«The world is populated, rather, it has been populated from the beginning by unreasonable creatures and by reasonable creatures. Populated not so there could be many of every species, but because many were the species of the unreasonable creatures, and above these, queen, was the pair of the two creatures endowed with reason and with a spiritual and immortal soul, very different from the one which is called "living soul" in Chapter 1, verse 30 of Genesis and which was not but the breath for which in the Book, it is written of them who "had breath in their nostrils". And all things that had been made were "good" to the judgment of the same God Creator who is absolute and perfect Goodness.
They were "very good". Of what goodness? Only that of serving as an aid to man in cultivating Eden, or as food, or as a delight? That is, of a passive goodness because that is what they had to do, or of a servile goodness towards man, a creature different from every other because of his erect position, the magnificence of his walk, the beauty of his face, the power of his actions and voice, for that dominion peculiar to a reasonable being which manifests itself in his secure will, in his decisive command, in his capacity of rewarding or punishing justly all things which command the inferior being to a natural subjection?
No. They were "very good" because they were still lacking in savageness, in wickedness and cunning; and the lion dwelled with the young sheep, and the wolf with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid, and the young ones of the bear grazed with those of the mare, just as it transpires from verse 19 of the 2nd chap. of Genesis, when it is said that Adam familiarly stays with all the animals of the earth and of the air, by giving a name to them all, without suffering an insult from the most ferocious ones amongst them, nor without striking fear in any of them since they were good and they felt instinctively that man, too, was "good", who would not have punished them without having had a motive to do so; and so, too, as Isaiah predicts that it shall be, when "the knowledge of the Lord", that is, the kingdom of the spirit will have truly filled the Earth. (Isaiah c. XI from v. 6 to 9).
Then Adam sinned and the Earth was cursed because of him, and from amongst the many tribulations which she [the Earth] bore to the fallen man, because he made himself insubordinate to God, was that of the insubordination of the inferior creatures towards him. And he, besides drawing with toil his daily nourishment from the earth that had become cursed, had to struggle to defend himself from the animals that were no longer good, rebellious towards him as he towards the Creator, enemies amongst themselves because the disorder had by now established its kingdom, which will last until the coming of the Day of the Lord and of His Kingdom, and heaven and earth as they are now will disappear and there will be a new heaven and a new earth, (Apoc. c. 21, v. 1) and the suffering of creatures will end.
Because the day and the eternal kingdom will truly have come for all the children of God who, until that day, will always have to struggle, sigh and groan, so as to generate the "son of God" from themselves, born as such not "of blood nor of the will of the flesh", but for having received the divine Life, by having received the Word made Man, He of whom Isaiah writes, repeating the words of the eternal Word, "... I have redeemed you and have called you by [your] name: you are mine,... I am your Saviour... All those who call my Name, I have created them for my glory, I have formed them, I have made them" and again, "They are my people, children who will not deal falsely."
To receive the divine Life means to strengthen man's own life to be able to do supernatural works. To be called by name and to hasten to the divine call means to do what the Man-God did and all that can be done because He has redeemed and saved you. Therefore, you have the supernatural elements in you, and first of all, you have Grace for which you can live as just ones and ascend as saints with your spirit, up to the rejoining of it with the flesh, in Heaven, and to each the degree of glory merited in correspondence and proportioned to the gift of Christ for each individual man.
It is not to be said nor to be thought of that in Heaven, though there being many different dwelling places, that is, different degrees of glory, that the reward of the blessed be more or less greater. No. The glory to which your celestial Father has predestined you to is constituted by living in His Tabernacle. Celestial blessedness is constituted by seeing God face to face. All the blessed will equally have this vision. Of a different degree because the gift of Christ was not given to all in equal measure, but nevertheless, in sufficient measure for all in order to reach the degree that the eternal Wisdom has known all along as reachable by that being. However, equal will be the reward because, be it the servant of a glebe or a powerful king, be it a learned person of the Church or one who is prompted and who barely knows how to say, and not even well, the most simple and common prayers, nor does he know anything else other than the essential truths of religion, if they live according to a measure of justice corresponding to the divine call and to the divine gift proportioned to their single mission in the world, they both use the treasures of God given to them with an equal venerable respect and make them bear fruit. Therefore, they will find their treasure in Heaven.
Not all the apostles, not all the prophets, not all the evangelists nor priests are saints in Heaven. Not all the hermits, not all the repentant, not all the martyrs for faith, blessed. Not all the virgins, not all the parents, not all the children "the 144,000 of the immense crowd that no one was able to count, of every nation and tribe, people and tongue" of whom John speaks. The mystical Body is made up of members of every species. However, all, even the most humble ones, sigh and suffer in the militant Church in order to give birth to Christ within themselves and reach "through unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto the perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", that perfection similar to the one of the Father that Jesus proposed to men as the perfect measure of the children of God.
This forming and generating in order to give to the light of the Heavens a "son of God" is very sorrowful work. For this reason, it is said that the saved people who sing praises to the Lamb is composed of those who have "come from the great tribulation" given by the sources which I have already explained to you: the devil, the world, and the I which has been made weak and altered by the consequences of the Sin. And the Pauline comparison "travaileth in birth" brings to mind these consequences more than ever.
If Adam and his wife had remained innocent and faithful to the Lord, then childbirth would have been without pain for the woman and it would also have been without struggle and toil for both man and woman to reach their ultimate end, so that sorrow would not have been necessary for all the descendants of Adam, similar to those of a long labour, in order to come to the day of birth in Heaven by having generated Christ within oneself: the true Christian, the other christ.
However, with sin came condemnation, and with condemnation, toil of every kind, physical and moral, and spiritual, in order to become "children of God". Toil which is based on the sure hope of final salvation. A sure hope to the extent of it being similar to seeing through, by intuition, that which the beatific future will be. And hope becomes faith. And faith gives you patience in expectation of that future.
Faith, hope, and charity, the three theological virtues, especially charity, help to achieve the complete development of how much seed is within you: Grace, the root of Glory which has need of the co-operation of all your intellectual and spiritual faculties, as the great St. Thomas Aquinas says, and of all your activities, be they sensitive, spiritual and supernatural ones, that is, those which are taken up with a holy appetite and desire towards God in order to efficaciously work in you and bring you to the attainment of the ultimate end: Glory.
The transformation of a carnal man into a spiritual man, and from this, into a child risen to the possession of the Kingdom of the Father, a fellow heir of Christ and with Christ, is actually similar to a long and labourious pregnancy and to a sorrowful labour.
However, you who are living it, comfort your spirit with the words of the divine Master, "When a woman is in labour, she has sorrow because her hour has come; but once she has delivered the child, she no longer remembers the anguish for the joy that a child is born into the world." And a much greater birth is that of a man who is reborn, through his own will, in spirit and in truth, from a carnal man to a son of God. And again, remember the other divine words, "Through your endurance, you will gain your lives", that is, you will give glory to them after the long earthly labour.
Work, therefore, with faith and tenacity at your transformation into children of God, and wait patiently to see what you now only believe to be and hope of being able to see. For no matter how long life and how difficult the trial may be, they are always immeasurably inferior in length and depth with regards to eternity and the beatitude that awaits you. For however arduous the causes and agents which make you struggle and give you sorrow, think that God has bestowed agents upon you and a ground of strength and victory infinitely greater than those which assail and afflict you: Grace, the Sacraments, the evangelical Word, and the Law made easier through inspiration placed there by Christ: love; and lastly, the help and prayer of the Holy Spirit.»