The Sweet Guest says,
«To fully understand the words of Paul, one needs to take Original Sin well into consideration.
A lesson that has been given many times, but that is never given enough because the sorrowful reality of that sin and the sorrowful, real consequences of it are often denied or are placed in doubt by many, by too many. And amongst these, there are plenty of those who more than anyone else should be convinced of the reality of original sin and of its consequences on account of the studies carried out, and above all, through their ministerial experiences which continuously place before their wise eyes the decadence of man who from a perfect creature has mutated into a weak and imperfect creature against the assaults of Satan and of what is around and within man, the marvellous creation enviously disturbed by the Enemy of God because of original sin.
Someone will say, "A lesson which repeats itself, and therefore, a useless lesson." It is always useful, for when it is required, you never know it enough, neither for yourselves nor for others.
It matters too much to Satan that you not know it! And for this reason, he creates blurs in you to darken your correct knowledge of this episode which has had no end or limit since the day in which he saw it and in those who committed it, but that, as through the seed and through blood all men have inherited life (existence) from Adam and Eve - and in the last man to be born on Earth, there will still be the descendancy of the two First Humans - thus, out of a fatal inheritance, it propagates itself from Adam, the first generator, from progeny to progeny, to all the children of man until the last one to be generated.
To thoroughly understand the confession of Paul, the desolate voice of all men who in wanting to do good perfectly feel incapable of executing it with the desired perfection, one needs to contemplate the fruit of the Sin first, and therefore, also of the first Sin, so as not to find condemnation and the consequences unjust.
Paul confesses, "I am carnal, sold and subject to sin." And he continues, "I do not know what I do; For I do not the good which I will, but the evil which I hate. Even if then I do what I will not, I acknowledge just the same that the law is good (in prohibiting or commanding what it prohibits and commands), however, (when I do the evil which I hate with my better part, whereas I do not the good that I would like to do) I am not, in these moments, I who act, but sin that lives in me... Good does not live in my flesh ... The will to do it is present in me ...but I cannot find the way of accomplishing it... When I have a will to do good, evil is already beside me... I take delight in the Law of God according to the inward man, but I see in my members another law which opposes itself to the law of my mind and it makes me a captive to the law of sin that is in my members...".
"I am carnal."
Even Adam was formed of flesh besides the spirit. But he wasn't carnal since the spirit and reason ruled above matter. And the innocent spirit, full of Grace, had an admirable resemblance with His Creator, intelligent enough as he was to comprehend how much he surpasses all natural things. The elevation of man to the supernatural order, that is, to the progeny of God by means of Grace, had elevated the intelligence of man, already very vast on account of the preternatural gift of innate knowledge and able, therefore, of understanding all natural things, to the supernatural intelligence of being able to comprehend what is incomprehensible to one who is not predisposed by a supernatural gift: of being able to comprehend God, and to a lesser extent, of being able to be a faithful image of His for order and justice, charity, wisdom and the freedom from every humiliating restriction.
Splendid freedom of man full of grace! A freedom respected by God Himself, a freedom not undermined by exterior forces or by internal stimuli. The sublime regality of the deified man, a son of God and heir to Heaven, a dominating regality upon all creatures and upon the one who is often now your tyrant: the / in which the poisons of the great wound ferment unceasingly within you.
When one says, "man, king of the sensible creation, was created with the power of dominion upon all creatures," one needs to reflect that he, because of Grace, and for the other gifts received from the first moment of his being, was made to be king even of himself and of his instincts, out of the knowledge of his ultimate purpose, for the love that made him supernaturally tend towards it, and for the dominion over matter and the senses existing in it. Joined to the Order and lover of the Love, he was created to know how to give to God what He is due and what is lawful to give to the T without debaucheries or instinctual dissoluteness. The spirit, intellect and matter constituted a total harmony in him, and this harmony was present from the first moment of his being, not in successive phases as some want.
There was no autogenesis and there was no evolution, but there was the Creation willed by the Creator. The reason, of which you are so proud, should convince you that the initial thing cannot form itself from nothing, and from a unique and initial thing cannot come everything.
Only God can put chaos in order and populate it with innumerable creatures which form the Creation. And this most powerful Creator did not have limitations in His creating, which was manifold, nor in creating already perfect creatures, each perfect according to the purpose for which it was created. It is foolish to think that God created, wanting to give a Creation of shapeless things and expecting to be glorified by these when individual creatures and all creatures would have reached, with successive evolutions, the perfection of their nature so that they would be suited for the natural or supernatural end for which they had been created.
