diminishment. 15 This does not mean that God cannot oppose the designs of a wicked person or nation, thereby causing suffering to those who deliberately persist in evil. However, even in this case, the suffering would not be directly willed by God, but would be a consequence of hardened persistence in evil in opposition to God’s good will toward humanity. At this point, the principle being 4 suffering and dying man is to be reconciled with God’s justice, then God must, somehow, directly ordain human suffering and death in a way that is in accord with his perfect will (that is, with absolute, uncompromising charity). THE INCARNATION REDEEMS SUFFERING MAN In order for God to perfectly will suffering in any sense, necessarily, he must either will it on another or on himself. For the reasons stated previously, God cannot directly will a destiny of suffering on another. Additionally, the divine nature, in itself, is not capable of being damaged or diminished in any way, and therefore cannot be subjected to suffering like that of the nature of fallen man. However, if God were to assume a human nature, then he could perfectly will to experience human suffering as an act of sacrificial love. God, without ceasing to be God, would take to himself a human body, mind and soul, and come into the fallen world to live as a man. Through the incarnation, God freely and perfectly wills to receive to himself the disorder and deprivation that have become the experience of all mankind. It would not be that God inflicts harm on himself, for this would be directly destructive and therefore an evil that is contrary to his goodness. Rather, God, in an act of love for the sake of solidarity with the fallen human race, perfectly accepts the injustices that come to him through the mere fact of being himself (namely, by loving without compromise) in the fallen world. In this act of love, God maintains his absolute opposition to human suffering while simultaneously embracing it totally in his own divine person. Through the incarnation, the suffering of one man, Jesus, is consistent with the perfect will of God. JESUS IS THE NEW PARADIGM OF MAN In the original order of creation, God had ordained that man would receive perfect happiness, but the advent of suffering and death have cancelled this original destiny. In Christ’s suffering, dying, and rising from the dead, God ordains a new, higher dignity and destiny for human nature that is not threatened by suffering and death. As true God and true man, Jesus is both the definer and model of the meaning of human life. In the new destiny that God ordains for man, it is not that God has compromised his perfect justice by accommodating the diminishment caused by suffering and death. Rather, God (in uniting human nature to himself) has raised man to a destiny that is infinitely higher than what would have been possible apart from the incarnation.16 This does not mean that the suffering and death of persons now become goods; they remain evils, but they are evils that no longer have the power to separate a person from God. Through the incarnation, God the Son is in perfect union with both God the Father and with the woundedness of humanity. If God, through human nature, has suffered, died, and has been raised from the dead, then suffering and death are no longer obstacles to the fullness of union with God. 17 expressed is only that suffering and death stand in contradiction to man’s original destiny, and is not meant to exclude the possibility that God and the angels can intervene to powerfully combat unrepented evil. 16 Nothing about this new destiny was shown in the first revelation, but much was shown in gradual exposition through subsequent experiences. What can be said here, though, is that the new meaning of life is incomparably greater than the one that was lost, and reverses all diminishment caused by sin, suffering and death. Apart from the incarnation, man would have enjoyed a happiness that was fitting to human nature. According to the new destiny of the human person in Christ, God brings man into the divine life of the Trinity, and bestows a joy which is, by nature, proper to God alone. 17 At this point, it was not shown how the diminishing effects of these evils were reversed in the lives of those who suffer, but only that this diminishment was somehow canceled through the life of Christ. Insight into the means by which this transformation takes place is given over the course of the remaining revelations. 5 The Second Revelation After years of trying to live virtuously, and after years of considering myself to have made much progress at virtue, I suddenly began to experience moral failure in new and greater ways that I had not previously considered possible to myself. I repented and confessed each sin immediately after I fell into it, but it seemed that I had no power to stop the descent into greater and greater evil. I tried to change, but despite my prayers and efforts, I continued to fail in ways that caused me to be surprised and horrified at what I was capable of doing. My desire and resolution to do good and avoid evil remained the same, but rather than continuing an upward climb to greater degrees of virtue, I was falling into evils that I had only thought appropriate to unrepentant sinners. In this process, I was being overcome with regrets. I believed that God had forgiven my sins, and I tried to forgive myself, but I could not have peace with the things I had done. No matter what, I would never be like those saints who had lived without offending God in great ways. My sins, even though forgiven, would exist as part of my past forever. Even if they were not held against me by God, they really happened, and I was ashamed by this. And yet, even with this ongoing accumulation of regret, I continued to fail in greater ways despite my desire to do what was right. There seemed to be no bottom, and I became very afraid. Then, immediately after going to confession on the occasion of another sin, I experienced a vision of my soul as a living darkness. The darkness extended beyond my sight in all directions, and was full of what seemed to be innumerable writhing snakes. This vision contradicted my previous self-understanding in which I considered the disorder in my soul to be something manageable that I could work on and gradually improve. I saw that there was nothing I could do to stop the evil within me from poisoning everything that I did. Any rallying of my own resources to improve myself would be another less-evident form of the very evil that I was trying to escape. I then saw, in a flash, that my sins have caused great disaster and harm throughout the world. The impact was not just limited to my personal relationship with God, or to those few people that I had hurt directly. Rather, through a ripple-effect of disorder, many disasters, sicknesses and accidents throughout the world were the result of my choices. I knew intellectually that my actions had consequences, but I had never been truly aware that my sinful actions had serious consequences that affected everyone. This vision only lasted for a few seconds, but the total helplessness that I experienced caused an inner panic that was more frightening than anything that I had previously known. I believed that I was in the state of grace because I had just made an honest confession before Mass. So, despite seeing this vision, I went to communion. Immediately after receiving communion, I experienced another vision in which St. Therese of Lisieux appeared to me wearing her Carmelite habit and smiling, but she had large bat-like wings on her back and a long, pointed devil’s tail. Interiorly I heard her say, “Given a long enough time, everyone becomes a devil.” With this sentence came the knowledge that each soul is characterized by the same terrifying disorder that I saw within myself, but this fundamental disorder may not have yet encountered the life circumstances that would cause it to manifest in visible and seriously evil actions. Apart 6 from a radical intervention of God, each human being is in the process of falling apart morally; all virtue that is not supernaturally infused as a gift from God ultimately deteriorates into vice, and it is only a matter of time before this deterioration shows forth in egregious ways. At the same time that I saw this, I was given the knowledge that St. Therese’s life was such that if her life circumstances had been substantially other than what they were, the disorder within her would have had a chance to manifest in overt and grievous ways as it has been doing in me. She could not have done anything to save herself from this process of failure; only a total intervention of the mercy of God could deliver her from evil. Even though she did not sin in serious ways, she required an absolute rescue of divine mercy, and this is the same rescue of divine mercy that I will require with my many sins. We were both in need of the mercy of God totally. I realized that my feeling of peace had always depended on having few sins rather than on God having infinite mercy, and this dependence on perceiving myself as being beautiful before God caused me to be afraid to realize my total helplessness and inner ugliness. In knowing that all persons had the same fundamental disorder, I knew that there was no need to be afraid to see the evil in myself, for it was common to all. I knew that must still try with all my effort to do good and avoid evil, for anything less would be a deliberate embrace of evil and therefore a refusal of God’s grace, but it was clear that my deliverance would come only from God in accord with his time. Where despair would have been in knowledge of my own helplessness, there was now peace and a joyful hope of what God would do. I did not need an inner beauty of my own to offer to God, for my only hope for salvation was God’s mercy and his power to bring good from evil. UNIVERSAL CAUSAL CONNECTION AND THE AMPLIFICATION OF DISORDER All entities in nature are causally interconnected. A change in any one object in the natural world brings about a change in every other object to some degree. 18 Because God created the natural world in a harmony, it follows that when a person, through the abuse of free will, brings about an event that should never have happened, then all things are affected in a way that they should not be affected.19 This disordered change may initially be very small, but it grows in magnitude over time. Just as a small change in the initial conditions of a system can have large-scale consequences,20 so it is that sinful acts (which are inherently contrary to God’s will and providence) have long-range effects that are contrary to God’s will and providence on a grand scale. A creature lacking free will is not capable of initiating actions that are contrary to the order 18 This much is understood scientifically in (at least) the recognition that each material object exerts some measure of gravitational force on every other object. 19 The primary disruption of the harmony of the world happened through the original sin because it directly contradicted the wellordered state of affairs of original justice. Subsequent disordered actions have less of an obviously disruptive effect because their impact is, in a sense, engulfed by the broad chaos that followed the original sin. 20 For example, it is recognized that an event as seemingly insignificant as the flapping of a butterfly's wings might bring about very small changes in the atmosphere which, over a period of time, cause vastly different global weather patterns that would not have occurred otherwise. The flapping wings are a small change in the initial conditions of an interconnected system of events. The small variation in the initial conditions of the system causes a chain of events leading to large-scale phenomena. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the long-term weather patterns might have been entirely different. 7 of creation, but human beings, through the abuse of free will are capable of actions that violate God’s intentions for the world. PERSONAL SINS BRING ABOUT ACCIDENTS AND DISASTERS Through a personal and private act of sin, there is a ripple-effect of destructive disordered occurrences. A storm that would have watered crops can fail to come, or it can become a deluge that destroys villages. Acts that should not have happened can cause mutations that affect living things in ways that they should not be affected, thus bringing about deadly microbes, cancers, birth defects and other problems. Personal sins are ultimately the cause of all human experience of sicknesses, accidents, and natural disasters.21 Because of the impact of sin, everything in the natural world is dislocated in some measure, and man suffers the consequences of unfortunate events that are at variance with God’s original design. The innocent are as vulnerable to accidents, sicknesses, and disasters as are those who commit the sins that cause them. The disorder brought by sin falls where it will without any regard for justice or the dignity of human life. These events are the senseless, large-scale consequence of individual violations of the right order of reality that God has established. They do not make sense because they originate in sin, which is inherently contrary to order and reason. PROVIDENCE AND DISASTER In human experience, there are often coincidences that suggest that some kind of divine providence is at work. It sometimes seems that the smallest needs of people are given attention by God, and man has evidence of his maximal importance. In contrast, there are experiences of tragic suffering that suggest that man is totally unimportant and that there is no providence at all. This juxtaposition of apparent providential care and senseless tragedy is stark and scandalous. It seems that God helps a person with small problems in answer to prayer, while an earthquake on the other side of the world brings devastation to an entire nation. To attempt to make sense of this disparity, some have said that all things are God’s will, and that the events that seem like horrible violations of man’s dignity are really sent by God to bring about a good beyond human comprehension. Alternatively, others say that man is without help in the universe, and what appears to be divine providence is merely a psychological illusion. On this view, the coincidences that seem to imply supernatural intervention are really just a matter of man’s interpretation of reality according to wishful thinking. Neither of these opposing views is correct. SIN CAUSES THE WORLD TO SEEM AS IF GOD DOES NOT EXIST God exists, and wills man’s good, but because of the disorder that has been caused by sin, the world is no longer operating in obedience to God’s perfect will according to the original order of creation. As sin is against God’s will, so it is that the far-reaching effects of sin are also against God’s will. These effects of sin are universally broad, and they affect everyone negatively in different ways. Because they are incompatible with the providence that man expects from God, these amplified consequences of sin cause the world to seem as if God does not exist. Man suffers because he has the experience of finding himself in a world that has no concern for him. However, in the midst of this apparent non-existence of divine providence are instances of 21 This is not to say that if there were no sin, there would not be powerful natural events, like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. However, the providential relationship between these events and the events in human life would have been vastly different. On the original order of things, man would be preternaturally protected from catastrophe by being in right relationship with all things through perfect correspondence with the divine will, and all would have worked in his service. 8 answered prayer and the visible providence of God in those situations where the effects of sin have not totally overwhelmed the proper order of things. Both senseless disaster and solicitous providential care are happening at the same time.22 MAN FACES A SITUATION THAT GOD DID NOT INTEND The present state of affairs in the world is not God’s design for man, but is an unjust perversion of God’s original design. Man faces an unfair and unnatural situation by being born into the world as it is.23 Man was created to experience God’s provision in an uninterrupted way, but has lost access to the harmony that would have governed the original order, and he suffers greatly as a result. Human desires for love, safety, importance, community, and such were not created by God for the sake of being frustrated and contradicted by the facts of reality, but so that these desires would be fulfilled, and man would have joy. HUMAN NATURE IS DRIVEN TO SEEK THE ORDER OF ORIGINAL JUSTICE In the right order of things, each would always have what is proper, and there would be no conflict between desire and reality.24 This harmonious order of perfect providence has been shattered by the effects of sin, but man’s nature was created for this original harmony and still expects it to be there for him. Man is inclined by his nature to fulfill the desires that God has placed within him according to the original order of creation, and is therefore born with an inclination to achieve perfect wholeness and well-being all of the time. After the original sin, man inherits this same nature from his first parents. Human nature is suited only to a world of uninterrupted providence, but now man finds himself in a world containing injustice and pain. After the original sin, the human person retains free will in essence, but the God-given desires of human nature continue to relentlessly seek the justice of the original order of creation.25 THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF NATURAL HAPPINESS The world in its current form is full of events that should never have happened, and every human situation is afflicted by some measure of disorder. Consequently, any act of seeking total satisfaction will now be met with frustration. Every act of seeking the fulfillment of God-given desires causes man to come into conflict with the disordered facts of external reality and with other people who are also attempting to find perfect fulfillment in a broken world. In any given situation, one’s action must substantially consist of one of two options; he can be loyal to his own interests at the expense of others, or he can put the interests of others above his own at the expense of having his desires go unfulfilled. To seek one’s own good at the expense of others will not bring happiness, for man is inherently a communal being whose authentic joy depends on right relationship with God and other people. However, to choose to oppose the drive to fulfill 22 Despite potential appearances to the contrary, nothing in this assertion is meant to deny God’s omnipotence, omniscience or omnibenevolence. This tension cannot be adequately addressed until a later point in the text. 23 The question of why God would allow anyone to be born into a fallen world cannot be addressed until later. 24 After the original sin, man experiences that he is a menagerie of desires that are often contradictory and irrational. It is not that these desires would have been fulfilled in the original order in all their irrationality, but rather, as the harmony of God’s providence governed the external facts of man’s existence, so it would also govern the internal events of the human heart. It is not that reality would accommodate destructive and irrational combinations of desires, but that desire itself would be subject to right order in conjunction with providential harmony of the external world. 25 As legitimate needs go unmet by what would have been sources of fulfillment in original justice, they persist in ways that drive a person to try to meet the need through any distorted and abnormal means available. Human nature seeks to alleviate pain, no matter what the cost in other areas where it feels less pain. Hence, a person can act in very self-destructive ways under the compulsion of addiction that is driven by important needs that have gone unjustly unmet due to the disorder in the world. 9 all of one’s desires in favor of serving the good of others is to choose an immediate increase in suffering, and human nature rebels against this choice because it was not meant to suffer. At all times, man is forced to choose one deprivation or the other. He is faced with a dilemma where either option forces him to experience a situation that is against the inclinations of his nature. By being created for perfection, yet dwelling in chaos, human nature becomes divided against itself, and is in constant conflict. THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF NATURAL CHARITY To love is to act for the sake of the highest good of another. God’s will in the original order of creation was that human beings love one another fully, and this has not changed after the original sin. However, in the present state of affairs, man finds it impossible, naturally speaking, to perfectly practice this imperative of love because he is (rightly and justly) inclined towards perfect fulfillment of all desires. Selfishness, which is the refusal to suffer for the good of another, stems from the fact that human nature is created for the order of original justice in which there is no conflict between desire and reality. It is rooted in this dislocated goodness of human nature. Man can make the choice to seek the good of others, but as he encounters suffering, his own nature opposes him. This is not because he is created evil, but specifically because (in accord with God’s justice) he is created for a world of perfect order and provision. Because human nature was not created for suffering, man cannot perform perfectly in an unnatural combat against the inclinations of his own being. Human nature was not designed to fight itself, but was created by God for perfect harmony and unity. A person can hate his selfishness, resist it violently, and yet will submit to selfish behavior again and again because he was not made to be at war with himself. 