81: Jesus' embrace on the Cross

"Redemption", "Salvation", "Cross", "Crucified", are words/verbs we use so commonly. We understand them - certainly - but in a general way. We don't always get the chance to deepen them. Maybe because they are too obvious, too known, unquestionable.

Let us go deeper, if you will.

Good theology contemplates Jesus on the Cross, and the "work" he does in a deep way. The Cross (the Crucified, and His Work) has at least three layers:

1- the Suffering of the Body (tortured, beaten, bleeding,…),

2- the Suffering of the Soul (carrying our darkness, our filth, our distance from God-Light (our sins), being torn between us and His own light, dislocated by that distance,… the Lamb carrying our filth),

3- the Spirit (not the Holy Spirit but the eye of Jesus' Soul), in Peace and Joy, deep deep, not seen, not felt by his Body-Soul, but nonetheless present. He is realising the greatest thing on the Cross, the Will of the Father: coming out of himself, out of love, going toward us, grabbing us, and bringing us back to the Light, the Father's Home (see, below, the House on the right).

In a way, Jesus' arms are not held tight by the nails on the wood of the Cross. His Soul is holding us, very tight, his body holding our body, and his soul our soul. All this happens by the operation of the Holy Spirit (see, below, the dove on top of Jesus).

It is important to see deeper through appearances, and reach the depth of the Love of God on the Cross and discover new depths in it.

This Cross (from El Salvador), depicts what I am trying to say about the deep reality happening on the Cross.

I hope that, by looking at this Cross, you'll be able to contemplate Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and what he did and is still doing for you. When St. Paul contemplated Jesus on the Cross, he said: "he loved me and died for me". Let us not live far from the area of the Cross, area filled with the Love and Embrace of Jesus.

Here is what Jesus does when he sees us coming to the Cross' area: "But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him." (Luke 15:20)

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing." (Luke 15:4-5)

If you want to continue to contemplate this beautiful Cross, here are some suggestions:
Mary is the Flower below Jesus.

Another form of the same Cross has on the left, green fields, they are the Heavenly Grass (God's nature) for the Sheep.

 "Truly, truly, I say to you, [...] he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens; the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. [...] Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.[...] if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. [...] I came that they may have Life, and have it abundantly.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. [...] I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father." (John 10)

69: The deep meaning of Creation 1/..

By « deep meaning » I frankly think of the “mystical”, “spiritual” meaning. 

You might be surprised, but Philosophy doesn’t address the act of creation itself. Why? Because it supposes a "Creator" and a knowledge about this Creator. And this requires the grace of “faith”, i.e. a superior Light.

So if we really want to understand "Creation", "Nature", all what is created, including ourselves as creatures, we need to accept to make a leap of faith.

Paradoxically, we can touch with our hands all the created things, but we can’t touch with the same hands the Creator. The Creator is certainly bigger and much more beautiful than his Creation, therefore, we need something bigger than our hands to grasp Him. By definition, He transcends his creation, He is of a different nature.

In this post I am not dealing with « proving » that a Creator exists… It is about trying to discover the meaning of Creation.

For that, we have two classical questions :

1- « why are we created ? » and 2- « what is the goal of the Creation of this world ? »

And we have two classical answers that go like that:

1- We are created by God, out His of love for us, we are created in order to know Him and Love Him (and be known and loved by Him).

2- The rest of Creation is there to help us fulfil that Goal (know Him and love Him).

The human being is created "by God" and "for God". You might object: "this is too selfish from God’s part". Well the human being is created “at the Image and at the resemblance of God”, capable of entering in a personal relationship with God. He is created free, as God is free. Free even to say “yes” or “no” to God Himself. In fact, you can only love if you are free. You can’t be forced to love. It has to come from you, not from outside of you.

How the human being is created?

Before Creation (don’t ask me right now “when did it happen?”) we were – as a thought, as a project, as a dream – in God's Mind, in His Thought. We were imagined as sharing His Life, His Love, breathing from the same very “Life” of God.

He Created us according to His Thought, according to what he foresaw and dreamt about us.