And if this truth is certain for the lower creatures, with a natural end and limited in time, it is even more certain for man who was created for a supernatural end and with an immortal destiny of celestial glory Could one think of a Paradise whose legions of Saints, exalting around the throne of God, be an end product of a long evolution of beasts?
Present man is not the result of an ascending evolution, but the sorrowful result of a descending evolution, as the sin of Adam has forever marred the physical-moral-spiritual perfection of the original man. He so marred it that not even the Passion of Jesus Christ, though restoring the life of Grace to all those baptized, can annul the residues of the sin, the scars of the great wound, that is, of those foments that are the ruin of those who do not love God or who do not love Him much, and is the torment of the just who would want not to have even the most fleeting thought drawn from the voices of the foments and who combat the heroic battle all their life in order to remain faithful to the Lord.
Man is not the result of an evolution just as Creation is not the product of an autogenesis. In order to have an evolution, one always needs to have a first creative fount. And to think to have had the infinite [amount of] species from the autogeny of a single cell is an impossible absurdity.
In order to live, the cell needs a vital ground with elements that allow for and maintain life. If the cell formed itself from nothing, where did it find the elements in order to form, live and reproduce itself? If it did not exist even when it began to exist, how did it find the vital elements: air, light, heat and water? What is not yet, cannot create. And how then did the cell find the four elements at its formation? And who gave them to it, which fount had the seed of "life"? And when, supposing that this non-existent [cell] had been able to form itself from nothing, how, from its unique unity and species could there have come from it so many diverse species, as many as there are to be found in the sensible Creation?
Stars and planets, clods of earth, rocks, minerals, the varied and innumerable species of the plant kingdom, the even more diverse and numerous species and families of the animal kingdom, from vertebrates to invertebrates, from mammals to the oviparous, from the quadruped to the quadrumanous, from amphibians and reptiles to fish, from ferocious carnivores to docile ovines, from those which are armed and covered by hard offensive and defensive armours to insects that even the slightest thing is enough to destroy, to the gigantic inhabitants of the virgin forests, to the assaults to which none resist but those of their own equal colossal [counterparts], to all the classes of anthropoids up to the protozoa and bacillus; all having come from a single cell? Everything from a spontaneous generation?
If this were the case, the cell would be bigger that the Infinite One. Why did the Infinite One, the Without Measure in His every attribute, work for six days, six epochs, to make the sensible Creation by subdividing the creative work into six ascending, evolving orders of creation, this yes, towards an always greater perfection? Not so that He could learn how to create even more, but for the order which governs all of His divine operations. This order would have been violated - and this would thus have made the survival of man, the last creature to be created, impossible - if man had been made first and before the Earth had been created in all her parts and made inhabitable through the order placed in its waters and in its continents, and made comforting through the creation of the firmament; made luminous, beautiful and fertile by the beneficent sun, from the shining moon and the innumerable stars; made into a home, a dispenser, a garden to man for all the plant and animal creatures which cover and populate it.
Man, in whom the three kingdoms of the sensible Creation are represented in synthesis, was made on the sixth day, and in a marvellous truth, his creation by God through the spiritual soul infused by God into the matter of man. Man: true link of conjunction between Earth and Heaven, the true point of union between the spiritual and material world, the being in whom matter is the tabernacle for the spirit, the being in whom the spirit animates matter not only for the limited mortal life, but for the immortal life after the final resurrection.
Man: the creature in whom the Spirit Maker shines and dwells.
Man: the marvel of the power of God who infuses His breath, a part of His Infinite Self, into the dust by elevating it to the power of man, and gives to him the Grace which elevates the power of the man-animal to the power of life and to the condition of a supernatural creature, to a child of God through participation by nature, by making him capable of placing himself in direct relationship with God, by availing him to understand the Incomprehensible One and by making it possible and permissible for him to love He who is so superior over every other being that, without His divine gift, man could not, through his own ability and venerable respect, even only desire to love.
Man: the created triangle that rests its base - matter - upon the Earth from which he was drawn; who, with his intellectual faculties, tends to ascend to the knowledge of He whom he resembles; and touches with his peak - the spirit of the spirit, the elect part of the soul - Heaven, by losing himself in the contemplation of God-Love while Grace, freely received, unites him to God, and love lit by the union with God deifies him. For "the one who loves is born of God", and it is a privilege of the children to participate in the likeness of His nature. To the soul deified by Grace, therefore, man is the image of God, and because of love made possible through Grace, he is alike God.