26 In this unfortunate state, any act that appears to be done in charity will always be tainted with an admixture of selfish motives.27 It is impossible for fallen man (on his own natural power) to be single-minded in charity due to the constant opposition that the legitimate needs of his own nature produce within him. LOVE AND SACRIFICE The essence of love is unconditional self-gift. The need for self-sacrifice is something that comes about as a result of the world operating in violation of God’s will due to the large-scale effects of sin. In the Holy Trinity, there is infinite and perfect love, but this love does not involve suffering or deprivation. There is perfect self-gift of one divine person to another, but not self-sacrifice. Similarly, in heaven, there is perfect love, but this love is not at the expense of personal wellbeing. It was not God’s desire that love of others would require sacrifice or an inner struggle of any kind. God’s intention for man was that none would be deprived of any due good, and that love would not require pain. In original justice, any person could give of himself in ways that would serve the desires of others without having to forego his own fulfillment. It was the intent of Satan, not of God, that pain and frustration would afflict all created things, and it is only because of the effects of the original sin that love now entails pain. As it is now, the only way 26 Suppression of desire by force of will is followed by violent upheaval of that desire or bizarre manifestation of the desire in other areas of life. 27 In not wanting to perceive the selfishness within, man deceives himself and disowns his selfish motives, but because his nature is what it is (regardless of one’s willingness to see), these motives continue to influence his behavior independently of his approval. In the light of God, these selfish motives are gradually exposed, and one becomes afraid to see more, but, as a person remains in the truth, these selfish motives are shown to be nothing but dislocated originally good desires that have unjustly gone unfulfilled in a damaged world. When this truth is seen, one can be healed of the fear of seeing his selfishness, and (in accepting the truth about himself) can refer the entirety of his being to God’s mercy. If man persists in disowning aspects of himself for fear of self-knowledge, he cannot offer himself to the mercy of God because he does not truly possess himself. 10 that authentic love can exist in the fallen world is if it is sacrificial. One person foregoes the fulfillment of certain desires and suffers for the sake of the good of another. GOD DOES NOT ASK MAN TO SACRIFICE BY NATURAL POWER Human beings were not created for suffering, and any attempt of man to love others sacrificially by the power of human nature alone is therefore intrinsically disordered and destined to fail. True self-sacrifice is possible only to God who is infinite love and infinite power and who, therefore, cannot be threatened by suffering. God does not ask human beings to love sacrificially on their own power because such a thing would be asking the impossible. Truly sacrificial love is only possible to a human person when God’s love is supernaturally put into that person. When man is infused with supernatural power from God, then human nature is capacitated to love in a way that transcends its natural resistance to suffering. Through this infusion of supernatural power, God can enable a person to heroically and joyfully endure great struggles and deprivations for the good of others. If a person is not operating with this supernatural power of charity, then all apparent acts of love are tainted with selfishness, which will reveal itself as such in due time.28 DIVINE POSSESSION OF HUMAN FACULTIES The infusion of divine love that enables a person to transcend the limits of human nature presupposes that the human person willingly consents to allow God to possess its faculties and operate freely through them. This relationship is only possible with the ongoing permission of man. God, in his goodness, will not force himself on man, and therefore a person can remain on his own if he so chooses. 29 If one consents to this intervention of God, there is a gradual transfiguration of the soul such that it is capacitated to become free to consent to allow God to act through it in greater ways. As God is given permission to possess more of a person, that person is enabled to love authentically, and ultimately in heroic ways through a supernatural power that is imparted from God. This possession of the soul by God is not one of domination, but of man’s continued self-offering that is both empowered by and gratefully received by God. Indeed, the self-offering is mutual, for it is only God’s offer of himself to the soul that enables the soul to offer itself to God.30 28 The flesh can seek its needs in sophisticated ways that appear to be authentically sacrificial. Apart from supernatural power operating within a person to enable transcendence of the limits of human nature, acts of religious practice, beneficent service, and such are movements from one evil to another. This does not mean that a person can have no good will, but only that natural virtue will always contain an admixture of selfish motives that will poison all areas of life. 29 In not being willing to see and offer one’s inner ugliness to God, one tries to compensate such as to make oneself beautiful to God by attempting to love through natural power. A person may pray that certain faults be removed, but such prayers can be an evasion of God rather than growth in holiness because the soul is really acting from the unwillingness to experience its own poverty. Eventually, this disordered mode of action exacts enough of a toll on a person such that one is thrown back onto his own poverty with no hope of escape. In this humiliation, one will either despair or (through responding to the invitation of the Holy Spirit) allow God to begin to save him. 30 God does not perfectly possess a person without allowing that person to possess him as well. This self-offering of God is more fully addressed in the other revelations. It is this gift of God which reconciles man to God’s perfect justice and restores his lost destiny. Through the transforming union in which God and the soul mutually possess one another, man is supernaturally empowered with the capacity to transcend selfishness and to love God and others with God’s own love. In this renewed freedom, man can offer himself to God and others perfectly. Before this freedom is gained through supernatural transformation, even though one has good will, and desires to love God and others, he is necessarily at war with himself, others, and even with the God he loves because of the remaining untransformed aspects of his nature. 11 The Third Revelation On one occasion before Mass, I prayed that God would come to possess me fully so that I would be able to do his will with my life. As I prayed this, I experienced a kind of fear that made God appear to be a malevolent threat to every aspect of my well-being. Because of this fear, I felt that I was unable to authentically mean what I prayed. There was a resistance in my nature to the presence of God that I could not remove. I then began to experience very bad temptations. It felt as if the only possible good for me was to be found in indulging in sinful actions. While I was suffering from these temptations, I then experienced (seemingly without cause) a strong awareness of my fear of the judgment of others. I saw that many of my actions were motivated by fear of judgment. A moment after experiencing these things, I then saw that my fear of the opinions of others originated in my fear of the judgment of God. I realized that if I knew that God thought well of me, I would not be afraid of the opinions of others. But, because I could not find solace in God for fear of his judgment, I would continue to seek solace in the opinions of others and in sin. I saw that if I continued to live in this fear of God’s judgment, I would not be able to act in accord with perfect love, and therefore my actions would cause suffering to myself and others. I asked the Lord to give me an experience of his judgment so that I might no longer be afraid. After communion, I experienced the presence of Jesus in what felt like a glance from his eyes in which he looked at me with love. I saw that his love is what I have always wanted in everything that I have ever done. In this experience in which I saw him seeing me, I became aware of the totality of the actions of my life. The sight of the contrast between Jesus’ perfect love for me and the way that I had chosen to live made it so that I did not want him to see me. In the sight of perfect love, I had lived my life as if I were not loved. I saw that I had given up on the possibility of this perfect love long ago because of the pain that I had experienced. I had done this without fully realizing what I was doing, and because of this act of giving up, I had lived my whole life in waste and fear. In seeing my choices in contrast with this perfect love, which continued to love me as if I were totally innocent, I felt shame that was greater than any shame that I had considered possible. I was aware that there was nothing that I could do to change what I had done with my life, or to change the fact that my actions would always exist in the sight of God. Everything was permanent. Jesus then said, “Give me your sins.” I had been giving him my sins for years in the sacrament of reconciliation and through prayers of contrition. But when he said “Give me your sins,” I experienced this as something new. I saw 12 that to give him my sins would wound him horribly. I didn’t want to do it. I only wanted to love him, but I couldn’t love him because I was ashamed to have him look at me. I said, “Lord, you will never have my sins. I can’t hurt you.” He said, “If there were another way, we could do it that way. If you do not give me your sins, I will not be able to help you.” I then saw that Jesus had already taken my sins to himself and had been wounded by them before asking my permission. He was asking me to accept this reality. I had to consent to the violence as if I were striking him with my own hand. I wanted to throw myself into hell rather than agree to wound perfect love. It was too painful to be with him, and even though he welcomed me, I wanted to be away from him. For the first time, I understood why a soul would desire hell rather than choose to accept God’s mercy. I felt that I had no power within myself to obey the Lord’s command to give him my sins. I only wanted to keep my sins from him. Suddenly, I experienced an awareness of all the communions and sacramental confessions of my life as simultaneously present. In a way that I do not understand, through the power in these past events made present in this one moment, I was then able to say “Yes, you may take my sins,” but I knew my “yes” had been said in fragmentary ways over many years without fully understanding what was happening. God was now giving me the power to do what he was asking of me. When I was able to give the Lord permission to suffer for me, the experience of his presence ended, and I wept for a long time. THE LOVE OF GOD IS UNCHANGING God is a single eternal act of infinite love that is not subject to diminishment or change. Consequently, it is impossible for the love of God to change in response to sin. God regards the sinner with the same love and acceptance as he would regard one who is totally innocent.31 THE SOUL IS JUDGED BY THE MERCY OF GOD God’s action is always one of self-gift, and the judgment is no different. The judgment of God is simply the full awareness of the self-gift of God to the soul. In judgment, the Lord simply looks at the soul with love (which reveals perfect truth about oneself), and asks that the soul accept his mercy. That is, he asks that the soul consent to the wounds of Christ for the sake of the 31 The “wrath” of God is not a change in God’s love towards a person; it is the opposition between a person acting contrary to God’s will and the entire order of being. Even though it does not involve any change in God’s intention, the disharmony between the sinner and reality is worse than any picture of divine wrath that can be imagined. It entails that the sinner does not fit into reality at all; it is as if all of being is his enemy. Eventually, all illusions fall away, and truth becomes very clear such as to show this experience of non-belonging in full horror. This alienation of the soul is hell, and it is experienced in partial ways even before death as one engages in sin and experiences its consequences. God seeks out each soul with omnipotent effort so that it may not have to suffer hell. 13 forgiveness of sins.32 The act of accepting Christ’s suffering may seem easy when considered in a merely notional way, but to understand that one has wounded perfect love can be the greatest of pains such that a soul may choose to condemn itself in despair rather than be in the presence of the perfectly innocent one who was wounded.33 DESTINY IS DETERMINED BY THE FREE RESPONSE TO GOD’S MERCY It is not sin in and of itself that determines a person’s ultimate destiny, but the acceptance or refusal of God’s mercy. A person who definitively chooses to reject the mercy of God will be condemned of himself and God will be forced to seal the judgment. God does everything in his power to save the soul that may try to condemn itself, but he cannot force a person to freely respond to his love. God is forced to let the unrepentant sinner have his way out of respect for the free will that has been given, and he must allow this tragic separation to occur if the soul wills it.34 TO FALLEN MAN, GOD IS SUBJECTIVELY SEEN AS A THREAT On the original order of creation, a person would have intimacy with God, but would also be in a state of perfect unblemished righteousness such that there would be no shame or fear in the divine presence. Man was created for well-being and righteousness and therefore was not intended to experience the knowledge of being in an unnatural and disordered state that requires radical intervention and reordering. When presented with evidence of his disorder, man’s nature automatically shrinks from this knowledge as it would recoil from the heat of an intense flame. The response of accepting God’s mercy is not simply an easy mental assent to the concept of needing mercy, but is something contrary to fallen human nature in almost every way. Human nature does not resist God because it is evil in itself, but because it (in being created good) was meant to know its own beauty and righteousness with no stain or diminishment, and was not created for knowledge of its sin and disorder.35 God is the only authentic happiness for man, but fallen man is moved by his own natural goodness to see God’s saving approach as a deathdealing threat.36 32 When Jesus receives the wounds of human sinfulness in his own being, it is not something that happens to him against his will. He offers himself freely and without reluctance so that sin may be taken away. There is no trace of disapproval or disappointment in his act of self-sacrifice. 33 This shame cannot be imagined or anticipated until it is experienced. For one who loves God, it is greater than any pain of heart other than hell itself. Indeed, if one were to choose to be damned it would be because the pain of the loss of God for eternity is subjectively seen as preferable to the pain of being in his presence. 34 Instances of this same resistance to God happen in small and incomplete ways all throughout life as a person evades those truths which would cause him to be humbled. If a soul is thoroughly disposed to avoid truth in small matters, then in the fullness of the presence of God, this orientation of avoiding the light of truth will be much more extreme, and may become absolute – resulting in total resistance to God despite every effort of God to save it. 35 Fallen human nature, apart from the fullness of the transformation that the Holy Spirit brings about, is compelled to resist God even if man desires in his heart to love God more perfectly. Hence, even if a person were to beg God to transform him all at once, thinking that his desire for transformation was pure, God could not do it because there would still be divided aspects of the person which remain at enmity with God and forbid his access. In light of this, God does not blame man for his natural resistance, but loves uncompromisingly and persists until the battle of transformation is won. The Holy Spirit gradually lets those of good will know a little bit more about their faults, and as this painful new knowledge is gained, the soul (in possessing more of itself) is then free to offer itself more fully to God so that the he may continue to transform it supernaturally. 36 This is not to say that God does not offer consolations as well, but the penetration of his light into the soul for the sake of supernatural transformation is necessarily (because of the unnaturalness of seeing one’s own poverty) experienced as something that is desolating and disturbing. 14 DIVINE HIDDENNESS IS A GIFT Man is not designed to face his sinfulness and rely on mercy, and therefore he cannot stand in the light of truth until he is transformed by supernatural action to have the freedom to do so. In asking man to accept the fullness of divine mercy, God is asking him to do something that is impossible in natural terms. One may say intellectually, “I am a sinner who is in need of mercy” or “Christ died for my sins”, but this is not to know the reality. If either of these realities were to be shown in its fullness, it would be too painful to bear unless the soul were already fully transformed by the grace of God. Not seeing the whole truth about one’s sin in the present moment is what keeps the Earth from being identical with purgatory or hell. It is not possible to maneuver one’s mind to the knowledge of how one stands before God, for man’s nature is not made to know his sin, and therefore this knowing is only available supernaturally. God has to show it, and he does not show it all at once because it would be too destructive. In hidden ways, through prayer and through the sacraments, the power of God penetrates and transforms the soul in a manner that is fitting to an individual’s capacity, and is therefore mostly hidden. A person is gradually transfigured by supernatural power and thereby capacitated to stand in the light of God and receive his love in greater ways. The soul’s many small acts of invitation37 give God the freedom to begin to possess a person such as to gradually bring about transformation without there being a violent clash.38 As gently as possible, the nature of man is transformed as the life of God increases within him. FINITE PLEASURES ARE PREFERRED TO THE INFINITE GOOD Man is made for intimacy with God, and as such is driven by the desire of his heart to be satisfied with nothing less than an infinite good. Fallen man is seeking God in all of his actions, but at the same time (naturally speaking), he prefers anything to God because God’s saving action reveals man’s sin, his interior poverty, and the need for mercy. In fearing to come into the truth, and resisting the supernatural transformation that God wants to bring about, a person must seek finite goods in disordered proportions to try to make up for the lack of the infinite good that would be found in God. Authentic communion with others becomes impossible,39 and fallen man must lay hold of finite goods in such a way as to attempt to satiate an infinite desire. This infinite desire can only be fulfilled when a person is truly possessed by God, and this can only come when a person can stand in the light of truth without evasion through God’s grace. 37 When considered on its own, the soul is not able to consent to allow God to begin to transform it, but God’s grace simultaneously both invites and supernaturally empowers the soul to go beyond its natural capacity in order to respond to God’s invitation. Through this supernatural empowering, the soul is enabled (if it so wills) to begin to allow God to transform it. As soon as any consent is given, the process of supernatural transformation begins and requires the continued consent of the soul, which is also empowered supernaturally. If the invitation is spurned, God does not give up, but continues to approach the soul offering it the supernatural power to begin to consent to the transformation he desires to give. 38 If a person were to avoid this approach of God through life, then at death (when there is no possibility of distraction through earthly events) there would be a sudden confrontation with the truth that one has been purposefully avoiding. This confrontation with the truth and the process of supernatural transformation of the soul (provided this is desired by the person) without the distractions that characterize life on Earth is purgatory. 39 True relationship with others is only possible to a person when the gaze of God is not something to be feared. If a person does not want God to see him, then he will not be able to authentically relate to others because he will not want others to see him either. His actions will be oriented towards concealment of the truth about self and manipulation of others to bolster a false security. Of course, there are degrees of this, and the greater and lesser degrees correspond to the measure that the Holy Spirit has been allowed to transform the soul through grace. 