Many people think wrongly that the story of “Creation” as it is told in the Book of Genesis (Gn 1-3) is a bit out-dated. I do not share that opinion. For people who want to gather scientific information about planet earth, the Milky-way galaxy, etc., they did open the wrong book. But, for people who are trying to understand "who is God" and "who is the Human being", and "what is the purpose of life", the stories you find in the Bible, especially in first chapters of Genesis, are simply a Golden Mine.

Creation of Eve

For instance, the « days » of Creation are not “days” (we can’t have “days” before having the “sun”), but they still describe the formation of the Human being, who is the highest point on earth, the meeting point between earth and heaven. Man is at the meeting point of two triangles, one from below pointing upwards and one from above pointing downward.

Man is the achievement of the visible Creation, the point where it is aiming, he summarises in himself all Creation, he has in himself all aspects of the visible Creation: water (mineral), vegetation (vegetal), and animal. But he goes further and transcends them.

The Jewish mystical tradition always considered the first chapters of Genesis as being very deep and kept their explanation for people after 40 years old, since they enclose a deep mystical meaning. “mystical” in the sense that it discloses many aspects of the meaning of who is the human being, and who is he in relation to God, and to the intimate relationship with God.

(to be continued)

30: The Spiritual Journey 4b/11

Hi Rufaro, thanks for the question you posted under "The Spiritual Journey 4a": “In your diagram, what do you mean by "culturally" ready to absorb our humanity?”

When I do mention this expression, I am speaking about the time when Jesus starts His Mission, at the age of 30. He is first Baptised. Here is how I did put it in the Diagram: “Baptism of Christ: at the age of 30 (see Luke 3:23), He starts His ministry. Christ is ready to receive us in Him. The Sponge is culturally and humanly ready to absorb our humanity.”

As I did mention in “The Spiritual Journey 2”, Jesus grows, in His human nature, as saint Luke says: “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men” (Luke 2:52). His Divine Nature doesn't grow, doesn't require any growth.

To Save us "out of love"

Since God wants to save us with His human nature, considering His Human Nature as a noble living “tool”* we need to pay attention to the way God does it.

*”tool”: first, let us not be offended by the expression “tool”. It has to be taken and understood and an image, and only taking part of the similarity not all of it. Because a normal “tool” we use in our daily life is rather a “dead” one. While we can't say that about the “human nature” that the Son of God takes. It is alive. A body, a soul and the highest part of the soul: the spirit, are very alive, they have their functions, and their relative autonomy according to their very nature. They are called here “tool” only in a analogical way. They have their total and full dignity. So let us not take the negative aspect of the image.

It would have been much “easier” for God to save us with his Divine Nature alone, but this wouldn't be an “out of love” way to save us, it would have been “out of power”. Love makes the one who loves similar to the beloved. God loves us, and it is because He loves us that He wants to save us and bring us back to Him. God is moved by love, by His very Nature (the Divine Nature): Love.

So, since Love (the Holy Spirit) makes the One Who loves (Jesus) similar to the loved one (us), He wanted to get as close as possible to us (including all what constitutes us as “humans”, i.e. culture). He then wanted to be like us, as much as He could (except for sin). This means that all the pores of his Human Nature (body, soul and spirit) had to open, develop, and be similar to ours, and “discover” us. Of course in His Human Nature, He is purer than us. But “pure” means as well with greater sensitivity, greater intelligence, greater capacity to love.

"He [humanly] learned obedience" (He 5:8)

He wanted to be similar to us, starting with His Culture: He is born amongst the “chosen People of God”, in a specific moment in history, in a specific land, with a specific language, specific habits, traditions, concepts: in a word: He had a specific Culture.

He certainly, out of love, did observe us humans, and studied us, in order to love us more, and to help us better. Of course He had high knowledge, coming from his Divinity and from the Holy Spirit, reaching his soul. But still, in order to use his “human nature” according to the laws and functioning of his human nature, out of love, He had to “undergo” the speed (the slowness) and capacity of digestion of the human process of growth (it takes years, rightly)!

Sometimes we pay less attention to the 30 years of preparation of Jesus. At 12 he becomes adult according to the Jewish tradition. He goes to the Temple.

Jesus, at 12, in the Temple

Then, after that, he comes back to his home town and to his home town. And continues the human process of growth, from 12 to 30: this means 18 years of “work” of preparation. "Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them." (Luke 2:51)

Jesus and Joseph

This great “work” He goes through is very important in order to understand the whole process of Salvation/Redemption.