On the sixth day, man was therefore created, complete and perfect in his every material and spiritual part, made according to the Thought of God, according to the order (the end) for which he had been created: to love and serve His Lord during his human lifetime, to know Him in His Truth, and to therefore enjoy Him forever in the other.
Thus, the one Man was created, the one from whom all of humanity would come, and the Woman in the first place, the companion of the Man and for the Man with whom he would have populated the Earth by reigning above all other lower creatures. Thus, the one Man was created, the one who as a father would have transmitted to his descendants everything that he had received: life, senses, material goods as well as immunity to every suffering, reason, intellect, knowledge, integrity, immortality, and finally, the gift of gifts, Grace.
The theory of the origin of man according to evolutionism, which is based on the conformation of the skeleton and on the diversity of the colours of skin and appearance in order to sustain its erroneous assertion, is not a theory against the truth of the origin of man - creature created by God - but in its favour. Because what reveals the existence of a Creator is exactly the diversity of the colours, of the structures, of the species of the creatures wanted by Him, the most Powerful One.
And if this is valid for the lower creatures, it is valid even more so for the creature-man; he who is man created by God even if due to circumstances of climate and of life, and even due to corruption - and so came the flood and then, much later, in the prescriptions of Sinai and in the Mosaic curses, so severe the command and punishment (Leviticus c. XVIII, v.23 and Deut. c. XXVII, v.21) - he shows a different aspect and colour from race to race.
It is a proven fact, ratified and confirmed by continual proofs that a strong impression can act upon an expectant mother in a way of making her give life to a little 'freak' who mirrors in its make-up the object which disturbed the mother. It is also a proven thing that the long co-existence amongst peoples of a different race than the Arian produces, through a natural mimesis, a transformation more or less marked of the traits of an Arian face in those people who are not Arians. It is also proven that special environmental and climatic conditions have an influence on the development of the limbs and on the colours of the skin.
Therefore, the clouds on which the evolutionists would like to base the edifice of their presumption do not sustain it, but actually favour its collapse.
There perished in the flood the corrupt branches of humanity groping in the darkness consequent to the fall, darkness in which only for the few just ones, as through heavy fogs, there reached once again a sole ray of the lost star: the memory of God and His promise.
Therefore, once the monsters were destroyed, Humanity was preserved and multiplied again from the lineage of Noah, judged just by God. Thus it was returned to the first nature of the first man, still made of matter and spirit, and remained so even after sin had stripped the spirit of divine Grace and of its innocence.
When and how was man to receive the soul if he was the end product of an evolution of brutes? Is one to suppose that the brutes received the spiritual soul together with animal life? The immortal soul? The intelligent soul? The free soul? Just the thought of it is blasphemous. How then could they pass on what they did not have? And could God have offended Himself by infusing the spiritual soul, His divine breath, into an animal which had evolved for as long as one wishes to think, but nevertheless having come from a long procreation of brutes? Even this thought is offensive to the Lord.
By wanting to create a population of children in order to spread the love of which He superabounds and to receive the love of which He is thirsty, God created man directly, with His perfect will, in a sole operation occurring on the sixth creative day in which He made a living and perfect flesh from dust, flesh that He then animated on account of his particular condition as man, the adoptive child of God and heir of Heaven. And not yet only of the soul "which even animals have in their nostrils and which ceases with the death of the animal, but of the spiritual soul which is immortal, that survives beyond the death of the body and which will re-animate the body beyond death, at the sounding of the trumpets of the Last Judgement and of the Triumph of the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, so that the two natures which lived together on Earth live together either by enjoying or suffering, according to what they both merited together, for eternity.
This is the truth, be it whether you accept or reject it. However, notwithstanding that many of you want to obstinately reject it, a moment will arrive in which you will know it perfectly and it will engrave itself into your spirit, making you convinced of having lost the Good forever for having wanted to follow pride and lies.
The truth is that whoever does not accept the creation of man as a work of God - and creation just as I have said, that is, in such a way by making him quickly and always capable, if he wants, of guiding himself in all his actions so that they may all be turned to the reaching of the end for which man was created; the immediate end: to love and serve God during his earthly life; and the final end: to enjoy Him in Heaven - cannot understand with precision exactly what constitutes the Sin, the reason for the condemnation, the consequences of these two.