15 THE WORLD IS PASSING AWAY Everything in the natural world is doomed to failure because of the disorder caused by sin. Satan wants man to set his heart on those things that are guaranteed to fail, but God wants man to set his heart on that which will not fail (namely, on the total self-gift of God). The advance of the Holy Spirit causes a person to become detached from the things of the world, and this entails a detachment from all natural security whatsoever, for all natural security is in the process of passing away. Compounding the problem of fallen man’s inherent resistance to God (for fear of knowing one’s interior poverty) is the fact that the soul perceives God as a threat who ruthlessly attacks every natural security. It seems that God wants to separate the soul from everything that is good. As a consequence, man is afraid to give God permission to have his way because human nature fears that all goods will be taken. In truth, God is not doing any of the taking, but things are slipping away on their own. For the sake of man’s happiness, God wants to cause it to be that the human heart is not set upon that which is passing. GRACE IS OFFERED TO CAUSE SOME SUFFERING TO BE INSTRUCTIVE The healing that God wants to give requires a severing of disordered attachments, and this detachment is necessarily resisted by human nature. Those who do evil and continue to hold onto disordered attachments will exact a price on themselves as things slip away due to the various disorders of the fallen world. Amidst the sufferings that are inevitably produced from man’s natural grasping of that which is in the process of falling apart, God’s grace is continually offered so that the pain that is experienced might be instructive.40 God calls to man in his suffering, asking him to give permission to bring about the supernatural transformation that will save him. God does not send the pain in itself (it is the effects of the sin of the world that does this), but offers his grace to cause the pain to lead to him. GOD DID NOT INTEND THE SPIRITUAL LIFE TO BE DIFFICULT The knowledge of one’s total poverty and the detachment from all natural security are necessary, but these painful experiences are not what God originally wanted for man. He did not intend man’s relationship with him to be difficult in any way. Human beings were never meant to have to let go of natural security or the sense of their own beauty and rightness. These things were a gift from God, and it is man’s nature (by God’s own design) to hold onto the gift. It is only because all aspects of the fallen world are in the process of failure that a person is asked by God to cooperate with him in letting go of every security in the natural order. Sin has destroyed the right order of the world, and God is trying to save man from a destroyed world. Man’s nature is to hold on to that which pleases, but now he can only be saved by letting go. It is entirely beyond human capacity to behold one’s inner poverty, or to detach from natural security, and therefore a person cannot do these things unless God infuses the power to do so into that person. Led by the Holy Spirit, man must ask for the gift to be able to accept the mercy of God, and to let go of disordered attachments. 40 When man resists God’s grace repeatedly and in deliberate ways, his heart becomes hardened, and he sets himself on a course that is difficult to change. It often requires serious suffering to come into a person’s life before there is any permission given to God to deliver him from evil. 16 DETACHMENT IS NOT STOICISM The detachment that God asks of man is not the same as stoicism. It is not a detachment that comes from building up one’s ability to tolerate an absence of the good. If a person achieves what would be considered a kind of proficiency for suffering or a detachment from created things on their own natural power, it is only because of an inner deadening or disassociation that they have inflicted upon themselves.41 This inner numbness is something that God will have to heal, and is itself one of the disordered attachments that will have to be relinquished. It is impossible to become proficient at suffering with love according to natural power, for man’s nature is simply not designed for such a thing. The detachment that God gives is something that proceeds from an infused superabundance that comes as a gift of God to the soul. The consequence of this inner abundance is that the attachment to created securities is crowded out and replaced by an attachment to that which does not pass away.42 Instead of becoming less sensitive to suffering (as would be the case in stoicism), a person becomes ever more sensitive to that which contradicts God’s order, but also acts through a bestowed supernatural power to love God above created things. Thereby, a person is given a proper perspective such as to let go of that which is passing through a miracle of God’s grace. The soul’s work is not to become adept at suffering, but to ask the Holy Spirit for this supernatural transformation in prayer without intentionally putting additional obstacles in the way through deliberate sin. The duty of the soul is simply to receive that which God wants to give. 41 A stoic, in addition to causing interior wounds by becoming oblivious to his own suffering, also becomes oblivious to the suffering of others, and this is a failure to love. 42 It is possible that a person may receive this inflow without feeling it. However, if the infusion were to stop, and such a person were left to the operation of human nature alone, then the lack would be felt most keenly. For one receiving this supernatural infusion, the same power is given regardless of the state of one’s feelings, and through it, the ability to correspond to the will of God is given in a supernatural way. 17 The Fourth Revelation On another occasion, after Mass, I received what I believed was the inspiration to have a series of Masses said in reparation for the damage caused by the sins of my life. I did not understand the theology behind this, but I knew that I had done very much harm to myself and others through my sin, and that prayer to heal and repair the damage that I had done could only be beneficial. Towards the end of the long series of Masses, immediately after receiving communion, I was given an experience in which the shame and regret for the sins of my life was replaced with the knowledge that, according to God, I had always done the most perfect thing at all times. I saw that through the blood of Christ, my whole life had been perfectly in God’s will, even while I was sinning. I did not understand how it could be possible that I have always been perfectly in God’s will, for my past contained many things that were obviously against his will. Despite not understanding how it could possibly be true, the experience persisted, and I continued to see that everything that I had ever done was, according to God, the most perfect thing that could have been done. Prior to this experience, shame for the pervasive evils of my life had always been present in at least some degree, but now shame was taken away, and a gift of God-given innocence was set in its place. It seemed wrong to be this free. I believed that the blood of Christ was able to take away sin, but I had never imagined that it was effective to this degree. According to what I was seeing, it seemed that God had rewritten the entire order of reality around my actions so that there was no disunity between what I had done and his perfect will. In knowing that, according to God’s judgment, I had always done that which was most perfect, it became possible to stand in the presence of God without shame. In seeing that, according to God, everything was as it ought to have been, true happiness became possible again. This was beyond forgiveness as I understood it. I had no pre-existing concepts for this, and I would not have been able to ask for it. I asked the Lord to give me some understanding of how this could possibly be a reality, for it was difficult to accept this vision of things; it seemed too good to be true. Shortly after my request to understand, and after receiving communion on a different occasion, I was given an experience in which I saw that Jesus has identified himself with each person, and has accepted the pain of each as his own. In this identification with all others, I saw that what I have done to anyone (including what I have done to myself), I have done to him. I had believed in a conceptual way that the Lord had identified with every person, but in having this new experience, I realized that I had never truly recognized the Lord in others or in myself. I found it much easier to commit offenses against the dignity of people in the ordinary and mundane activities of life than I did to give consent to wounding the Lord (as was asked of me) in 18 the experience of the third revelation. However, in this new moment of understanding, I saw clearly that all of these offenses against myself and others are taken by Christ as his own wounds, and this wounding of the Lord is truly the same reality as what was presented in the third revelation. I then saw that Jesus accepted all of this pain perfectly, without any reservation. He accepted it from all eternity, in full knowledge of what I would do, as an act of love for me. In his choice to perfectly accept this pain without any trace of disappointment or disapproval, the Lord has made it so that I have been in accord with his perfect will at all points in my life – even while sinning. The consequences of my sins are his wounds, and he has accepted his wounds in perfect love without entertaining the least consideration of how things could have been otherwise. According to him, everything is as it ought to have been. This is how my sin exists before God – as wounds on the body of Christ that have been perfectly willed by God from all eternity. ALL ACTIONS ARE FOREVER A PART OF BEING Everything that has ever happened has occurred before God, who is all knowing and perfectly just. Every act of every person remains a part of reality permanently because it exists before God’s omniscience forever. In his justice, God wills only the highest and best thing according to what is fitting for man, and his justice will not compromise to give approval to something that is a diminishment or deprivation of man’s due good. God’s justice must reject everything that is imperfect. 43 GOD’S JUSTICE IS HIS LOVE In his justice, God is a perfectionist, but his unwillingness to approve of something that has been diminished from its proper dignity and destiny does not come from self-interest. Everything of God is directed towards others in self-gift, and God’s justice is relentlessly uncompromising in terms of his concern about the well-being and dignity of man. His justice will not accept anything less than what is highest and best in accord with what is fitting to man’s nature, and so any diminishment that has been caused by sin must be reversed such that the sinner is restored to a state of total innocence. The sinner is seen by God as one who has suffered a great lack, and this lack is considered by God to be in need of repayment. The sinner shall not be acceptable to God until his repented sin has no power to bring about any diminishment to the dignity and beauty of the human person. THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE PAST In order to be fully reconciled to God, the sinner’s past must be transformed into perfection by a divine intervention that changes the very meaning of past sins in their essence. Repentance and simple forgiveness are not enough. God’s justice requires that a complete restoration of innocence take place. By this high standard, the type of forgiveness in which faults are simply overlooked is not sufficient, for damage would continue to remain in the life of man even after this forgiveness was received. If God were not able to bring about a real transformation of the past, such that he could (in all truth) declare it perfect to the satisfaction of his justice, then the sinner would remain forever diminished by the effects of sin, and true peace with God would 43 This was originally explained in the first revelation. 19 remain impossible. No effort on the part of the sinner can accomplish this transformation, for only God can make a sinner perfectly innocent again. RECEIVING THE FULLNESS OF GOD’S JUSTICE IS NECESSARY FOR SALVATION It is a mistake to say that sinful man is saved from God’s justice by his mercy, for that would entail that God saves the sinner from another aspect of God’s own nature. On such a view, God is both the problem and the solution, and, as such, there is no possibility of loving God fully because man knows in his heart that such a divided deity cannot authentically be worthy of worship. In truth, God is perfect, and is not in conflict with himself in any way. God’s mercy and his justice are simply love,44 for his will is all and only love. This love is simple self-gift in which God devotes everything in his power to serving man.45 God does not save sinners from himself, but gives of himself fully to save man from sin, Satan, and eternal disaster. Truly, a person is saved by the justice of God as much as he is saved by the mercy of God; the saving action of God’s justice restores the sinner to a state of perfect innocence that allows true happiness to become possible again. IN THE WOUNDS OF CHRIST, SIN IS TRANSFORMED Sin and the sufferings caused by it are entirely offensive and contrary to God’s goodness – as offensive and contrary as nails are to an innocent body in crucifixion. However, out of love for sinners, in order to reconcile them to God’s perfect will and restore them to a state of innocence to the satisfaction of his justice, the Lord has accepted the nails of sin completely so that the lives of sinners can be accepted as totally as he has accepted his wounds. This act of accepting to himself that which is offensive to goodness is possible only to God who is absolute love. The human mind, on its own power, cannot understand this love because it is something absolute and unlimited. Regardless of the magnitude of the offense, God’s love is infinitely greater. JESUS ACCEPTS HIS WOUNDS PERFECTLY There is no reluctance in Christ’s act of acceptance of his wounds, and this was shown previously in the third revelation in which he asks that the sinner consent to wound him so that sin may be taken away.46 With anything less than Christ’s total willingness to accept sin to himself, no person could be restored to union with the perfect will of God because the sinner would only be partially accepted and therefore (because of the uncompromising nature of God’s justice), be entirely rejected. In this transformation of the effects of sin to become the holy wounds of Christ, God declares that the sinner has always done that which is most perfect because he has perfectly willed to accept his wounds from all eternity.47 44 As was stated in the commentary on the first revelation, both are ways of understanding God’s self-gift in terms of different manners of speaking. 45 The question of why the world continues to be filled with evil if God is singularly devoted to man’s happiness is addressed later. 46 Sin has brought suffering into the human experience, and Christ has suffered in union with all those who suffer as a result of the consequences of sin. Because of this unity, the sufferings of each person are the sufferings of Christ. It was shown that Jesus has accepted his pain perfectly by accepting the consequences of sin to himself in his perfect will. At the time of the fourth revelation, it was not shown how those individuals who suffer can accept their pain perfectly, nor was it shown how they can perfectly forgive those who have caused their suffering through sin. No insight into this question was given until later. At the time of the fourth revelation, the only thing that was shown was that the sinner’s life can be reconciled with God’s perfect will through Christ’s total acceptance of his wounds in each person who suffers the effects of sin. 47 In considering the agony in the garden in which Jesus asks the Father to let this cup of suffering pass from him, he is speaking in accord with the normal desires of human nature that he has assumed. In taking a human nature to himself, he took all things about human nature to himself, including its aversion to pain and death. However, in the perfect divine will of the Son of God, 20 PERFECT ACCEPTANCE ENTAILS PERFECT REJECTION OF ALTERNATIVES In Christ’s total acceptance of the wounds that he has received is entailed an absolute rejection of what could have been if the sinner had acted differently. His acceptance of the pain of the actual is so perfect that no greater acceptance is conceivable. This willingness of God to suffer for sinners is from all eternity, and there is no weighing of the actual events in reality against possible pasts to compare their merits. In fully accepting his wounds through the perfect eternal embrace of that which has actually happened, God has definitively and eternally rejected all possible alternative pasts. According to God, through the wounds of Jesus, only that which has actually happened will be made holy. Hence, it becomes possible for God to declare the sinner as having always done that which is most perfect according to the divine will. SORROW FOR SIN AND HEALING OF SORROW ARE BOTH NECESSARY Sorrow for sin is a necessary condition for being reconciled to God. However, there is no sorrow in heaven and, therefore, there can be no sorrow for sin in heaven. Something must happen between repentance and heaven that makes it possible for sorrow to be taken away. Through the gift of perfect innocence in the wounds of Christ it is possible for sorrow to be taken away. Just as authentic contrition is necessary for man to correspond to God’s grace, so it is equally necessary to have full confidence that the blood of Christ is effective in reconciling all things to the will of God. Any lack of trust in God’s power to take away sin through the wounds of Christ is as contrary to the divine will as is the presumption that sin is not an offense requiring repentance on the part of the sinner. Either error will cause a person to suffer greatly by resisting the fullness of God’s gift of redemption. Man, on his own power, neither has the capacity to recognize the depths of sinfulness such as to have appropriate sorrow, nor does he have the capacity to consent to allow Jesus to take his sins, nor to trust in the power of God to authentically forgive sin and reconcile all things to his perfect will through the wounds of Christ. Each of these is beyond the capacity of human nature, and can only happen through a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. One cannot resolve by human nature to be sorry, and one cannot resolve by human nature to trust in God’s power to restore innocence. Both are gifts, and the way to receive these gifts is to ask for them, and remain open to the truth as the Holy Spirit reveals it. there was no reluctance to suffer for the sake of the salvation of man. The human nature of Christ had to submit to the divine will with normal anguish, but did so in perfect obedience to love. 21 The Fifth Revelation Shortly after the fourth revelation, I was suddenly given an experience in which I was made aware of the communion of saints. I saw that each action of every person was inextricably necessary to the perfect happiness of all of the others. The actions of each affected all, and each was filled with joyous recognition and gratitude for the presence of every other. I saw that, in Christ, each was a savior to every other such that the salvation of all was dependent on the lives of each. All praised God for arranging this order of things, for everything was his gift through the redemption. At the same time that I saw this, I understood that the justice of God has not only transformed the meaning of everything that I have ever done to be perfect according to his will (as was shown in the fourth revelation), but in Christ, each of my actions (including my sins) has been made necessary for salvation history. The ultimate happiness of all who will be saved will depend on what God will do with exactly what I have done. Despite my life having been filled with sin and wasted time, I saw that the providence of God has not allowed any moment of my life to be wasted in any degree. In a way that was similar to how God had caused my whole life to be in accord with his perfect will, it was now shown that every aspect of my entire life has been made absolutely integral to the ultimate happiness of every other person who will accept the grace of God. I had never realized that I had a need to be maximally important to the happiness of every other person. Through this experience of being integral to the joy of all others, God was healing a wound that I never knew I had. Because of this intervention of God to transform the meaning of each of my actions, I saw that sin had lost all power to cause diminishment. In the same way that the fourth revelation communicated a gift that was something beyond what I could have asked for, this too was a gift that was beyond anything that I had conceived to be possible. THE UNITY OF HUMANITY In the order of original justice, there would have been a unity between persons such that each would be integral in bringing about the happiness of all others. There would be no free decisions that were not maximally significant in causing the happiness of all, and there would be no experience of unimportance or lack of recognition from others. In this unity of humanity, the actions of one would affect all in a good way, and each would know both his own importance and the importance of every other. UNIVERSAL CAUSAL IMPACT (CONNECTION TO THE SECOND REVELATION) Through an act of sin, the universal causal significance that would have made each person an integral part of the happiness of all others is inverted to result in the suffering of all. When free will is abused through sin, the impact of each free action remains universal, but instead of being the vehicle for the joyous unity of total communion, this universal impact becomes the distributor of tragedy, disaster and chaos throughout the whole world. As was noted in the 22 commentary on the second revelation, accidents, sickness, death and sufferings of all kinds spread throughout