The most divine Author says,
«In the previous lesson (of 2-2), I spoke to you of creation and the successive days of creation, as well as the infinite gift which the most Good One had already prepared for man, even before man had sinned: the Christ.
At the beginning of these lessons on the Pauline epistles, I told you how Jesus, the Christ, the "Son of God, made to God of the seed of David according to the flesh, predestinated the Son of God for His own virtue according to the spirit of sanctification and by His resurrection from the dead" showed His divine nature with many prodigies - attesting to His non-schismatic nature of God, because He made Himself Flesh, from the God One and Trine - with the testimonies of the Father, with the resurrection from the dead, and He showed it with His perfect virtue which He freely wished to be so, with a just and charitable will towards His most holy Author.
I will resume these topics in order to enable you to contemplate the Christ, your Salvation.
I said that from chaos, God created the Universe, by ordering the chaotic materials and elements into the perfect one of worlds, seasons, creatures and elements which has lasted for millions of centuries. However, by observing Creation, few know how to meditate how creation is similar to an ascending scale, to a song which rises always more, note by note, until it touches the perfect and sublime note. How it is similar to a generating of lives that from the preceding one emerge always more complete and perfect until reaching perfect completeness.
Look: first from the solid molecules, from the disordered vapours and fires which were the primitive nebula, the Earth and the waters are formed, and in the Earth and in the waters still mixed with the future seas, lakes, springs and rivers, the minerals become sealed or diluted, whereas the solid molecules become the crust and furnace to the internal fires, to the internal sulphurs and metals and the bottom of the waters. The atmosphere purifies itself for some time, freed as it is in part by that which made the original nebula heavy, the chaotic nothing, and the Earth, launched into its trajectory, still naked, sterile and mute, passes through the silent [regions of] space with the bald ridges of its mountains just emerging from the dark waters of the future basins.
Then there was light. Not solar, nor lunar, nor stellar light. The sun, moon and stars are creatures younger than the terrestrial globe. After their creation, the sky, that is, the element of "air", was cleansed of every residue of the primitive cloud, and the stars and planets shined by giving vital elements to the terrestrial globe with their splendour.
However, light existed before them. A particular light, independent from every other source that was not of the will of God. A mysterious light which only the angels saw work its mysterious operations in favour of the terrestrial globe. Because none of the things created by God is useless, nor has anything been created without a reason of perfect order. Thus, if before there was light and not the stars and the planets, it is a sign that the Perfection wanted this creative order for a useful and sensible reason. Then came the sun, the moon, and the stars.
And the element "air", deprived of toxic gasses and rich of those useful for life, favoured the persistence of new creatures: plants. Those which are still creatures enslaved in their roots but that already have motion in their foliage; those which, once created, already have within them elements in order to reproduce themselves, something which is not conceded to the dust of the Earth, to the minerals and waters. These three things can mutate their aspect and nature, from submerged wood becoming coal, from fires to sulphurs, from coals to gems, and by transforming waters into vapours and from these into waters, or they can burn out; however, reproduce themselves, they cannot.
The plant world can. In it, there is already the sap, the reproductive organs able to fecundate and be fecundated. Missing in them, however, is the free will, even instinctive. They obey seasonal, climatic laws and the will of the elements and of man. A palm cannot live and bear fruit in cold lands, nor can the polar lichen decorate the rocks of torrid zones. A plant cannot bloom outside of the flowering season, nor escape from a cyclone, fire, or from an axe. And yet, plant life is already a prodigy of ascension from the chaos to the perfection of Creation.
An ascent which increases with animal life, free in its movements, in its instincts, and in the will of its creatures. There is also an order in it. However, the animal already enjoys the freedom of choosing for itself a lair and a mate, of escaping from the snares of man and from the elements; rather, it has an instinct, moreover, a magnetism of its own which warns it of an approaching cataclysm and guides it to look for safety, just as it has a rudimentary ability of thinking and deciding on how to feed itself, defend itself, offend, and on how to make man its friend and be a friend to man.
In the animal, beyond that of the creative perfection of the vital lymph (the blood) and reproductive organs as they are in plants, there are also the creative perfections of dust, stones and minerals. Do scientists perhaps not teach you that the skeleton, bone marrow, blood and organs are composed of and contain those substances called minerals of which the Earth that man inhabits and animals populate is composed after all?
Therefore, that which is in the lower kingdoms: minerals and plants, is already represented and perfected in animals. And the scale ascends. The note becomes higher and purer, more complete, by magnifying God more.
And here is man; man to whom to the three preceding kingdoms - the first deprived of lymph, the second, of motion, the third, of reason - the fourth kingdom is added: the one of the sensible creature endowed with the word, intelligence and reason. Reason which regulates instincts. An intelligence which opens the thought to comprehensions and visions that are more, sometimes infinitely, superior to those which give animals the capacity of thinking of a material good. The word which makes him capable of expressing his needs and affections, of understanding those of his fellow creature, and above all, of praising God his Creator and praying or evangelizing Him to whoever ignores Him.
In man, there is the mineral kingdom, the plant one, the animal one, the human one, and perfection in perfection, the spiritual one.
Here is the scale which rises to the supernatural order from the disorder of the chaos, by passing through the natural order. Here is how the natural creature in which all the elements and characteristics of that which form other creations are represented and combined in synthesis, are combined and perfected; to the creature - meditate well - made with mud, that is to say, with the dust in which the mineral salts are fragmented, and with the element of water, endowed with heat (the element of fire), with breath (the element of air), with a natural and intellectual vision (the element of light), with blood and humour [aqueous], with glands and reproductive organs (lymph), with instincts and with thought, with motion, freedom and will, God infuses His breath, that is "the breath of Life".