However, follow me. My word is luminous and simple because I am God. And God, Infinite Wisdom, knows how to adapt Himself to the ignorance and relativity of His little ones, because I love the little ones provided they are humble, and I say to them, "Whoever is a little one, come to Me, and I will teach you Wisdom."
The test.
When man awoke from his first sleep and found his companion by his side, he felt that his happiness had been rendered complete by God.
It was already very great beforehand. Everything in Adam and around Adam had been made so that he could enjoy complete happiness, healthy and holy, and the delight that is Eden was not only around but also within Adam. The garden full of plant, animal and marine beauty surrounded him; however, within him, a garden of spiritual beauty blossomed with every kind of virtue, ready to mature into fruits of holy perfection; and there was the tree of knowledge suited to his state, and that of the supernatural life: Grace; neither were the precious waters of the divine spring missing which divided itself into four branches and always sprinkled the virtues of man with a new wave so that they could grow gigantically and turn him ever more so into a faithful mirror of God.
As a natural creature, he enjoyed what he saw: the beauty of a virgin world that just a short while ago had come from the will of God; he enjoyed what he could: his dominion over the lower creatures. Everything had been placed by God at the service of man: from the sun to the insect so that everything would be a delight to him.
As a supernatural creature he enjoyed - a reasoning and most gentle ecstasy - the understanding of the Essence of God: Love; of the relationships of love between the Immense One who gave Himself and the creature who loved by adoring Him. Genesis veils this faculty of man and this communicating to him by God in the phrase: "having heard the voice of God walking in Eden in the cool of the evening".
As much as the Father had given knowledge to His adoptive children proportioned to their state, He still continued to teach them. Because infinite is the love of God, and after having yearned to give again, and so much more does He give, the more the creature is a daughter to Him. God always gives Himself to the one who gives himself generously to Him.
Therefore, when man awoke and saw the woman made in his likeness, he felt that his happiness as a creature was complete by having all the humanity and All the superhumanity, being that the Love gave Himself to the love of man.
The only limitation placed by God on the immense possessions of man was the prohibition to eat of the fruits from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. This would have been a useless harvest, and unjustified, for man already had that knowledge which was necessary for him, and a measure superior to that established by God could only cause harm.
Consider: God does not prohibit to eat of the fruits from the Tree of Life because man had a natural need for these in order to live a healthy and long existence until a more living divine desire of revealing Himself totally to the adoptive son would not make God pronounce the following, "Son, ascend to my dwelling place and submerge yourself into your God", the call, without the suffering of death, to the celestial Paradise.
The Tree of Life that is encountered at the beginning of the Book of the Great Revelation (Genesis c. II, v.9 and c. III, v.22) and that is found again at the end of the Book of the Great Revelation: the Bible (Apocalypse of John c. XXII, v.2 and v.14) is the figure of the Incarnate Word - whose fruit, the Redemption, hung from the wood of the cross - of that Jesus Christ who is the Bread of Life, the Fount of Living Water, Grace, and who has given you Life with His Death, and you can always eat and drink of Him in order to live the life of the just and have eternal Life.
God does not prohibit Adam from eating of the fruits from the Tree of Life; however, He forbids from eating those useless ones from the Tree of Knowledge. Because an excess of knowledge would have awoken pride in man who would then have believed himself to be equal to God on account of his newly acquired knowledge. And he would have foolishly believed himself capable of being able to possess it without danger, with the consequent rising of an abusive right of self-judgement of his own actions and of acting, consequently, by trampling on every duty of filial obedience towards His Creator - given that, at this point, he was similar to Him in knowledge - His Creator who had lovingly showed him right and wrong, directly or by infused grace and knowledge.
The measure of God is always just. He who wants more of what God has given to him is concupiscent, imprudent, and irreverent. He offends love. He who takes abusively is a thief and a violent [man]. He offends love. He who wants to act independently in every respect to the supernatural Law is a rebel. He offends love.
In the presence of the divine command, the Progenitors had to obey without asking the whys that are always the undoing of love, faith, and hope. When God orders or acts, one must obey and do His will without asking why He orders or acts in that way. Every action of His is good, even if it does not seem so to the being who is limited in his knowledge.
Why should they not have gone to that tree, gathered those fruits and have eaten of those fruits? There is no use in knowing. Obeying is useful, nothing else. And being happy with having received much. Obedience is love and respect, and it is the measure of love and respect. The more one loves and venerates a person, the more one obeys him/her.