the world as the result of the disorder caused by the ripple effect of those actions that are not in harmony with God’s intent for creation.48 SIN DESTROYS UNITY AND INDIVIDUAL IMPORTANCE Man is fundamentally a moral being. That is, his authentic happiness depends on right relationship with God, self, and others. It was stated previously (in the commentary on the second revelation) that, by the mere fact of being outside of God’s perfect will with reference to the original harmony intended for creation, man becomes divided against himself and against every other person to some degree. After the original sin, instead of knowing himself to be integral to the happiness of all, each individual feels isolated and unimportant. Additionally, instead of seeing others as infinitely significant, others are seen as objects to be used, or as disposable obstacles to a fantasy of happiness that has become impossible to achieve.49 THE NECESSITY OF THE RESTORATION OF UNITY Total communion of persons, where each is necessary to the happiness of every other, is an indispensable aspect of God’s intention for humanity. Anything less than this total unity of persons entails a diminishment in what should have been the maximal positive significance of each person, thus being a departure from the justice of God (which seeks only man’s undiminished good). Through the shattering effect of sin on the unity of humanity, man becomes excluded from the fullness of the gift of God, which would bestow a perfect relationship of joy between all created persons. In order to redeem fallen humanity, it is necessary that God restore the fullness of the unity that has been lost due to sin. THE JUSTICE OF GOD DOES NOT COMPROMISE WITH DIMINISHMENT Sin is the source of all sufferings that humans experience, and it is the very worst thing in the universe. However, as radically destructive as sin is, its cure must be even more radical in terms of healing and restoration. If this were not so, then no restoration could be had, for sin would succeed at permanently diminishing the human person and shattering the unity of humanity irrevocably. God’s justice will not compromise with evil, and therefore will not be satisfied until there is no diminishment in the individual human person or in the unity of humanity as the result of sin or suffering.50 Consequently, God reorders all of reality around sinners and those who 48 In this capacity of universal significance, each is (in a sense) responsible for every state of affairs in the world. If it were to be shown to a person what this looks like apart from the redemptive work of Christ, it would appear that they had destroyed the world through their actions; one would see every disaster, accident, injustice, and sickness until the end of time and know his responsibility for the condition of all. This was briefly shown in the second revelation to reveal the hopelessness of a person’s life without the benefit of the redeeming work of Christ. It is important to note that even if a person were to have lived a very moral life, the same would be true because the original sin has forced even relatively well-ordered human actions into a broader context of disorder. Therefore, although a person may live a virtuous life or die before committing any sin, the fact that they do so in the context of a world afflicted by original sin will negatively affect what follows from their naturally good actions to yield an end result of disorder. Hence, all merely human actions, both good and bad, are vehicles for disaster because of the consequences of original sin. It light of this, one must not see himself as uniquely responsible for disasters, but as part of the human race suffering the effects of the sin of the world, and, along with the whole human race, in need of total divine rescue. 49 Apart from being perfectly possessed by the Holy Spirit, one necessarily sees others in this way to some degree. The grace of God supernaturally empowers man with the capacity to see the dignity even of one’s enemies, and to love them as God does. 50 Though God has transformed the meaning of all human lives and actions in Christ, it is not necessarily the case that every person will consent to this gift, for God cannot force a person to freely accept his love. If a person were to choose eternal separation from God, it would still be that the actions of that person would be integral for salvation history even though such a person were to reject the gift of God. No person was meant to be happy apart from the actions of any other, and therefore it cannot be (even if it were possible for one to be lost) that the actions of any would be wasted in any degree. Indeed, even the 23 suffer the effects of sin so that not one moment of any individual’s life is without its proper eternal significance in terms of bringing ultimate joy to all others.51 ONLY THROUGH THE CROSS AND RESURRECTION OF CHRIST CAN GOOD COME FROM EVIL (CONNECTION TO THE FIRST REVELATION) In the first revelation, it was shown that, apart from Christ, any suffering in the life of man signifies the destruction of providential order and the loss of all human destinies. When considered in itself, and measured by the standard of divine justice (that is, by God’s act of willing only that which is highest and best), any event that should not have happened can only bring about other events that should not be. Apart from the power of the redemption, any sin or suffering in the life of man would signify the end of all hope because no diminishment could be reconciled to the perfect justice of God. Through the suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, God has given a new dignity and destiny to man that is not threatened by suffering and death.52 Because of the redemption, a new paradigm of the meaning of human life is established by the Trinity, and neither suffering nor death has the power to harm this higher destiny that God has ordained. Thus, divine providence, which guides all things to their proper end in accord with God’s justice, is free to draw a greater good from every disordered event. In the new order brought about through Christ, every human action brings a about a greater good through God’s power to providentially bring good from every evil.53 REDEMPTIVE PROVIDENCE RESTORES UNITY In accord with the new destiny given to humanity through Jesus, God creates a higher-order reconciliation out of the events that are contrary to his will and providence on the original order of creation. The order of original justice, which was shattered by sin, has been reintegrated into a new order of justice in Christ such that God causes all things (including sins and sufferings) to work together for the good according to man’s new destiny. It is in this higher-order providence that the unity of humanity is restored. In the redemptive order, all of the events that violate God’s will for creation on the original order are integrated into a perfectly unified and beautiful secondorder whole with nothing being wasted or unimportant to the happiness of all. The reordering of all things to make each work towards the ultimate good is a gift of God that has nothing to do with the events in themselves, but only with God’s power to rewrite the meaning of these events betrayal of Christ by Judas resulted in the cross, which has been used by God to become the means of the salvation of the world. In redemptive providence, the sin of Judas has been transformed by God so perfectly that all depend upon it for their eternal happiness. 51 This radical interdependence of every person such that each is necessary for the joy of every other who will be saved is the fuller understanding of the vision of universal significance given in the second revelation in which (apart from the saving work of Christ) one sees only the horrors that have proceeded from one’s actions. 52 The details of this new destiny were not shown at this time. What was shown here is the basic fact that God’s providence for man (which would have been destroyed by sin apart from the redemptive work of Christ) is not thwarted by suffering, death or human sinfulness. 53 While the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ occurred in a specific place and time, being an action of God, it also transcends the limits of space and time. The meaning of human destiny is totally rewritten in Christ, and, as such, the power of God to bring good from evil spans all of history. As a result of this, God can use anything to bring about his purposes. In the book of Genesis, Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery out of envy, but God caused it to be that Joseph received great glory, and many were saved from famine as a result of what God had done with this evil act. In another example, Jacob stole the blessing from Esau by deceiving his father, Isaac. This was a sin, but all of salvation history depends on what God has done with this sin. As it is now, the salvation and ultimate happiness of all depends on Jacob’s life having been exactly as it was. By the gift of God, a similar kind of rewriting of reality around each act of every sinner is done so that nothing is wasted in any degree. 24 into a higher order in which divine justice is reestablished. 54, 55 From the standpoint of the last day, when the actions of each person have reached their ultimate consequences, and the work of God in bringing good from every evil has been completed, it will be shown that if any aspect of any person’s life were to have been any different than what is has been, then the ultimate happiness of everyone would become impossible. 56, 57 REDEMPTIVE PROVIDENCE IS POSSIBLE ONLY THROUGH THE TRANSFIGURED WOUNDS OF JESUS (CONNECTION TO THE FOURTH REVELATION) In the fourth revelation, it was shown that Jesus has accepted the consequences of sin to himself so perfectly as to eternally reject every alternative possible past. Through the assumption of all human suffering to himself, Jesus Christ is the bearer of all of the diminishment that afflicts humanity, and he bears these wounds in perfect love. Through Christ’s resurrection and ascension, the vindication of wounded human nature is accomplished. In his resurrection, Christ’s wounds of crucifixion remain, but their meaning of canceling the union of his humanity with the perfect justice of God does not.58 In the ascension, Jesus returns to the Father with a human nature that has passed through the horrors of the fallen world, yet forever lives in the perfect union of the Trinity. In the same way that Christ has transformed the significance of his wounds in the resurrection and ascension, he now changes the meaning of the sufferings of his body, the Church. This transfiguration of the significance of human suffering (such as to make all work for the good in accord with the perfect justice of God) comes only through the power of the Trinity to redefine the meaning of those wounds to human nature that are assumed by God the Son.59 In the order of redemptive providence, every cross has a resurrection, but in order to make this possible, Christ has made every cross his own. 54 Indeed, it seems impossible that any new order of things could possibly bring perfect justice considering the number and kinds of evils that have taken place in the world. The means by which this is done is unaddressed at this point, and was not made clearer until the later revelations. At the time of the fifth revelation, it was shown that the redemption has reconciled all things to the justice of God, but there was nothing shown about how this could be so. 55 It seems that it would have been simpler for God, in his omnipotence, to simply prevent sin and suffering at the outset. Nothing was shown about this until a later point. 56 Because of the chaos caused by sin, many of the events in man’s life are in the form of senseless accidents. However, because God has redeemed the accidents such as to make all work together for the good through Christ, it can also be truly said (in a different manner of speaking) that there are no accidents at all. Indeed, the visible chaotic proceedings of the damaged first order of creation remain, but there is a higher order of providence that is invisible and which leads all these elements to their final end as if everything were foreordained. Indeed, it can be said that everything is foreordained because God, in his omniscience, has eternally accepted sin and its consequences to himself, and has integrated these evils into his redemptive providence from all eternity. In this sense, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world was slain from the foundation of the world. This does not entail that human freedom has been overridden, but rather that the results of all free actions have been incorporated into divine providence by God from all eternity. 57 It is not that God needed the disorders that have happened to bring about the happiness of the redeemed. Rather, now that sin and suffering have occurred, God has reordered reality around all that has happened to perfectly integrate each act of every person to have maximal significance in being necessary for bringing about the joy of those who will be saved. 58 In Jesus, there is no disharmony between suffering human nature and God’s justice because it is a divine person who is suffering as an act of sacrificial love. At this point, it was not shown how the individual human persons who suffer could be compensated in God’s justice. God wills his own suffering in Jesus, but does not will the pain of human persons. 59 It is in the identification of Christ with the suffering of each that man’s destiny will be transformed and reconciled with the justice of God such that suffering and death have no power to diminish him in any way. The nature of this transformation was not disclosed until the later revelations. At this point in the exposition, it still has not been shown how any woundedness of man can be reconciled to God’s justice, for in his justice God only wills that which is highest and best for created persons, and does not accept anything diminished in any degree. So far, it has only been shown that Jesus’ suffering is consistent with divine justice because it is God himself who is doing the suffering. 25 MERELY HYPOTHETICAL SUFFERINGS ARE UNREDEEMED In order to restore the unity of humanity, it was shown that the providence of God orders reality around those sins and sufferings that have actually happened so that each act of man contributes to the good of all in a higher order. It is only through the power of Christ to transform the meaning of sin and suffering that these offenses to divine justice could mean anything other than forsakenness and hell for mankind. However, only those sins and sufferings which have actually happened have been received by Christ as his wounds such as to be transformed in him. Not every possible evil has been redeemed, but only the real has been received by Jesus such as to be reconciled to the justice of God in the new order. Therefore, all fictional projections of possible future sufferings remain unredeemed, for even if they are close to depicting something actual, they will never succeed at truly being the actuality that is transformed in Christ.60 The only good that will ever come from sin or suffering proceeds from what God does with what actually happens, and therefore only the actual will ever be rendered consistent with the perfect will of God. In being tempted by fear to imagine unredeemed possible future agonies, or by fearfully imagining oneself in the situations of others who suffer, a person goes beyond the bounds of the sufferings that Jesus has transformed.61 Since the contemplation of unredeemed suffering is the contemplation of an aspect of hell, the soul experiences a foretaste of hell, and automatically begins to feel that it has been forsaken by God.62 Similarly, the soul will begin to hate God for fear that he is asking it to endure the impossible, yet seems to be offering no help.63 Carried to the extreme, the soul will fall into despair feeling that God has predestined it to hell, for in looking into the future it only experiences the forsakenness of hell which is entailed by any unredeemed pain. 64 IN CHRIST, WASTE IS NOT POSSIBLE While the contemplation of unredeemed sufferings brings the experience of forsakenness to the soul, it remains that this painful experience is not in itself unredeemed, for (in being actual) Jesus suffers it within those who experience this kind of pain. Even if one were to have spent his entire life in fear and illusory forsakenness through the habitual imagination of unredeemed sufferings, Jesus has brought even this pain to himself, and will transform this anguish to be necessary for the salvation and ultimate happiness of all who will accept the grace of God. 60 This parallels the fourth revelation where it was shown that God’s acceptance of the actual entails a definitive rejection of all alternative pasts. Only the actual past has been transformed in Christ, and all possible pasts remain forever unredeemed. Since the destiny-destroying character of suffering is reconciled to God’s will only in Christ, any merely hypothetical (and therefore unredeemed) futures or pasts have no principle of order or unity such as to cause them to work together for the good. Alternatives to the actual (even those which seem very good) will never be made holy. Therefore, to contemplate them is always to experience an intimation of hell. All legitimate contemplation of the future can only be done through prayerful submission to the guidance of the Holy Spirit who infuses man with the supernatural gift of hope. 61 In the same way that a person experiences aspects of hell by imagining unredeemed possible future scenarios of pain, so it is that a person experiences the same kind of anguish by fearfully imagining himself in the situation of another who is experiencing real suffering in the present. While the real suffering is redeemed for the person who really suffers, the fearful projection of the one doing the comparison is a fiction, and therefore remains an inward viewing of unredeemed pain. Such comparisons do not result in compassion, but only self-injury. True compassion is an infused gift of the Holy Spirit, and is not the product of imagined sufferings. Of course, this disordered use of the imagination is to be distinguished from the recognition of the pain of others in the moral sphere. It is possible to recognize the suffering of another without fearfully imagining oneself in a similar fictional situation. One is a moral duty, while the other is a misuse of the imaginative faculties. 62 Evil spirits tempt man to engage in this activity so as to torture the soul in powerful ways. 63 This illusion is due to the fact that the soul has gone ahead of the grace available, and it is only through grace that suffering can be endured with love. 64 In his agony, Jesus experienced this hell of unredeemed suffering. As the redeemer, his experience of suffering in human nature was not redeemed from an outside power, for it is only in him that redemption of human suffering is possible. His experience was therefore necessarily one of senseless forsakenness and felt (though not actual) alienation from the Father. 26 INFUSED LOVE IS THE DELIVERANCE FROM FEAR Only supernatural love can save man from the fear that causes him to anticipate evil, and this love cannot be produced from human nature alone. It is a gift of God, and man’s role is to ask for and receive the gift according to one’s capacity at any given time. Through the intervention of the Holy Spirit, the soul is infused with the power to forego the anticipation of evil through a supernatural trust in divine providence. When actual suffering comes, the grace to bear the suffering comes along with it.65 65 This does not mean that suffering becomes easy, but because God is present in it, it does not become hell. Ultimately, because Jesus is enduring the pain as his own, the suffering is elevated to have the same meaning as the suffering of Jesus for the redemption of the world. 