Principle and Foundation
2nd Part
Prayer: In the preparatory prayer I will beg God our Lord for grace that all my intentions, actions, and operations may be directed purely to the praise and service of his Divine Majesty.
Composition of place: the creation of all things.“In the beginning… God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that it was good.And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters…Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. And God saw that it was good.God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth.” And it was so. And God saw that it was good.And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens.” And God blessed them…And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God saw that it was good.Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. So God created man in his own image… And God blessed them, and gave them dominion over the earth…”
Prayer of petition: ask for light, that I may truly know the purpose of the creation of things.
Things are created for man to help him As we could hear, the Book Genesis shows us that things are good. With the words of Saint Ignatius:
The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created We exist here on earth to praise, reverence, and serve God. By doing this, we save our souls for heaven and from hell.But we cannot reach heaven without using the necessary means of getting there. That is why the rest of the world exists: to enable us to attain our heavenly destiny. The other creatures are “stepping stones” to reach Heaven.What are these “other things on the face of the earth?”Those things are everything that in any way enters or touches our lives. Every person, place, or thing; every pleasure or pain; every circumstance in which we find ourselves; every thought and every desire; every sight we see or every sound we hear-all are intended by God to be so many graces leading us to heaven.Everything is part of a loving providence of God, provided by Him to enable us to reach Him in whom alone our heart can find rest.Creation is an art, the Divine art of the divine Artist. Everything that exist in the world, every stone, every diamond, every plant, every tree, every animal, every man, every child was made according to the Divine idea existing in the Mind of God from all Eternity.And the Almighty willed that just as any great painting should make us think of the artist, and every great monument should remind us of the architect who designed it, so, too, everything in this world should, in some way, remind us of Him.Because of this God calls us to
see through things. When you go to the Museum and you encounter works of art, if you have experience, in the painting you look for the author. And so you say, this is a Michael Angelo, and you can see it in this and that characteristic. And this you can discover Da Vinci’s hands, or Rubens’ or Fra Angelico’s or whatever.God, too, made the world according to such a plan that we were able to
see through things his Power, his Wisdom, his Beauty.So, the world according to his original plan was transparent, like a window, and according to that plan, a mountain was not just a mountain; a mountain was the revelation of the power of God. A sunset was not just a sunset; a sunset was the revelation of the beauty of God. A snowflake was not just a snowflake; a snowflake was the revelation of the purity of God.Everything told us something about God, because as Saint Paul says
by the visible things of the world is the power and wisdom of the Invisible God made manifest. According to this plan every man is a poet who has the power of seeing God through things.
The Seriousness of SinBut sin came into the world and the world lost its transparency. The sense of the invisible was lost. And men in a certain sense lost the power to see through things. And he became serious and the mountain was just a mountain, a sunset was just a sunset, a snowflake was just a snowflake.Man seriously fell into materialism, and then into atheism.Man mixed things up and the
stepping stones became
stumbling blocks. Man said
silver and gold are my gods, but they were silver and gold and nothing else. Man said
man is god, but man was man and nothing else.Man looked for happiness where happiness was not, and he found sadness and emptiness.Creatures couldn’t satisfy the longings of his souls. That was left for God alone.Consequently man fell into that sin described by Saint Paul:
“Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes.” (Rom. 1, 21-23)
Man forgot God’s law:
I am the LORD your God…. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them. (Ex 20, 2-5)Man forgot that things are created to help him in the attainment of his end. And he has to use them in as far as they help him, and he must rid himself of them in as far as they prove an obstacle to him.
Man took all things as a serious matter, and he forgot that
nothing in this world is to be taken seriously, nothing –except the salvation of a soul.“What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul” (Matthew 16:26)
Christ reveals again the Hidden Treasure He never took anything seriously except the soul. He saw the fishermen gathering in their nets, but He did not take them seriously: to Him they were fishers of men.The pearl was not to be taken seriously, because the pearl was the worth of faith and grace.A wedding garment was not to be taken seriously: to Him it was a revelation of charity. In every material thing he found a great eternal lesson. The birds of the air that neither reap nor sow. The lilies of the field arrayed in garments more glorious than Solomon, camels and eyes of needles, thorns and thistles, bread and serpents, sheep and goats, wheat and chaff, every insignificant thing of ordinary life as transparent as the very air. And each one of them contained within itself a wonderful lesson about the goodness of God.And only the ones who can see through things can read these lessons. The serious man, or the sinful man cannot, because parables are only for those with a sense of the invisible.
The Golden Rule As far as it helps me to praise, reverence, and serve God, I take it.As far as it is an obstacle to praise, reverence, and serve God, I put it aside.And we are speaking about good things, because evil things are not matter for this rule. Evil things, at once have to be rejected.According to Saint Ignatius’ thought, this rule must be applied to good or indifferent things, things that are not sin or evil in itself, but things that don’t allow man to be totally free. These things are like threats that prevent man to fly. And if he is attached in this way, he loses his vocation to be eagle and lives a life of a hen.Without detaching ourselves from the inordinate love of creatures man cannot fly toward God.St. John of the Cross says:
“a soul will become like unto the creature to which it is attached… There is like identification, because love establishes the equal adjustment of the lover to the thing beloved. Therefore, he who loves a creature stoops down to its level, and even lower, since love is not content with equality, but descends to slavery… The unmortified soul soon clings to creatures in an inordinate way, and delights in them as if they were ends in themselves, instead of making them stepping stones unto God.What is the remedy?Saint John of the Cross says
To break this chain, to escape this snare, it is absolutely necessary that we detach ourselves from whatever is not God” (Cat. for an Int. Life, p 1, Lesson IV)It is necessary to apply the
as far as.And even more, many times we have to apply not only the
as far as but also the opposition doctrine:St. John of the Cross, in the chapter 13 of
The Ascent of Mount Carmel, expresses the opposition with these ideas:In order to arrive at having pleasure in everything,Desire to have pleasure in nothing.In order to arrive at possessing everything,Desire to possess nothing.In order to arrive at being everything,Desire to be nothing.In order to arrive at knowing everything,Desire to know nothing.The question is, why to do this?The answer is not difficult:
it is necessary to be free.It is beautiful to hear the words of Saint Louis Marie de Montfort, asking for missionaries.It is beautiful to hear him praying:
“What am I asking for?Liberos, men who are free, who are free with the freedom that comes from you, detached from everything, without father, mother, brothers, sisters or relatives and friends as the world and the flesh understand them…Without worldly possessions that distract them…Liberos, men as free as the clouds… filled with the dew of Heaven, and moving without obstacle according to the inspiration of the Spirit.Liberos, free men. Men always available, always ready to obey you when those in authority speak. Always with the words of Samuel on their lips, here I am.Liberos, men who are free but still in bondage to your love and your will; men without impediment of self-love…In everything it is necessary to apply the
AS FAR AS rule. And when we detect the temptation of attachment to some things, the rule is
OPPOSITION, or with the words of Saint John of the Cross,
NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING.