Here now, being the One ordered by God - the Infinitely Great, the Good, the generous Benefactor of man - man, out of respect and gratitude, should have given to God not "a lot" of love, but "all" the adoring love which he was capable of giving, and therefore all the obedience, without analyzing the reasons of the divine prohibition.
The discussions presuppose self-judgement and criticism to the order or other peoples' actions. Judging is a difficult thing and seldom is the judgement just; but never is it just when one judges a divine order useless, wrong, or unjust.
Man had to obey. The test of this ability of his which is the measure of love and respect was in the way in which he would have or would not have known how to obey. The means: the tree and the apple. Two small, insignificant things if you compare them to the abundance that God had granted to man.
And what? He had given Himself, God, and He prohibited the admiring of a fruit? And what? He had given a natural and supernatural life to the dust, He had infused His breath into man, and He prohibited the picking of a fruit? And what? He had made man the king of all the creatures and considered him not as His servant but a son, and He prohibited him from eating a fruit?
To one who does not know how to wisely meditate, this episode can seem to be like an unexplainable punctiliousness, similar to a whim of a benefactor who, having covered a beggar with riches, then prohibits him from picking up a little rock deposited in the dust. However, it isn't like this.
The apple was not only fruit in reality. It was also the symbol. The symbol of the divine right and of human duty.
Even when God calls and extraordinarily benefits, the beneficiaries must always remember that He is God and that man must never prevaricate, even if he feels extraordinarily loved. And yet, this is the test that only a few elect know how to surmount. They want more of what they have already received and they go to gather what was not given. And that is how they find the Snake and his poisonous fruits.
Beware, oh elect ones of God! Always remember that in your garden, so full of the gifts of God, there is always the tree of trial, and always looking to entwine itself around it is the Adversary of God and yours, in order to snatch an instrument from God and seduce you to pride and cupidity, to rebellion. Do not violate the right of God. Do not trample on the law of your duty. Never.
Many seem to be the instruments of God, the "voices", too many according to some. I say to you all, to the theologians and to the faithful, that a hundred times a hundred more would they be if all those whom God calls to a special ministry knew how not to gather that which God has not given, so as to have more still.
All the faithful have in the Decalogue, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, their test of faith, love, and obedience. For the "voices" and the extraordinary instruments, more than ever is that tree alluring and a snare of Satan. Because the greater the donation, the easier it is for pride and concupiscence to rise, the presumption of being sure of saving oneself in any case. Instead, I tell you that the more one has received, the more it is one's duty to be perfect so as not to have a greater condemnation which will not be given to the one who, having received only a little, has the extenuating circumstance of having known only a little.
I anticipate a question. Did that tree then bear good fruits and bad fruits?
It bore fruits no different from those of any other plant. However, it was the plant of good and evil, it became so according to the behaviour of man, not so much as towards the plant as towards the divine order. To obey is good. To disobey is bad.
God knew that Satan would have gone to that tree to tempt. God knows everything. The wicked fruit was the word of Satan tasted by Eve. The danger of drawing near to the plant was in the disobedience. To the pure knowledge which God had given, Satan inoculated his impure malice that soon fermented even in the flesh. However, Satan first corrupted the spirit, making it a rebel, and then made the intellect astute.
Oh!, well did they know, afterwards, the knowledge of Good and Evil! Because everything, even the new sight for which they then knew to be naked averted them to the loss of Grace that had made them blessed in their intelligent innocence up to that hour, and therefore, of the loss of supernatural life.
Naked! Not so much for the garments as for the gifts of God. Poor! For having wanted to be like God. Dead! For having feared of dying with their species if they hadn't acted directly.
They committed the first act against love with pride, disobedience, diffidence, doubt, rebellion, spiritual concupiscence and lastly, with carnal concupiscence. I say, lastly. Some believe that carnal concupiscence was instead the first act. No. God is order in all things.
Even in the offences towards the divine law, man sinned first against God by wanting to be similar to God: "god" in the knowledge of Good and Evil, and in the absolute and thus illicit freedom to act as he pleased and wished against all advice and prohibition of God; then against love, by loving himself disordinately, by denying God the reverential love that He is due, by placing the I in God's place, and by hating his future neighbour: his own offspring to whom he brought about the inheritance of sin and condemnation; and lastly, against his dignity as the regal creature who had had the gift of perfect dominion over the senses.