27 The Sixth Revelation Soon after the fifth revelation, without having any knowledge that such a thing were possible, I suddenly experienced an awareness of God glorifying me as if I were God. I also became aware that the angels had the same regard for me as for Jesus. In seeking humility, I had spent years trying to eliminate my desire to receive glory, but now God was insisting on offering me a glory that greatly surpassed what seemed to be the most extreme egomania; it was indeed as if I were the center of the universe. In this experience, I saw that God and creation acted together in service to me and worked in a tremendous harmony for the single purpose of my honor and exaltation. I saw that by a gift of the Trinity, I was made equal to God, but I was aware that this equality was a gift given by God to a sinner. I could have done nothing to attain it. The knowledge that this gift was entirely unearned brought humility into harmony with a magnitude of honor that was higher than what pride could ever conceive. In sharing in God’s glory by grace, the apparent contraries of lowliness and equality with God were neither opposed nor separate. All goods that I had been seeking in pride were granted in this experience, but they were given in a way that did not separate me from God or others. Instead of setting me in opposition to God, this glory was insisted upon by God such that I would be directly opposing him if I did not receive it. The honor that was given superabundantly overwhelmed my need for worth so that for the first moment in my life, all interior striving towards self-glorification was able to cease. I also saw that despite being totally unearned, the glory was neither unreal nor unfitting. It was fully real because God had truly ordered all things for the purpose of causing me to share in his divinity by grace. God was utterly devoted to giving me his own glory, and because it was God’s choice to ordain a gift of this magnitude, it was entirely fitting for me to receive it. There was no higher authority that could rightly contradict what God had willed. The Lord spoke to me interiorly and said, “Do not try to return this. Just receive it.” For years, I had been trying to glorify God, and now God was glorifying me while asking me not to try to return his love. I was uncomfortable with this reversal of roles, and it seemed wrong that this receptivity was all he was asking of me. I thought that I may have misunderstood, and I tried to offer worship back to God. As I did this, I became aware of being entirely incapable of returning the love which he was offering to me. In experiencing this lack of ability to love in the same way that I was being loved, I knew that I would not be able to return God’s love unless I was somehow supernaturally capacitated to do so. I saw also that it was deeply ingrained in my thinking that I had to do something to make myself pleasing to God. In this experience, I saw clearly that he was not asking me to make myself pleasing to him; it was my service to him to simply let him love me in this exalted way. I knew that by his doing, he 28 would put into me that which was pleasing to him such that I would eventually be able to return his love in kind. The experience of glory then gradually faded. THE NEW DIGNITY OF MAN IS BESTOWED EQUALITY WITH GOD According to the original order, man was placed at the pinnacle of material creation, but was created lower than the lowest angelic nature. Through the incarnation, God has taken human nature to himself and redefined its dignity and destiny in Christ. To reconcile man to the will of the Father, the Holy Spirit draws man into union with God the Son. In becoming one with God the Son, man is united to divinity in a way that elevates him above all of the angels to equality with God by grace. God bids the redeemed sinner to share in the divine nature in a way that is similar to the manner in which God came to share in human nature. On the original order, man was a creature to whom God gave as much glory and joy as was fitting to the capacity of human nature. In his new destiny and dignity, man enters into a magnitude of joy and glory which is, by nature, proper to God alone. PRIDE AND AUTHENTIC GLORY Pride is man’s attempt to receive glory independently of God. It is an evil, but not because it involves man receiving glory. It is evil because it involves man seeking glory in such a way that it attacks unity and right order. Pride seeks glory through an illusion of self-sufficiency and the diminishment of others. Such an attempt at glory necessarily fails to accomplish its end because its inherent opposition to unity and truth can only tend toward perfect isolation and emptiness. Through illusory self-sufficiency and ego inflation, man cannot provide for himself the magnitude of glory that God wants to bestow. God alone can provide this fullness of glory, and God wills a higher exaltation for the soul than pride can conceive. 66 MAN’S NEED FOR CENTRALITY (CONNECTION TO THE FIFTH REVELATION) In the fifth revelation, it was shown that God’s will for humanity is for perfect unity such that the actions of each are integral to the happiness of all. This divinely ordained unity renders each individual maximally important to all others, but it also has the complementary aspect of causing all others to operate collaboratively in the service of the one individual. As the actions of each are necessary for the happiness of all, so it is that the actions of the many are also necessary to the happiness of the one. In the order of original justice, every other person would exist in the service of each individual. This state of being central to all is the proper condition for every human being.67, 68 The need for the centrality that would characterize the order of original justice is an essential aspect of human nature, and man cannot be truly happy without this centrality. After the fall, the full experience of the unity of humanity became impossible on Earth, but man’s nature (in seeking satisfaction of its God-given desires) continues to impel him to try to achieve perfect centrality, and the closest natural substitute to this lost condition is found the act of elevating self above others. Removed from the environment of unity that would have been 66 Man’s initial attraction to the false glory of pride occurred through the deception of Satan. This universal service of all for every other would in no way necessitate the subjugation or suffering of those who served, for when providence is unimpeded by sin, all works together such that none are deprived of what is proper to them. 68 Small children understand this and are confused about why it is presently not this way in the world. 67 29 appropriate to him, man feels that he is unimportant, and he tries to alleviate this pain through a false glory of judgmental contrast which distinguishes him from imagined inferiors. Instead of acting from a state of already being central to the rest of humanity, fallen man attempts to act to become central through the use of whatever power is available to him. Through the process of ego inflation (which achieves a kind of false exaltation by diminishing others), fallen man believes he is on the way to becoming central again. However, this action of elevating self over others only creates suffering for all involved, and is contrary to man’s proper dignity and destiny in every way. According to original justice, individual importance was to be maximal, but it was not to involve the diminishment of any other person. GLORY IS NECESSARY FOR MAN For man, honor and exaltation are necessary for happiness, and in the original order of creation, man would have received glory fitting to his nature such that nothing would be lacking to him. As it is, because of sin, this original glory is damaged, and man is less than what he ought to be. If man tries to live without glory, his nature rebels against him, driving him to seek honor and status through disordered means. According to man’s new destiny in union with God the Son, this desire for glory is perfectly fulfilled through reception of the infinite honor of equality with God by grace. This level of glory is infinitely greater than the glory that was lost through sin, and overwhelms man’s need for worth. Until the need for honor is fulfilled through God’s glorification of the soul, pride sickens all motivations because human nature continues to seek its own original glory in disordered ways that cannot satisfy. The need for glory, which is the constant enemy of the soul when it takes the form of pride, is never destroyed through any human effort to become humble, but only is fulfilled through a bestowed participation in God’s own infinite glory.69 RESISTANCE TO GLORY It was noted in the commentary on the third revelation that human nature resists the advance of God’s grace because the Holy Spirit works to reveal man’s sinfulness, and purges him of attachment to passing natural securities. In a similar way, man also resists God’s glorification of the soul. Even though man was created for glory, the honor that God gives through union with Jesus is beyond the capacity of unassisted fallen human nature to receive because man sees himself as unlovable in light of his imperfections. In being created for perfect justice (in which everything about man is as it ought to be), human nature cannot see itself as lovable while it has awareness of any imperfections at all. In its fallen state, human nature is divided against itself because, (in desire for perfect justice), it is inclined to seek love and glory in all circumstances, while, at the same time (again, in desire for perfect justice), it is driven to reject itself because of the imperfections it perceives. As a consequence of this division, apart from a free response to the Holy Spirit who transfigures man to restore the unblemished image of God within him, man is compelled to strive to make himself lovable by eradicating his imperfections by human effort. This undertaking does great violence to the human person because it necessarily involves selfrejection, which is never compatible with the love that God has for man. The reconciliation of perfection to imperfection is only available through giving permission to the Holy Spirit to 69 It is not necessary that a person have an experience of the glory that God is actually giving in order to be capacitated supernaturally to act in authentic humility. Rather, it is possible that a soul may be receiving this gift in a hidden way. Even though there is no feeling of it, the supernatural reality can be happening nonetheless. In such a situation, the Holy Spirit would empower a person through an inner abundance to act in such a way that there is no need to seek to diminish others in order to compensate for a deep inner lack. 30 conform man to perfect union with God the Son. In this union of humanity and divinity, God the Son bears man’s imperfections as his own wounds in an act of sacrificial love, and thus reconciles them the will of the Father who receives his Son’s sacrificial offering. Through this union, the perfect image of God is restored in man, thus preparing him for a life of endless love and glory in sharing the life of the Trinity. In the same way that God’s grace must transform and capacitate the soul to behold its poverty70 and the need for mercy, so it is that a gift of grace must also bring about a transformation that disposes the soul to participate fully in the glory that God wants to offer. Each part of this process encounters strong resistance by human nature because (even though man might assent to these things in a merely intellectual way), the full acceptance of these realities is beyond the capacity of fallen human nature as such. The only way that the limitations of human nature are overcome is through a supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit, and the only way to receive this intervention is to ask for it persistently regardless of the seemingly unending resistance that human nature puts forth. 70 As God advances on the soul that welcomes his grace, it feels like destruction and torture to the inflated ego, but this divinely orchestrated deflation of the ego is really preparing man for glory beyond measure. God requires man to abandon the empty and destructive path of self-glorification in order that he might participate in God’s own glory which is infinitely greater than what pride can attain. The deflation of the ego that God brings about has nothing to do with denigration of self. God never devalues man, but always seeks to elevate him. God’s supernatural work in the soul aims to set man free from a false glory that will not bring happiness. 31 The Seventh Revelation Almost immediately after the experience of glory ended, though not as the direct result of it ending, I began to experience an awareness of the evil in the world in a much more intense way than I ever had before. It was as if I were seeing evil for the first time. All consolation from previous experiences of God’s goodness became inaccessible. I could give mental assent to all the truths of the faith, and I could reason philosophically about the existence and goodness of God, but I could not be consoled by any of this knowledge. In this new awareness, every good and normal thing in my experience was juxtaposed with the contemplation of that which was tragic. The more something pointed towards beauty and innocence, the more extreme was my experience of anguish at how beauty and innocence were violated by suffering and death. All joy was transformed into dread. In my experience, it was as if there were no redemption, and it seemed that suffering and death had the final word in all things. I saw how ignorance of the horrors of the world permeated almost all things in human affairs. People were pursuing happiness as if everything were normal. My intellect was unable to fully process this disclosure of the reality of evil in the world. I would become aware of the suffering in the world in this new way, but this agonizing act of seeing would shortly be followed by an involuntary forgetfulness such that I was unable to genuinely comprehend that horrendous evils actually happened to real people. I would then realize my forgetfulness, and the experience of dread would again be felt with the added pain of knowing that whatever relief I had experienced in the previous moment had only been because I was living for a time as if these evils were unreal. Having no felt experience of God’s goodness, and only being able to experience tragedy in all things, I began to feel hatred of God for continuing to hold the world in being. I believed that God permitted evil for the sake of drawing a greater good from it, but in truly coming to see evil, I began to lose the will to love a God whose goodness seemed to contradict everything that I thought of as good. I did not want to consent to this turning from God. In desperation, I went to the Blessed Sacrament. I could only give the Lord my true feelings, and I felt that I hated him. In anguish and torment, I told the Lord that I hated him over and over. As I did this, I saw a vision of many past events in my life. I saw myself committing all kinds of sins and working towards my own destruction. I also saw myself as the innocent recipient of many injustices from those around me who were themselves enmeshed in sin because they were hurt and confused. As the vision of the various sins and sorrows continued, I saw, amidst the chaos and pain, the presence of a spirit who was with me throughout. The presence and action of this spirit was interwoven with the evils in the vision such that I could not clearly distinguish one from the other. 32 I heard myself continuing to tell the Lord that I hated him, and as I was saying this, I saw the presence of the spirit that was intermingled with the evils in the vision gradually separate itself out entirely from the evils that were depicted. In this act of separation, I saw that the spirit was entirely benevolent, and had absolutely nothing to do with orchestrating the evils that I was seeing, but was doing everything in its power to save me from them. The action of this good spirit was such that it could be likened to how a rescuer would carry a child out of a burning building. I saw that I had contributed to causing many of the sufferings in the world, but this good spirit had never caused any innocent person to suffer in any way. This spirit was entirely good, and was opposed to the sufferings and evils that I saw in a greater way than I was opposed to them in my anger. In seeing this separation, I realized that I was saying “I hate you” only to the evils in the vision, and not to the good spirit that opposed these evils. Indeed, I could only love this good spirit because it was everything that was easy to love. I realized that this good spirit was God, and that God is the same child-like innocence that I was supposedly angry with God for violating by permitting the evil in the world. I thought that I hated God, but I only hated evil. Somehow the two had become confused in my heart despite believing (intellectually) that God was good and despite my previous experiences of God’s goodness. I did not know how to harmonize what I saw in this vision of God’s goodness with the facts of evil in the world. Even though I did not know why God did not prevent evil, I knew from seeing the pure benevolence of his will that the pain in the world could offer no information at all about what God was like. God’s will was entirely good in a way that surpassed, but did not contradict anything that I would expect of perfect goodness. The act of trusting the good spirit was an easy one because it was in agreement with what I already loved. I felt that even if I were an atheist, I would still want to commit myself absolutely to this perfect goodness and innocence because it was so pure and beautiful. For the first time in my life, I was able to offer myself to the will of God without reservation. At that time, I suddenly became aware of my fear of suffering, and I experienced this fear being transformed into a desire to save others from evil in the same way that the good spirit was saving me from the evils of my life. As the vision continued, I saw that my sufferings would have this effect, but the means by which they would take on this significance was not shown. THE FUNCTION OF KNOWLEDGE IS AFFECTED BY SIN Man is in a state of confusion because the facts about his world are facts that the created mind was never meant to hold. Being created for righteousness, fulfillment, and life, fallen man cannot truly understand sin, suffering and death. With the introduction of evils into human experience, 33 the mind is put into an unnatural situation that it cannot fully process. Of course, sin,71 suffering, and death are recognized in a categorical and conceptual way, but their full significance is not grasped. A person may assert the reality of these things without truly understanding what he is saying. Even though the world contains tragic suffering, things go on as if all were normal. Involuntarily, man thinks he is home, and continues to seek a natural happiness that is impossible, not realizing that things are falling apart despite the evidence that surrounds him. No amount of mere meditation on the facts of sin, suffering, and death will produce true understanding of them, for these things are beyond fallen man’s unassisted capacity to comprehend.72 A gift of supernatural knowledge is required for a person to understand his situation. THE REDEMPTION IS NOT UNDERSTOOD NATURALLY Just as man cannot naturally comprehend sin, suffering, or death because of their incompatibility with his nature, so it is that he cannot comprehend the means of victory over sin, suffering, and death through the redemption in Christ without a supernatural gift that is beyond the capacity of unassisted human nature as such. Through this supernatural gift, man is able to perceive reality in ways that are not accessible to the natural mind. The depth of this infused supernatural knowledge depends on the soul’s choice to accept or reject the grace of God as he advances upon the soul in order to save it. Because this understanding is a supernatural gift, it is impossible to argue a person to it through natural reason. At best, rational explanation and argument contradict the lies that would pose as obstacles, but the gift itself is given by God, and requires the free consent of the soul. GOD IS MISTAKENLY BLAMED BY THE FLESH Man’s nature is automatically inclined to understand the world according to the integrity of the original order of creation. Since this original order no longer exists, it follows that human nature is encumbered with a tendency to gravely misinterpret reality as it is. According to God’s design, all of the events in the life of man were to be gifts from God through the mediation of creatures. All would have operated in obedience to God’s good intentions for man. As it is now, the world contains many injustices, and when man encounters suffering, human nature reacts in such a way that its first response is to see the suffering as sent by God, or at least approved of by him. This is a serious mistake because the sufferings in the world are, in fact, great violations of the will of God that come from the sin of the world. These sufferings are neither sent by God, nor are they approved of by him any more than the sin of the world is sent or approved of by him.73 Fallen man, in retaining free will and the ability to establish new concepts, can resist this inclination to 71 In being created for righteousness, man does not have the capacity (naturally speaking), to behold his wrong in any lasting way. When the proof of one’s wrongdoing is conclusively seen, the reaction of fallen human nature is either to ignore and excuse it, or to harshly condemn oneself. In the first instance, an illusion of righteousness is attained by denial of the wrong. In the second case, the person disowns a part of his being, and rails against the disowned part. The guilty person then identifies with the part of the self that is doing the “righteous” judging. In either case, one is seeing things in terms of personal righteousness. Only through the grace of God can a person simply behold their wrongdoing without falling back to the default position of selfrighteousness. 72 Man cannot see or understand evil as it is because human nature is not designed to think in terms of evil, but only in terms of justice and providential order. It is only through the contemplation of the true, good, and beautiful that evil is understood by contrast. It is never understood directly. Consequently, when one meditates on, or experiences evil (apart from supernatural assistance), he comes away injured in heart and mind because he has been immersed in knowledge of situations that are contrary to the purpose for which he was created. 73 Of course, this suggests the question of why God, being perfectly good and all powerful does not therefore prevent evil. Nothing was shown about this until a later point. 