He saves us with His humanity (as pointed out in a previous post (Spiritual Journey 2), mentioning a Council that defined that issue, “Constantinople III, 680-681”), and His Human Nature (body, soul and spirit) is like a “hand” (or a "sponge") that is supposed to “grasp” us, hold us, embrace us, surround us, absorb us, be united with us.

His Body holds and embraces for inside our body,

his Soul our soul, and

his spirit our spirit.

(his "spirit" is the highest point of his soul; saint Thomas Aquinas calls it in latin: mens)

In order to “hold” us tightly, and be united with us, His human Nature (the “tool”) has to be ready: mature, adult, knowing his own culture, the words, the mentality, the habits, and tons of things that constitutes a “culture”.

With His Human Nature he had to undergo this journey in order to get closer to us. So these years (from 12 to 30) are very important for that purpose. 

During these years He is constantly getting (with his human nature) closer and closer to us, getting a better inside understanding of “who we are”, our weaknesses... He is our Saviour, and he took the human journey of growth to be as well “perfectly human” (as it is needed for that type of salvation: the salvation “out of love”).

In order to save, out of love, according to God's vision, He needs to be perfect God and perfect human. Coming out of the womb of our Lady doesn't make him (or any other being) a fully human being. In the animal world, us humans (we are more than animals but it is just a comparison), we are the specie that requires the greatest number of years to achieve maturity, and readiness for life. The process in long. We do not become humans by just coming out of the womb of our mother. We need years and years.

So, in order to become our Perfect Saviour, Jesus had to become Perfectly Human. In order to reach that “perfection”, he had to undergo, out of love, this journey of human, cultural growth.

He wanted for us Mercy, He wanted to understand us, from inside of his Human Nature, therefore, He went through this journey. This is why, I said that at that time (at the age of 30), when he started His Public Mission, he was ready, in his Human Nature.

Of course, at each age, He was perfect: He had the human perfection of each age. But He still had to go through all the ages. If He really wants to save us “out of Love” he had to be as close as possible to us, and similar to us as much as possible. So we can recognise in Him not only “the God that knows everything”, but “the Human Nature” that feels us, that carries us, that underwent through all that trouble to Save us.

The preparation of His Words

Plus, you have to add the fact that His words, all the words that He will use to save us, were like prepared, backed, in his Human Nature, during all these years. They came out of His Human Nature (brain, soul,..), full of Divine life, truthful to God, but as well truly truthful to us humans (having a human aspect to them).

Jesus had to “form” them in Him.

It is too easy to consider that everything landed in his humanity, in his human nature, from above, by the action of the Holy Spirit. But this understanding is heretical, in the sense that it doesn't respect a theological rule that says that each nature had to work and act according to its own rules and functions (see st. John Damascene, “De fide orthodoxa”, taken on board by st. Thomas Aquinas “Summa Teologica” IIIa Pars).

The words He uttered, these words that are described as “Spirit and Life” (see John 6), i.e. that contain “Holy Spirit” and “Divine Life” have been formed in His Human nature throughout the years: his sensibility, his choice, his brain, his culture, what he saw and received in his culture from his mom, his adoptive father, his family, his human experience, what he noticed and observed.

These words that He uttered and that saint John, in his Gospel, admires, are really a great achievement. They are like Him, in the same fully Divine and fully human. They took time to “bake” in Him, adhering to His human rhythm of growth, forming them, in Him, by the help of the Holy Spirit and his prayer. (Here I am speaking about the human side of Jesus).

His Perfection, at each stage of His human life, is not at all undermined by that growth. He is God at all the stages of His life. He has as well the human perfection of each stage of His life. But still, he “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men” (Luke 2:52).

I hope I replied t your question.

PS Speaking about Jesus, here is John Rutter's, “Dormi Jesu”, "The Virgin's Cradle Hymn", a short lullaby text.

“Dormi, Jesu! Mater ridet

Quae tam dulcem somnum videt,

Dormi, Jesu! blandule!

Si non dormis, Mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat,

Blande, veni, somnule.”

“Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:

Mother sits beside thee smiling;

Sleep, my darling, tenderly!

If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth:

Come, soft slumber, balmily!”