The soul: the immortal part like everything which is given directly from the Eternal One, the spirit that does not die, the spirit free from all the laws of time, diseases, meteorological cataclysms and free from human snares; the spirit created in order to re-unite itself with its Fount, by possessing it and enjoying it eternally, the spirit which only man, of his own will, can make into the slave of a cruel king, but that through its nature and for divine will, does not have any slavery but only a sweet progeny, the sublime destiny of inheritance to the Lord and His Kingdom.
Those who deny the soul and its immortality (immortality because it is a creation, infusion, and part of the eternal God) and who say that man has the intellect, genius, freedom, will and capacity of snatching its powers and secrets from Creation only because he is "man", that is, the creature who has evolved to a perfect degree, and not because of the soul, are similar to those who are stubborn and who claim that a perfect work of an artist (sculptor or painter) has life and vision only because it has been modelled or painted with a perfect reality.
Even an animal has life and vision. It also has rudimentary reason. In the animal that has been domesticated for centuries by man, this rudimentary reason has developed even more, having reached more reason than instinct in order to behave in its relationships with man, a thing which is missing in wild and savage animals in which only the instinct predominates. However, no animal, no matter how domesticated, loved or instructed it may be, can have that power of intellect and multiform capabilities which man has.
The soul is what distinguishes man from animals and makes him a god above all other created beings, the godking who dominates, subjugates, understands, instructs, provides, and makes him a god by way of its origin and future destinies.
The soul, illuminated by its divine origin, is that which knows, wills, and can [do things], with its already semi-divine strength. A strength which God powerfully supports and assists the more a soul elevates itself in justice and man divinizes himself with a life of justice.
It is the soul that gives to man the right to say to God: "my Father".
It is the soul that makes of man a living temple of the Spirit of God.
It is the soul that makes of the creation of man the most perfect work of Creation.
And thus one could say, "And so it is with man, and the just man, that one has reached the last step of the ascensional scale, the highest note of this divine song, the perfection of creative perfection." No. All of this is creation of a sensible creation. It is procession by procession. It is the union of the natural creation with a supernatural creation. However, it is still not Perfection.
Perfection is Jesus. Perfection is the Christ. The Man- God. Perfection is the Son of God and of Man. He who for Divinity did not have but the Father, He who for Humanity did not have but the Mother. He who in the garment of flesh enclosed the two Natures. Joined together in Him are these two natures, which an infinite distance that is between the perfection of even the holiest man and that of God, always keeps apart.
Only in Jesus are the divine and human nature joined and not confused, yet making up one sole Christ. In Him, the Son of man, all of the sensible creation is represented just as in every man; the supersensible creation is represented: the spiritual nature; and lastly represented is the Uncreated, the Eternal: God, He who without ever having been generated, is, He who without any other work than His love, generates.
The Christ: He who divinizes matter, who glorifies it, and who restores to Adam his dignity; the Christ: the ring that rejoins that which has been broken, the Lamb who revirginizes man in innocence which is Grace. Through His divine nature, He can do everything; through His humandivine love, He can do everything; through His will, He can do everything, because He gives everything.
Whoever knows how to contemplate Christ possesses Wisdom because He is not only divine Perfection, but He is also human Perfection. Whoever contemplates Him with wisdom sees the admirable person of the Son of Man in whom is the fullness of sanctity.
However, the wisdom which comes from this contemplation, and the imitation which naturally arises in one who truly knows how to contemplate, makes the soul so illuminated that she [the soul], enraptured by love and knowledge, exclaims, "Here is the living God, the Em- rnanuel. Here is the living mystery of the infinite Love of God!" And it is the comprehension of who Christ is: the compendium of triple Love, the testimony of the love of God towards man.
And so this is how the ineffable mystery of the virginal Conception illuminates itself of the incandescent flashes of Love, and the soul of the contemplative, overflowing with this Light which is Fire, of this Fire which is Wisdom, of this Wisdom which is Light, not only believes because of faith, but believes because he sees. And this is how the word of the seraphic John of Bethsaida is explained, "the one who loves is born of God and knows God... Whoever believes in Jesus Christ is born of God." Truly, only one who loves with his whole self can know God and the ineffable mystery which is the Incarnation of the Word.
Paul defines Him as the Firstborn of all creation, the image of the invisible God; the immaculate Lamb without blemish, pre-ordained from the creation of the world in order to make men participants of the divine nature, as Peter writes; victor, King of kings and Lord of lords, as John sings: The new Adam, not conceived by man but by the Spirit of the Eternal Lord, placed in Mary, the living paradise where the Trinity gets its compliances, the love of God took flesh, the Word loved by the Father incarnated Himself in order to be offered as a victim for the salvation of the world.
And the purest royal priestess was the ardent Virgin of the purest and strongest love that no creature born to man had ever had. She accepted it and offered Herself for all men, and the "Behold the servant of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word" was the "Let there be Light" of the truest creation, of the "recreation" of man to son of God and heir to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Therefore, it is because of Christ that men have Life. Because of the Son of God, Son by divine Nature and human perfection, men have Grace. Because of Jesus and in His imitation, men, sustained by Grace, will have the glory of the sons of God. Because of the Second Person, finally, and for His perfect obedience to the First, men have the Holy Spirit, that is, the Master, Strength, Love and Wisdom.»