34 attribute suffering to the will of God through ideological assertions about the goodness of God or even through atheism.74 However, because of the tendency of man to interpret reality according to relationships that would obtain in the order of original justice, the act of holding God ultimately responsible for suffering continues to assert itself in human nature despite resolutions to avoid this conclusion.75 After the original sin, man's sense of justice (which comes from God, and naturally expects all to be a gift from God) blinds him to God’s goodness. Man becomes convinced that if God is good, then this goodness is essentially unrecognizable and not worthy of allegiance. It seems that God is the ultimate violator of innocence through permitting the suffering of the innocent for some higher purpose. In reality, though, God is innocence itself.76 CONCERNING GOD AND EVIL, TRUTH IS FOUND IN SEPARATION The beautiful order of original justice no longer exists, but the perfectly beautiful one who created it does exist. In order to preserve the truth about God, one must approach consideration of the goodness of God by strictly excluding the possibility that the evils in the world can say anything at all about what God is like. This act of separation is contrary to the nature of man,77 and it requires a gift of supernatural assistance through the intervention of the Holy Spirit. If one does not receive this gift, the goodness of God is obscured by the facts of the damaged world because the natural mind tries to integrate all things as if all were sent from or approved of by God. THE MYSTERY OF GOD’S GOODNESS God’s goodness is mysterious, but this mystery is not one of darkness and obscurity. Rather than being inaccessible and contrary to man’s hopes, God’s goodness is at least what man would want or expect, but overflows his every desire in superabundant ways that would not normally be considered possible. God’s goodness is such that it infinitely exceeds all of man’s expectations without standing in contradiction to any of them. All that contradicts man’s innermost desires is a contradiction of God’s desire as well.78 ON THE REJECTION OF GOD In refusing to trust God, no living person has yet truly turned from God as such, but only from something lower than God that has been mistakenly put in his place. Through mortal sin, a person can choose a path such that it can truly be said that they have chosen something incompatible with love, and that if the sin is not eventually repented, then hell is the only possible outcome. However, even in this state, none have yet truly rejected God, but only a 74 Man does not want to think that God is responsible for suffering, and it is oftentimes better in his mind to deny the existence of God than to posit a God who is in some way complicit in the injustices that he experiences or witnesses. This kind of atheism is actually an unwitting affirmation of God because it is an allegiance with true justice and the authentic desire to defend innocence. 75 This parallels the way that the drive towards selfishness (the unwillingness to suffer for the good of another) continues to pull man despite his resolution to be moral and charitable (as was discussed in the commentary on the second revelation). 76 It was not shown at this time how this could be reconciled with God’s apparent non-intervention in the suffering of the innocent. More about this is shown at a later point. 77 On the original order, truth would never be found in separation, but only in integration of data. In being created for justice, human nature presupposes that all data can be unified into a coherent and beautiful whole. This integration does not work for the knowledge of evil because evil is a violation of the very unity that the mind seeks to obtain. It is only through the redemption that evil can be integrated into a higher unity (in the transfigured wounds of Christ), and knowledge of the redemption does not happen naturally. 78 For example, on this understanding, it is truly bad for a child to be sick and truly good for a child to be healthy. Good is good and evil is evil. God can bring good from every evil, but the evils in man’s life are not God’s will, and are not a good that is simply beyond human comprehension. 35 mistaken image of him or the suffering that God’s call to love apparently requires of them. There has not yet been a seeing of the truth in such a way as to eliminate the possibility of receiving new information. Consequently, in some measure, there is a part of every person that has never chosen evil and continues to seek God innocently. CONCERNING THE POSSIBILITY OF TRUST IN DIVINE GOODNESS Man cannot fully trust or worship a God who is complicit in the injustices in the world, and therefore complete trust in God is only possible when man knows that God and evil have nothing in common. Supernatural intervention is necessary in order for fallen human nature to retain the understanding that God’s will is for the good of man, and that the evils that occur are not the design of God. This intervention comes through man continuing to welcome God’s grace. Without this supernatural assistance from the Holy Spirit, it is impossible for a human being to continue to separate the goodness of God from the facts of evil in the world, for the inclinations of human nature will constantly apply pressure to interpret the facts wrongly. As a consequence, apart from grace, man will either end up attempting to reject God because the thought of God being responsible for the present state of the world is too terrible to bear, or will half-heartedly pay respect to a distorted image of a deity who is worthy of hatred and fear rather than love and worship. 36 The Eighth Revelation A similar darkness to the one that preceded the seventh revelation came, and the only respite from the awareness of horror and tragedy was in praying the Rosary and attending Mass. However, in this experience of pain, I was given the gift to hold on to the memory of the goodness of God’s will that was shown in the seventh revelation. This grace allowed me to continue to offer myself to God despite the awareness of evil that I was experiencing. Though there was no voice to it, the experience directly communicated a message of the power of evil to ruin all that was innocent and beautiful by means of bringing pain and loss into every life. It conveyed a morbid certainty that every good thing was vetoed by suffering and death; it was as if the good existed only to enable the bad to be worse. The power behind the darkness denied the existence of God and of heaven, but also blamed God for allowing the harm of innocence to be part of his plan. It would communicate things like, “See this little child… God will not protect her from what will happen.” Thoughts of the most terrifying sufferings were presented with the insistence that God was ultimately responsible for all of them, and also that there was no God at all. Suddenly, there was a point of culmination in which the horrors that I had been experiencing came together as a single unified presence. I felt the distilled essence of the power of evil to harm innocence. It seemed that I was experiencing, in some abstract way, the totality of everything that had ever happened that was against God’s will. At the same time that I experienced this, I felt the presence of Jesus within me such that he was experiencing this evil through my nature. I then became aware of his love within me as if it were my own love; it belonged to God, but it was under my direction as if it were mine. Through an interior voice, I heard the Lord say, “Love will not be overcome,” and at that moment, using his love like a weapon, I responded to this evil by accepting it to myself in an embrace of perfect love. It was God’s love that did this, but it happened within my nature such that it was I who did it through his power. Prior to this moment, I had no capacity to do anything but be tormented and crushed by the pain that I had been experiencing. However, through union with this act of God’s love in which Christ accepted all evil to himself within me, I saw that I had smashed the power of evil absolutely and with great violence. A seemingly infinite power proceeded through me to utterly devastate the influence of evil and to reorder all things according to perfect innocence. This was not a partial victory against the power of evil, but it was an absolute vindication of all that had been harmed by sin, suffering and death. I saw that everything good that God would do for any creature would proceed through and depend on what I had suffered in union with Christ. Immediately, I began to experience the glory that was originally given in the sixth revelation, but this time, along with the glory received, there was within me the love of God the Son returning love to the Father, and this perfect self-offering of God the Son was flowing through my nature as if it were my love. In this union, I was enabled to return the love of God as I had sought to do at the time of the sixth revelation. The experiences of both the love of God the Son offered to the 37 Father and the glory received in union with God the Son were entirely distinct and occurred at the same time. Each, when considered on its own was incomparably greater than any natural experience of love or happiness, and instantly compensated for all of the sufferings that I had undergone. This awareness then quickly faded, and I returned to the experience of darkness. THE PAIN OF GOD RESTORES INNOCENCE TO MAN (CONNECTION TO THE FOURTH REVELATION) In the fourth revelation, it was shown that Jesus has taken all human suffering to himself. Through this act of uniting himself to suffering humanity, the repentant sinner who accepts the grace of God is made absolutely blameless because the consequences of his sin (namely, the sufferings caused) have been perfectly accepted by God as the holy wounds of Jesus. It is through Christ’s perfect acceptance of his wounds that the repentant sinner can be in union with God’s will even though his past may be filled with evil. Through the blood of Jesus, those who will accept the grace of God are delivered from all guilt of sin to receive a supernaturally restored innocence. At the time of the fourth revelation, this reality was seen from the perspective of one who has had the effects of his sin perfectly reconciled to the divine will. In the eighth revelation, this same reality is seen from the opposite perspective of one suffering the effects of the sin of the world in union with Christ. The Holy Spirit unites man to God the Son, and through this union, the sufferings of each become the sufferings of Christ for the redemption of the world. THOSE WHO SUFFER IN UNION WITH JESUS ARE INTEGRAL TO THE REDEMPTION OF ALL PAST ACTIONS OF MANKIND (CONNECTION TO THE SECOND REVELATION) It was shown in the second revelation that because of the universal causal impact of each free action, the consequences of the past sins of mankind descend upon every human person living in the present in terms of received unfairness, accidents, diseases, and injustices of all types. The suffering of any one individual is caused by the sum total of the effects of all disorder that has come before it, going back to the original sin. As was shown in fourth revelation, no sin is reconciled to God’s perfect will apart from those sins being perfectly accepted by God as the wounds of Jesus who suffers in each human being. Consequently, no past sins of humanity are reconciled to the perfect will of God apart from the union of God the Son with those persons who experience the long-range consequences of the past sins of mankind in the present moment. The possibility of the forgiveness of the sin of the world (that is, the restoration of sinners to a state of perfect innocence before God) is dependent on the sufferings of those who presently bear the effects of the past sins of humanity in union with Christ.79 THE FULLNESS OF REDEMPTIVE PROVIDENCE IS DEPENDENT ON THE SUFFERINGS OF EACH (CONNECTION TO THE FIFTH REVELATION) In the fifth revelation it was shown that in order to restore the unity of humanity, God has caused the ultimate happiness of all who will be saved to depend on even the smallest actions of each, regardless of whether these actions are sinful or not. In this unity, there is no human action that is insignificant or unimportant. Through this gift of God, repentant sinners are saved from the 79 This is not to say that God’s act of forgiveness is incomplete. When God forgives sin, it is done absolutely and from all eternity, but the suffering of Christ for the sake of the redemption of each proceeds in God’s people until the end of the world. 38 disunity, unimportance, and waste that that would have resulted from sin because God’s providence has ensured that no time of their lives is wasted in any degree. In order for a gift of such magnitude to be given, God must cause every evil to be integral to a higher good, and every good thing that God does with the sins that have been committed depends on what he does with the sufferings of those people who will bear the negative consequences of those sins. In the order of redemptive providence (in which God brings good from every evil), there is no future good that God brings about that does not depend upon any given person having suffered exactly what they have suffered.80 In the order of the redemption, the entire undertaking of God’s providence to man proceeds from the standpoint of the sufferings of each having happened exactly as they have happened. THROUGH THE REDEMPTION, HUMAN SUFFERING HAS BEEN TRANSFIGURED (CONNECTION TO THE FIRST REVELATION) Instead of eternally separating man from God, as even the smallest suffering would have done apart from the redemption, the pain experienced by each is changed (through mystical union with God the Son) to take on the significance of the redemption of the entire world.81 When the redemptive meaning of suffering in union with Jesus is revealed, one comes to experience the glory of striking the death-blow to all that which harms innocence.82 In this definitive counterstrike against evil, which is given over to those who are the victims of evil, God ordains it to be that the possibility of the forgiveness of all past sins of humanity and every good thing to be bestowed in God’s self-gift to creatures throughout all eternity proceeds from exactly what the individual has suffered. In union with Jesus, each becomes the irrevocably necessary conduit of God’s gift of love to pass to every other, and thus (united to Christ the redeemer), each becomes the savior of the world with reference to every other person.83 Anything less than this transformation of the meaninglessness of human suffering to be one with Christ in his act of redemption would entail that any occasion of suffering (no matter how small) necessarily diminishes man permanently, thus forever alienating him from his creator for the reasons expressed in the first revelation. 80 Jesus has taken all human experience to himself, including joys, and these are given the same redemptive significance as well. However, in the human condition after the original sin, all things in the life of man have been diminished from their original intent to some degree, and therefore everything in human experience is a form of suffering. Even the greatest natural joys exist in the context of the disorder of the fallen world and therefore cannot be perfectly what they ought to be. For those particularly sensitive to evil, natural joys can also be occasions of pain because they serve to remind one of the power of evil to harm and eventually take away that which is naturally good in human life. 81 This is not a repetition of the atonement, but is a union with God the Son in his one act of redeeming humanity. In his singular and unrepeatable saving act, Jesus draws all to himself, and identifies with the sufferings of each human person throughout all time. 82 When that which man loves is harmed through an evil, he desires revenge, but all normal revenge is necessarily incomplete because it causes more suffering, and cannot perfectly restore the justice and wholeness that was lost. It is forbidden by God, who, in his justice, only wills that which is highest and best. Through redemptive suffering in union with Jesus, man is given a gift of perfect vengeance against evil; he achieves, through the infinite power of God’s love, a holy revenge that restores and vindicates innocence instead of causing harm. 83 This relationship of each being necessary for the salvation of every other was originally shown in the fifth revelation. Each is fully necessary for the salvation of the world without in any way diminishing the significance of any other person in this regard. An analogy for this is found in the Mass; each Mass is the whole paschal mystery made present, and the multiplicity of Masses throughout the world does not therefore cause them to be fractionated such that each is only a partial contributor to the reality of the redemption. Though taking the form of multiplicity, each is the entirety made present. 39 THE REDEMPTION SATISFIES THE JUSTICE OF GOD PERFECTLY In the union of God the Son with man, divine justice is perfectly satisfied, for all diminishment in the life of man is transfigured to unending glory. Through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, the destiny of the human person is not threatened or compromised in any way by repented sin, suffering, or death.84 Sin is reconciled to God’s justice such that each has always done the most perfect thing (the fourth revelation). All wasted time is reordered by God to become necessary for salvation history (the fifth revelation). All sufferings cease to have diminishing power because, in being one with the sufferings of Christ, they take on the significance of being necessary to the redemption of every other person (the eighth revelation). In the transformation of human destiny which occurs through the redemption, it is not merely that God offers man a great deal of joy, rather he invites and enables man to share in God’s own eternal and infinite joy. The Holy Spirit draws man into mystical union with God the Son and capacitates him to live a life of equality with God by grace. In this transforming union, man is loved as God by God (the sixth revelation), 85 and shares the life of the Trinity. MAN IS NOT SAVED UNLESS HE BECOMES ONE WITH THE SAVIOR (CONNECTION TO THE THIRD REVELATION) In the third revelation, it was shown that in judgment, the soul must come to understand its sin and is asked to consent to the suffering of Jesus so that sin can be taken away. Man does not want to see that he has wounded perfect love, but (as was shown in the fourth revelation) Christ’s perfect embrace of the consequences of sin is the only means by which a soul can be reconciled to God’s justice. Despite the restoration of innocence that takes place through the blood of Christ, there is a degree of shame experienced by the soul in knowing that it is saved through the wounds of perfect love. Though Christ is willing to suffer without reservation, the soul is burdened by an abiding remorse at the nature of this gift. In the eighth revelation, it is shown that man is not saved from the power of evil merely through consenting to wound perfect love and having his sinful actions perfectly accepted by God, but by becoming perfect love (in union with God the Son through the power of the Holy Spirit) wounded for the salvation of the world.86 Through this gift in which God bestows upon each individual the role of being savior to every other, the shame that would permanently diminish man at having wounded perfect love is removed, for the Holy Spirit enables the sinner to become one with the same love that has been 84 The redemption does not cause sin, suffering, or death to become good things. They remain evils, but they are evils that have been overwhelmingly conquered through infinite love. It remains that sin is to be avoided at all costs because it is that which causes suffering to the innocent. Additionally, the suffering of persons should be alleviated by all means that are consistent with human dignity. Suffering should not be sought out. Fasting and penance for the sake of gaining freedom from vicious passions are an exception to this principle because the purpose in such cases is not to seek suffering, but to gain ascendancy over those inclinations of the flesh which would pull a person towards sin. As such, when undertaken prudently, fasting and penance are to be seen as a means of reducing the suffering in the world, not increasing it. It is also the case that fasting and penance, when done in sacrificial love, can disrupt evil influences in the world, for anything done in authentic supernatural charity will necessarily have a healing effect on the whole of humanity. Through the love of God acting in one person, there is a restorative effect on the world because the reintegration of any one individual will (through the unity of humanity) necessarily work to counteract disorder and draw the whole world towards holiness. 85 It may have been the case that God would have invited man into this divinization of human nature through the incarnation even if man had not sinned. As it is, because of man’s sin, the otherwise unknowable reality of God’s mercy and faithfulness is revealed for eternity and man participates in heroic victory over evil by becoming necessary for the salvation of all others. In this act of conquering evil through union with Jesus, man receives a greater glory (because he is one with God in redeeming all who will be saved) than if sin had not come. Indeed, it can be said that man’s sin has enabled God to give a gift of glory that he was not free to give otherwise. 86 The stigmata is a sense-perceptible sign of this reality. It is not God inflicting suffering on a person, but is the visible manifestation of what is actually happening in each person united to Christ. 40 wounded.87 If this gift of participation in redemptive suffering were not granted in the providence of God, then some degree of shame in being saved passively through the redemptive suffering of others would be permanent, thus making perfect joy impossible. THE INTERVENTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NECESSARY In the new destiny of the human person, God is calling man to receive the sin of the world to himself in union with Jesus in perfect love, but only God can accomplish this heroic degree of love in a person through grace, which is a participation in the very life of God. Human nature, on its own, will rebel at the thought of laying down one’s life for the sake of love.88 It is never man’s role to try to act in this way by his own power, but only to ask for and receive the power that God wants to give. Given continued permission, the Holy Spirit will transform any sinner to become one with Christ. 87 This power of redemptive suffering operates within a person even if they are unaware of it, because it is Christ doing the suffering. However, to continue to live in unawareness of the reality that is transpiring within oneself is to continue to live a false identity under the deception of the evil one. The Holy Spirit works to conform a person to the identity of being one with Christ in reconciling the world to God, and hence the Christian begins to offer his sufferings to the Father as an act of sacrifice for the salvation of the world. 88 This is a work that entails perfect forgiveness of the evils that one experiences. It is not accomplished by human effort, but by a mighty deed of God. Indeed, without this power that comes from God, it is impossible to forgive even the smallest injustice. It is important to note that the forgiveness that comes from God is based on perfect vengeance against evil, not the toleration thereof. It flows from the justice of God, which abolishes the power of evil through the cross and resurrection of Christ. In divine justice (which entails a perfect counterstrike against all that diminishes human persons), God pours out his wrath (which is convertible with his love) against every evil. The forgiveness that man gives must come from this same power, otherwise it is a selfdeception. There has been, neither in God nor in man, any act of true forgiveness that is based on the toleration of evil. The power of supernatural forgiveness is a grace that must be petitioned, and it is not necessary that one be aware of the nature of the divine vengeance against evil in the petitioning, for the same supernatural reality can be infused regardless of one’s felt experience. 41 The Ninth Revelation Not long after the eighth revelation, a great obscurity came over me such that the consolations of the previous experiences became entirely unavailable. I retained memories of all of the past experiences, but the recollection was only in a superficial and abstract way that had no power to bring any comfort. The glory of union with Jesus in redeeming the world was not experienced, and most painfully, the definitive separation between God’s goodness from the evil in the world that was shown in the seventh revelation became inaccessible. A combined experience of both atheism and rebellion against God seemed to come at me from the outside, and it did so in a way that overwhelmed my emotions. Doubt about God’s existence began to grow along with the sentiment that even if God exists, I am against him. Neither philosophical argument, nor previous experiences of God did anything to assuage this torment. I could only feel the experience of unbelief at this time regardless of reason or the evidence of past experiences. I continued to believe through this, but it seemed that everything in me was railing against God. The experience of the rejection of God was centered on the problem of evil. I believed that God was all-powerful and, therefore, could prevent any suffering. I believed that he was all-knowing, and knew all of the terrible things would happen before they occurred. I believed that he was good, and therefore sought the best interests of man. In order to harmonize the goodness of God with the existence of evil, I had always believed that God permitted evil as a means to bring about a greater good that would come from it. However, in this experience, the notion of an order of reality in which terrible sufferings are permitted by God as a means to an end seemed unacceptable. The thought that God could intervene, but chooses not to do so became appalling. One day during Mass, the feeling of anger about the sufferings in the world (and at a creator who is complicit in them) became greater than anything of its kind that I had ever experienced previously. I had been able to resist and manage the experience to this point, but because of its sudden new intensity, I became afraid that it would become impossible to resist. As I approached to receive communion, this experience continued to increase in intensity against my will. As I received Jesus in the Eucharist, the experience became absolute. I saw clearly and irrevocably that I could never love a God who purposefully held back in opposing evil and approved of the suffering of the innocent for the sake of some greater good. I could only hate such a deity. I saw this so completely that I knew that it would be impossible to reconsider and turn back to allying myself with a God who permits tragedies as a means to an end. It seemed that this was the definitive end of my faith. I could never serve a God who required that I love this order of things. As I was experiencing this, I became aware of the presence of the Lord within me. I saw that my anger about the suffering in the world was his anger. He and I were as one in opposition to suffering and hatred of injustice. In his perfect opposition to evil, I saw that he also was the enemy of any “god” who would fail to perfectly oppose evil or permit it as a means to an end. In this sense, I saw that he shared my experience of what had seemed to me to be atheism. 42 Rather than approving of the sufferings in the world for the sake of a higher purpose, I saw that he was infinitely offended by them, and opposed them absolutely. I then saw that God does not so much “permit” the sufferings in the world (such as to give them approval for a higher end), but endures them in agony as one who is being crucified. With this experience came an understanding about why God, being all good, omnipotent, and omniscient does not prevent evil. IN CREATION, POWER IS GIVEN AWAY In creation, God has given of himself in a maximally radical way. His love is one of total selfgift for the sake of created persons. In offering himself totally to creatures, God has given power to those creatures made in his image to be co-creators. That is, real power in shaping the world is given to men and angels. That which can only be done by God (such as creation of the universe out of nothing, or the governance of the entirety of reality via omniscient providence) cannot be given over to creatures, but all other finite powers and roles of importance that can possibly be entrusted to created beings have been given to men and angels for the sake of imbuing maximal importance to each creature made in the image of God.89 This gift of power is so absolute that even many of those actions which can only be accomplished by God himself, such as the forgiveness of sins, or the changing of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, have been entrusted to human beings as intermediaries through the sacramental ministry of the priesthood. According to God’s generosity, if something can possibly be done or mediated by a finite power, God creates a finite creature to do it rather than doing the thing directly.90 WHAT IS GIVEN IS TRULY GIVEN In giving away all that can be given, God gives such that no truer giving is possible. This gift of power is as authentic and irrevocable as any act of giving can be. Though all power comes from God, when he gives it away, he no longer owns it even though he holds it in being. As a consequence, it can be said (in a manner of speaking) that creatures, because of the generosity of God, have power that God does not have. This self-emptying of God (such as to give away all finite power to creatures) is not a weakness, but is the perfect charity of God in which authentic importance is irrevocably bestowed upon created persons as a gift.91 89 In addition to the normal powers given to persons according to their created natures, the unfolding of divine providence can be altered by prayer without in any way entailing that the eternal, immutable God changes his mind. God eternally wills to bestow his own power to creatures; therefore (without requiring a change in the will of God) the direction of divine providence depends on the prayers and actions of created persons in accordance with the sphere of influence that they have been given. Consequently, it is entirely fitting that, for example, a person could be awakened in the middle of the night by angels to pray for something which God (in his omniscience) already knows is needed. This act of entrusting so much to the prayers of creatures is a gift in keeping with God’s divestiture of all that does not require infinite power. Everything that can possibly depend on the asking of creatures does, in fact, depend on the asking. 90 Considering the principle that God’s direct action is limited only to those things which necessarily cannot be done by any intermediary power, it follows that the natural sciences should be expected to be able to explain the vast majority of events in the material universe in terms of the operation of intermediary causes and physical laws. Consequently, it is a grave misunderstanding of the nature and power of God to conclude that the far-reaching explanatory power of science in discerning naturalistic causal relationships implies any kind of atheistic conclusion. 91 In light of this, prayers to saints and angels for their intercession and intervention are entirely compatible with the worship and honor due to God. The intercessory roles that they have been given in the unfolding of divine providence are a gift from God, and it is an honor to God’s generosity to recognize this and act accordingly. 43 THE ACTIONS OF ONE AFFECT ALL In the fifth revelation it was shown that, in creation, God intended a total communion of love such that each person would be integral to the happiness of all others. There were to be no superfluous persons, and every free action would be maximally important to the happiness of all. In this perfect communion, the exercise of each of the gifts of power given by God was ordained by the divine will to have a universal effect. That is, in every case, the free actions of any individual would affect every other in a harmonious way for the benefit of all. Such a totally unified communion of persons where each is maximally important to all others is God’s intention for the dignity of persons. However, when the order of the created universe is violated through sin, the gifts of freedom, power and universal causal significance that would have made a person an integral part of the happiness of all become the means of distribution for disaster and chaos. As was shown in the second revelation, sufferings of all kinds stem from the universal impact of sinful individual actions. The world is full of maximally important persons acting in ways that violate the order of creation, and everyone experiences the consequences of the disordered actions of each. DIMINISHMENT IN ANTICIPATION OF EVIL AS THE ENTHRONEMENT OF EVIL In knowing of the eventual abuse of his maximal self-gift through sin, God either gives all that can be given and does exactly as he would have done as if he did not know that there would be an abuse of the gift, or he holds back his generosity in order to prevent the abuse from happening by giving something less than the total gift which he would have given originally. Necessarily, God either gives fully, as if evil were not a factor, or he gives something less in anticipation of evil. If God does exactly as he would have done were evil not a consideration at all, then the total gift is given without the least restraint even though he knows it will be abused; he creates exactly those whom he would have created 92 if evil were never to have been a consideration, and gives away power and importance fully and without any degree of compromise in response to the threat of evil. 93 However, if God holds back his generosity in anticipation of the evils that would follow from the abuse of his undiminished self-gift, then self-withholding in anticipation of evil (rather than uncompromising self-donation) becomes the guiding principle in the order of creation. Instead of unconditional love and generosity being the principle of divine action, reluctance to love in response to the threat of evil is elevated to the ultimate principle of being. Rather than the unconditional love of God, the power of evil takes the helm of the universe. It seems plausible at first glance that God’s goodness would be most exemplified by preventing the abuse of his gifts at the outset, but the deeper reality is that the self-withholding of God that would be necessary to prevent evil is the absolute enthronement of evil. 92 While the identity of angels is determined directly by God, the identity of the human persons that God will create is dependent on the choices that man makes, as each human action irrevocably changes the course of history. However, God has omnisciently known what each would do, and thus it can be said that God knew each person to be created from eternity. 93 All persons (whether men or angels) are created good, and it is this good reality that God creates in love. According to the total divine self-outpouring, each is given power and significance in a relationship of complementarity to every other. God loves each as if each were the only one, and does not alter his love in response to a person’s potential infidelity, but remains perfectly faithful to the other in his own self-offering no matter what. 44 THE CHASTITY OF GOD God is infinite love, and in him there is no consideration of anything that would in any way compromise the fullness of his radical self-gift to created persons. Self-donation is God’s only act, and his love will not be diminished in anticipation of, or in response to evil. This fidelity to creatures in unconditional love is the chastity of God; he gives of himself in an entirely innocent, simple, and unconditionally faithful way without any admixture of self-withholding.94 In deciding the magnitude of his self-gift to creatures, God allows evil to have no diminishing influence whatsoever; he is fully himself in the face of evil and does not compromise to allow it to have any influence at all. The threat of evil is simply not considered, and love is the only principle of action. Therefore, in divine chastity, God creates persons with gifts of power and universal importance in full generosity, without any consideration of whether or not any of them will abuse his gifts by turning to sin. 95, 96 DIVINE CHASTITY AND OMNISCIENCE Even though God is omniscient, divine chastity causes it to appear as if God is entirely ignorant of the threat of evil, for in every situation he gives everything that he would have given had evil never been a consideration. Instances of this can be seen throughout the public ministry of Jesus. He chose Judas as an apostle even though he knew of the betrayal that was coming. In other examples, Jesus healed people, and instructed them to tell no one of the miracle. However, in doing this, he knew that they would not obey, and that the public knowledge of the miracle would create many practical problems in his ministry. In every action, Jesus simply loved innocently and would not compromise with evil by allowing its threat to diminish his love. He simply refused to negotiate with evil in any way. In the act of creation, this same uncompromising love is given. Knowing fully that many of the angels would turn from him in disobedience, and that the first humans would be seduced to do the same, God considered only the essential goodness with which they would be created, and bestowed the same power and importance on them that he would have given had he no knowledge that they would turn against him. 94 Chastity in the human sphere is often mistaken to be a kind of self-withholding to avoid the sins of the flesh. In truth, chastity is the opposite of self-withholding. It is a radical and unconditional outpouring of self for another. Authentic chastity is only possible when one’s life is offered in totality as an undivided gift to God, and (through the power of the Holy Spirit) to others according to one’s state in life. 95 A God-ordained diminishment of love at the foundation of the world would cause evil to permeate even the heart of God, and thus (if it were possible) evil would conquer all things. Because of God’s faithfulness, unconditional love remains at the foundation of being, and thus hope remains. 96 It may seem that giving freedom, power, and universal importance to potentially sinful created persons is irresponsible. However, these gifts are not ancillary tools for persons to use; rather, they are essential attributes to the dignity of created persons as such. If God were to remove any one of the gifts of freedom, power, or importance in anticipation of their abuse, he would prevent the suffering caused by their abuse, but would also prevent any possibility of authentic significance of persons, community, or love - thus directly incurring a different kind of disaster. Instead of being free, powerful, and maximally important to each other, “persons” would be non-free, powerless, or totally isolated from one another such that all were entirely incapable of authentic love, empty of purpose or real power, and utterly irrelevant. On this model, there would be no suffering as the result of sin, but there would be perfect alienation and emptiness. This isolation and insignificance would be the inversion of the perfect communion of maximally important persons that God has in fact willed. Indeed, there would be no such thing as love, for all (even the love of God) would have been trumped by the threat of evil. On this model, something akin to hell would be the only reality. This is not to say that evil is necessary, but only that the undiminished fullness of the self-gift of God is necessary for created persons to have anything other than a hell-like existence as the only possible reality. 45 DIVINE CHASTITY AND OMNIPOTENCE Because of the action of the rebel angels and the subsequent sin of man, creation has become a battlefield between good and evil.97 In this conflict, God is perfectly opposed to every injustice and evil action. However, so as not to enthrone evil as the ultimate determiner of the order of being, God has only acted in innocent love (doing exactly as he would have done without allowing evil to have any diminishing influence), and has irrevocably given away gifts of existence and power even to those who would oppose him through sin. As a result of this, the conflict between good and evil rages on even though the omnipotence of God is on the side of the good. Though he is omnipotent, because of the perfect outpouring of power and importance to created persons in divine chastity, it can appear that God is powerless or unresponsive in the fight against evil.98 This, however, is an illusion as God is infinitely opposed to that which harms or threatens innocence. THE WORLD AND DIVINE CHASTITY The world in its present form is a combination of God’s faithfulness to his creatures in a perfectly chaste self-gift, combined with the repeated abuse of this absolute self-gift by created persons. The current state of affairs in which suffering afflicts all of human experience was not orchestrated by God any more than a burned-out building corresponds to the architect’s design of what the building should have been.99 As such, the evil is neither directly willed, nor is it approved in any way by God, but is endured in a kind of agony.100, 101 In creating the world, God has only loved in the greatest way that chaste omnipotence could, that is, perfectly and without 97 Evidence suggests this to be the case even before man arrived in creation. In the material order, there is both tremendous beauty and artistry combined with a horrendous cruelty and disregard for life. The order of the animal kingdom follows the pattern of the strong victimizing the helpless, and (even though it involves non-personal creatures) it is difficult to reconcile this with the intentions of a good God. While nothing about this phenomenon was explicitly shown in the revelations, it seems likely that (in accord with the delegation of power given in divine chastity), authority concerning the unfolding of the material order was given to the angels. With power over the material world, the fall of the rebel angels would necessarily register in the material order in serious ways. God’s will is to create life, but the will of the rebel angels is to countermand this at every opportunity. Hence, there is an interplay between life (which is facilitated in obedience to God by the good angels) and death (through the work of the evil one and his allies). Ultimately this discord (through the mechanism of survival of the fittest life forms) was directed providentially (through the guidance of God under the co-operation of the good angels) towards the creation of more advanced life, and ultimately the body of man emerged despite the best efforts of the evil angels to destroy life absolutely through mishap and omission. Possibly, as the union of matter and spirit, it was man’s role to redeem the material world from the effects of the angelic fall. Though the material order was good in itself, it seems that man (through the use of preternatural gifts) was originally commissioned to subdue and reorder the world in a way that would cause it to reflect the glory of God more perfectly. 98 Despite appearances to the contrary, there is positively no degree of God holding back in his exercise of power in opposition to suffering and evil. He literally does all that chaste omnipotence is capable of doing to bring justice to the world. The intervention of divine justice is manifested in partial ways in terms of healing and deliverance, and ultimately occurs fully in the definitive shattering of the power of evil through the redemptive suffering of Christ. 99 After the fall, though the order of the world is (in many regards) destroyed, man retains the gift of the ability to procreate, and new human beings are created in the fallen world despite the sufferings that they will face. God sees to it, that through the redemption, each suffering is infinitely compensated through offering the very life of the Trinity in all those who suffer. 100 This agony is not to be misunderstood as implying that there is a power greater than God to which God is subjected against his will. The agony of God is the result of the perfection of his free self-gift to creatures, which is then horribly abused. The crucifix is the image of this. In power, Jesus could have come down from the cross, but in love he would not. 101 Through the redemptive suffering of Jesus, this agony is perfectly compatible with absolute victory, glory, and perfect joy. God is perfectly opposed to all innocent suffering in creatures. However, he totally approves of all sufferings taken to himself in Christ, for it is through these sufferings that man’s destiny is restored and the power of evil is definitively shattered. The showing of the agony of God that was given in the experience of the ninth revelation was for the sake of dispelling the lie that God is somehow complicit in evil by permitting it as a means to an end. In this context, “agony” is synonymous with “absolute disapproval,” and such absolute disapproval is not logically incompatible with the perfect victory and glory of the redemption. 46 any degree of compromise with the threat of evil. 102 He wills only the highest good without any consideration of alternatives, and this is why he loves in exactly the same way that he would have had evil never been a factor. 103 He will not do evil by diminishing his good will toward created persons in order to prevent evil. Therefore, he endures the infinite offense of evil so that evil does not become absolute. ALL FINITE JUSTICE IS MEDIATED THROUGH CREATURES In keeping with his infinite generosity, every finite role of importance in the battle against evil is delegated to those men and angels who have chosen to ally themselves with the will of God. In this combat, as in all things, God retains for himself only those capacities which cannot be given away to creatures, and every other role that can possibly be given has been entrusted to the good angels and to human beings according to the powers that have been originally handed over to them. IN CHRIST, GOD ACTS AS BOTH CREATOR AND CREATURE Even though God has given away all finite powers in the war against evil, the redemption of the world through the suffering of a divine person in human nature is something that only God can do. In the incarnation, God assumes a created human nature, and acts with finite powers that are proper to man. As a necessary aspect of the incarnation, God begins to act within the world according to the normal and limited sphere of influence that would be given to a human being as part of the created order. As true God and true man, Jesus performed miraculous healings and exorcisms within the finite human capacity that was appropriate to him according to created human nature. He healed those who came to him as a sign that he had come to bring justice to the world.104 He showed, through every action, that suffering and death were enemies to be defeated, and that he has come to bring justice to the world by delivering man from the power of evil. CHRIST’S MINISTRY OF HEALING AND DELIVERANCE IS GIVEN TO THE CHURCH In remaining consistent with the principle of giving all that can be given, after his ascension, through the coming of the Holy Spirit, Jesus has entrusted his human ministry of healing and deliverance to his Church, most particularly to the apostles and their successors, the bishops. As with any other power given by God, it is truly given, and it is presently in the hands of the Church. If this gift is not taken seriously, then there will be consequences for the whole world 102 This is not a limitation on God’s freedom, for freedom of will is, in essence, the capacity to give of oneself to another in love. In this sense, God is perfectly free even though he always chooses that which is highest and best for the sake of creatures. Divine freedom is entirely convertible with divine chastity. This relationship of freedom and chastity also obtains in the human realm. Unchaste actions necessarily bring about a lack of freedom as one loses the capacity to offer oneself to another in authentic love. 103 It has been argued throughout history that an omnipotent being would have the power to prevent any and all evils if it so desired; an omniscient being would know of them and know how to prevent them; and a perfectly good being would do all in its power to prevent all evil. Thus, it appears that, if God existed, and were omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good, evil would not exist. The reality of evil has therefore been used in arguments against the existence of God. Various forms of such arguments have been presented, but the reasoning therein does not consider that the chastity of God entails that he is not morally free to do evil (that is, to diminish the absoluteness of his act of self-donation) in order to prevent the abuse of his love. In light of divine chastity, God can be omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, infinitely offended by human suffering, and yet evil can still exist despite God’s omnipotent opposition to it. 104 Because of the fall of man, suffering and death afflicted all things, and man’s destiny was one of unending subjection to the power of evil. In Christ, the Kingdom of God (which is the reign of divine justice), has come into the world. Every action of Jesus was a manifestation of God’s justice for those oppressed by evil. From preaching, to healing and exorcism, Jesus brought divine justice to every situation within his human sphere of influence, and ultimately annihilated the power of evil (for all who choose to accept his gift) through the cross and resurrection. 47 because of the omission. In the same way that a lack of teaching and preaching 105 will have its effect on the world, so it is that a lack of prayer for miraculous healing will cause many people to suffer unnecessarily.106, 107 HEALING AND DELIVERANCE CANNOT BRING THE FULLNESS OF DIVINE JUSTICE In the first revelation, it was noted that the healing of those who had suffered the effects of sin would not be sufficient to restore the lost destiny of man. In addition to being insufficient to reconcile suffering humanity with the perfect will of God, miraculous healings cannot be permanent in the fallen world because the interaction of things no longer exemplifies God’s will in terms of the perfect harmony of original justice. The universal impact of sin has forced any relatively well-ordered situation into the context of a larger state of affairs that is broadly disordered. The mere fact of being in the damaged world guarantees that any relatively wellordered natural situation in the life of man is in the process of breaking down. Even if all were to be healed, things would again begin to deteriorate due to the weight of disorder from the past.108 At best, miracles of healing can only delay and reconfigure the injustices that man faces without truly delivering people from the full effects of evil. As such, healing is ultimately only a symbol of God’s intent to bring justice to man; it is not the full reality of God’s intervention. The primary purpose of miraculous healing is to serve as a sign that God is trustworthy so that a person may come to give God permission so as to receive the full cure of the effects of evil. REDEMPTIVE SUFFERING IS THE DEFINITIVE INTERVENTION OF DIVINE JUSTICE For suffering and dying man, the only complete intervention of God’s justice is to cause it to be that the very act of things falling apart is the same as them triumphantly coming together in a higher order. Only in this way is there no permanent diminishment wrought by evil. This total conversion of defeat into victory is redemptive suffering, and it is the way that God perfectly saves people from the diminishment (and hence eternal loss) caused by suffering and death. God’s choice to save the world through redemptive suffering comes not from any inherent value in suffering, but from God’s hatred of suffering, and his will that its power to cancel man’s destiny be perfectly defeated. Redemptive suffering is not God taking something from man, but is God’s act of bringing perfect justice to man so that suffering has no power to diminish him in 105 It was noted in the third revelation that divine hiddenness is a gift for the sake of averting a painful clash between fallen human nature and the judgment of God, which is simply identical to his unveiled presence. While this hiddenness is a blessing for the time that man is being purged of disordered attachments, a lack of preaching and teaching in the Church is of help to no one, and causes terrible suffering in the world because people are then easily deceived by various lies of Satan. The ministry of preaching the good news of the redemption has been entrusted to the Church. If it is not done, then great darkness and ignorance will continue to envelop humanity. 106 Each person in the Church is called to communicate the gift of God to every other. When one is not as he ought to be, he obscures the experience of God’s goodness in the world, and everyone suffers. When one has been given authority to heal in the name of Jesus, and does not act upon it, then those who suffer and die because of the omission are like Jesus, who, in the agony in the garden experienced the abandonment of his friends who could not stay awake with him. As Jesus redeemed their sin through his pain, so it will be that those who suffer from the omissions of the Church are called to the glory of redeeming these sins in union with Christ. 107 Because of omissions within the Church, the lives of even those who are obedient to Christ’s call to heal the sick and preach the gospel are reduced in their efficacy because they are not upheld by the gifts of the others who would be acting in conjunction with them throughout the world by lives of prayer and sacrifice. Because of the unity of humanity, when one member of the Church is not living a holy life, all are affected in a negative way correspondingly. As more individuals within the Church begin to live under the power of the Holy Spirit, then the ministries of healing and preaching will begin to reflect the same power of the ministry of Jesus himself. 108 The weight of past disordered actions will have its effect on the material order until the end of time. Even through Christ has transformed the substantial meaning of these disorders through the redemption it remains the case that (because of the universal significance of each human action), the forms of the consequences of sin (suffering and death) remain until the end of the world. 48 any degree. God sees suffering in the same way that he sees sin - as something to be fully opposed with every morally good means possible. Therefore, through redemptive suffering, God causes it to be that the elements of defeat are transubstantiated into the elements of victory.109 God enables man to participate in infinite glory by means of the very thing which otherwise would have cancelled human destiny forever. THOSE WHO SUFFER MAKE THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS POSSIBLE The fact that God’s generosity remains undiminished despite the threat of evil means that man is still able to receive the total gift that God intends. This gift is the fullness of God’s love, the maximal dignity of freedom, power, and universal importance, and the fullness of the unity of humanity, where each is perfectly important to all. Another word for this gift is heaven. God has not compromised the fullness of his gift in any degree in response to the threat of or the actuality of evil, and only because God has remained faithful in offering the fullness of his gift by loving man according to this undiminished dignity does heaven remain open. However, in order that God continue to love sinful man according to this maximal dignity, each person must remain free and universally important no matter what. If the dignity of freedom and importance were to be taken away, it would hurt a person permanently, for one would no longer have universal causal significance, and thus would be excluded from the unity of humanity. Therefore, in order to safeguard man’s eternal destiny, God must forever preserve the universal impact of the free actions of each even though they have done evil. Though man sins, the impact of his actions remain universal, and thus he retains the same dignity of freedom and causal importance as when he was created. However, others must pay for this high dignity to be retained through their suffering of the universal effects of his sin while God directs these evil consequences in such a way that his providence draws a greater good from them. Consequently, it can be said that those who suffer make it possible for sins to be forgiven because they allow God to continue to love sinners as if they were innocent, bestowing maximal undiminished dignity upon the guilty despite their abuse of God’s gifts. GOD DOES NOT CAUSE OR APPROVE OF THE SUFFERING OF THE INNOCENT The suffering in the world is not the indication that God has abandoned the world, but is a manifestation of God’s fidelity to sinners in continuing to love them with an infinite love. This does not mean that God approves of the sufferings that happen as the result of sin, for suffering is the very reason why sin is offensive to him.110 This condition of the world in which the innocent pay for the dignity of the guilty is not so much permitted111 by God as it is endured in agony. The suffering in the world is infinitely more offensive to God than it is to the atheist who 109 This parallels the celebration of the Mass in which the species of bread and wine (which retaining their original accidental properties) are substantially changed into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus. In a similar way, the accidental properties of the damaged first order of creation remain, but substantively, their meaning is forever changed in the redemption. 110 Sin seeks the fulfillment of desire in a distorted way which (along with the good attained) brings an admixture of lack and pain. God’s will is to give the human person maximal joy, and sin is forbidden only because it something which causes deprivation of a due good and precludes the reception of the fullness of God’s self-gift. If, by the very nature of things, sin did not bring about suffering, then sin would not be problematic with regard to man’s relationship to God. In such a situation (if it were possible), those actions which are presently considered sinful would be among the good and beneficial things that a person may freely choose. In God’s generosity, if it were possible for someone to be truly happier apart from God through a life of sin, then God would directly will that departure. 111 In one sense, God does “permit” evil, and he always draws a greater good out of it, but this must never be understood as failure to oppose evil with the perfection of chaste omnipotence, or as the divine approval of suffering as a means to an end. 49 rejects God because of the problem of evil. For the sake of sinners, this offense is endured by God with unfailing love so that sins may be forgiven. GOD DOES NOT WILL EVIL AS A MEANS TO AN END God is forced by the perfection of his own free self-outpouring to honor the universal significance of those actions which created persons have given him. In order to love the world in a perfectly chaste self-offering, both good and evil actions of persons must be allowed to reach their ultimate consequences.112 God holds in being what he has been given because, in love, he protects the freedom, power, and causal significance of created persons. While it is true that God’s redemptive providence brings good out of every evil, and it is true that (through the grace of God) a person can sometimes learn very much about the futility of a life of sin through the experience of suffering, the fact remains that God never wills evil as a means to an end, or fails to oppose any evil with the fullness of chaste omnipotence.113 God does not send evils into the lives of people.114 Rather, the universal causal impact of the abuse of free will does this. God sends the Holy Spirit into the lives of people so that suffering may be borne with the power of God, and so that the glory of God the Son as redeemer of the world may be given to those who suffer. God has made suffering redemptive, not because he wanted to do so, but because suffering is what man created through the universal effects of his sin, and God wanted sinners to be saved from hell.115 BEHOLD, HE DOES NOT SLUMBER It was noted previously that God gives away every power that can possibly be given. Even those things which can only be done by God are shared with created persons as intermediaries insofar as it is possible. As an extension of this, God has deliberately given over the act of the redemption of the world to those who suffer. It is God who redeems the world in Christ, but as his gift to man, he causes it to be that each becomes necessary for the salvation of those who are 112 While, in chastity, God must honor the consequences of the choices of created persons, it remains that (within creation) one created person can freely oppose the actions of another who is doing evil, or can directly help to heal the damage caused by evil. Thus finite justice (which is always God’s will, but is necessarily mediated through the actions of creatures) can be accomplished. 113 The moral law forbids that man do evil or to fail to oppose evil so that a good may result. God, being perfectly good, and the eternal source of the moral law (which proceeds necessarily from his own nature), cannot act in violation of it. The demons tempt man to think that God has made a compromise with evil and thus holds back in his opposition to evil because he uses it as a means to an end. However, God does exactly as he teaches man to do; he perfectly opposes every evil without doing evil himself. 114 When a person prays that God deliver him from bondage to the power of evil, the Holy Spirit begins to purify the soul through the revelation of poverty and detachment from the world. These purifications can involve grave trials as God leads a person away from the disordered attachments that have so penetrated his being. These experiences of purification can be horrible as a person is driven by his own nature to cling to those things which would ensure eternal loss. In fidelity to life and love, God relentlessly chastens those who will be saved so that they can be free to receive his love. In doing this, God is not willing the suffering that a person undergoes as they relinquish that which has held them in bondage, but is facilitating the deliverance from those diminishments which would cause definitive and unending suffering. In this experience, it seems that God is leading a person from one suffering to the next. This, however, is an illusion caused by the fact that every situation on Earth contains suffering due to the consequences of the original sin, and the leading of God is (in the context of life on Earth) necessarily a journey through a valley of tears. This journey is, however, an exodus out of the bondage of evil into the possibility of perfect love, and the circumstantial disorders (sickness, tragedy, loneliness, etc.) that surround a person going through life are the result of the disorder of the fallen world, not the action of God. 115 It could be argued that God, in his freedom, should have simply abstained from creating or should at least annihilate any soul that would definitively choose hell. However, God’s capacity is only for infinite goodness, and there is no consideration of any compromise with evil. The threat of evil will not be allowed to have any influence at all such as to veto the good of creation, and the gifts of God, once given, are irrevocable. Among these gifts is the immortality of the soul, which precludes annihilation of those who would choose evil definitively. It is the duty of all Christians to pray that none would perish in hell, for God wills that none be lost, and with him, all things are possible. 50 oppressed by evil. 116 God’s greatest intervention against evil is his apparent silence and nonintervention, for the fullness of vengeance against evil is entrusted by God to those who have been made victims of evil. 117 116 In the fifth revelation, it was shown that, in accord with divine justice in bestowing maximal causal significance to each individual human being, it has been ordained that in the new order of creation, the actions of each are made necessary for the salvation of all. In the eighth revelation, it was shown that in being brought into union with Christ in his mission of redemptive suffering, each human being becomes the conduit of grace to flow upon every other for the purification and redemption of the whole world. All providence in the redemptive order obtains through, with, and in each person united to Christ, flowing from glorified wounds. Thus, one with Christ, each broken human person becomes eternally and irrevocably the means through whom all good things come to every other creature. Through this union with Jesus, the self-gift of God to the entirety of creation and the self-gift of the individual human person become identical. It should be noted that (according to Catholic doctrine) Mary, in being the first instance of this new order of creation, is understood to be the first to exemplify this role of maximal importance in the salvation of every person who will be saved. Thus, she is the fountainhead through whom all graces come into the fallen world from the Holy Trinity. 117 If the glory of this vengeance against evil through redemptive suffering were not entrusted to man, then the victims of evil would never be perfectly compensated by God for their sufferings, for they would remain mere bystanders who have been passively liberated by an external source. Their suffering would not have value in bringing about this liberation, and thus it would remain a permanent diminishing factor because of its meaninglessness. Hence, God has ordained it to be that death is conquered by means of death, and through this conquest, the glory of the Trinity becomes the inheritance of the poor in spirit. 51