The sensual sin could not have occurred for as long as the state of Grace endured and the other consequent states. There could have been temptation but not the consummation of the sensual sin for as long as innocence lasted, and therefore, the dominion of reason over the senses.
Punishment. Not inordinate, but just.
In order to understand it, one needs to consider the perfection of Adam and Eve. By considering that height, one can measure the greatness of the fall into that abyss.
If some of you were to be taken by God and placed in a new Eden, leaving you who you are though giving you the same commands He had given to Adam, and you were to disobey like Adam, do you believe that God would condemn you with the same severity with which He condemned Adam? No. God is just. He knows what tremendous inheritance is within you.
The consequences of original sin have been repaired by Christ, in so far as He is Grace. But the weakness of the lesion in the original perfection remains. And this weakness is constituted by foments similar to infective germs which have remained latent in man, but that are always ready to enter in strength and overpower the creature. They are even in the holier of saints. And sanctity, after all, is none other than the fruit of the struggle and the continual victory which the soul and the reasoning of the just one sustain and suffer through the assaults of the foments in order to remain faithful to the Love.
Now God, who is infinitely just, would not be inexorable with one of you as He was with Adam. Because He would consider your weaknesses.
With Adam He was, being that Adam was endowed with all that could have made him the victor, and easily a victor, against temptation. Hence the punishment, that punishment in which one sees that if the prevacarious man did not respect the limits placed by God, God respected the limits that He had placed towards man.
God did not violate the free will of man, whereas man violated the rights of God. Neither before nor after the sin did God violate man's freedom to act. He subjected him to a test. Being God, He did not ignore that man would not have overcome it. However, it was just that He subject him to it in order to confirm him in grace like He had, for the same end, submitted the angels to the test and confirmed in grace those amongst them who had won the test. And, submitting him to the test, He left him free to act with respect to it.
If God had wanted to violate the free will of man in choosing his own destiny, He would have either not proposed the test or He would have bound the powers of the will in a way that man would have been impeded from acting badly. So too, if He had wanted to reward him in spite of everything, He would have either forgiven him everything in advance, or in order to have grounds to forgive him, He would have aroused the perfect contrition in his heart, or at least an attrition for the goods which he had lost, by helping, with a ray of His love, to turn the imperfect sorrow of attrition for the loss of the goods present in that instant and future instants, into the perfect sorrow of contrition for the offence made towards God and for the loss of His Grace and Love.
However, all these cases would have been injustices towards the angels who had been submitted to the test, who did not have their powers of the will bound, who had not been forgiven in advance, and who did not have aroused in their beings, and by God Himself, any impulse of contrition or attrition capable of arousing divine forgiveness. It is true that the angels were favoured more than men in not sinning because of the gifts of grace and those of their nature (spirits without a body, and therefore, without senses) and for being thus free from internal pressures of sense and from external pressures (the Serpent), and above all, through the knowledge of God; and in spite of this, they sinned without extenuating circumstances due to ignorance and the stimulus of the senses but through pure malice and sacrilegious will. However, there was none of what was said before. Neither from God nor from man.
God respected the human will. Man persevered in his state of revolt towards His divine Benefactor. He proudly left Eden after having lied - because by now his joining with Falsehood had occurred - and after having cited poor excuses for his sin while having made himself a belt of leaves, he testified that not because they were naked and were ashamed of appearing so to Him who had created and kept them clothed only with grace and innocence, but they were fearful of appearing so before God because they were guilty.
Fear, yes. Repentance, no. Hence God, after having expelled them from Eden "placed two cherubims on the threshold of the same" so that the two prevaricators would not fraudulently re-enter in order to loot the fruits of the tree of life, rendering nil a part of the just punishment and defrauding God once again of His right: that of giving and taking life after having kept it healthy, happy and longlived with the salutary fruits of the tree of life.
Therefore, a just punishment. The privation of how much man had spontaneously scorned Grace, integrity, immortality, immunity and knowledge. And hence, the loss of the paternal love of God, of His mighty help; and hence, the weakness of the wounded soul, the fever of the awakened flesh, reason, delirious and overwhelming; and hence, the fear of God and the loss of Eden where life was without hardship and sorrow; and hence, hardship, death, the subjection of woman to man, the animosity between man and man, amongst the children of a womb, crime, abuse, all the evils that torment humanity, fear of death and judgement, the torment of having provoked sorrow and of transmitting it to those most loved, in one with life.
Consequences
Beyond the immediate and personal condemnation and its immediate and personal consequences, the sin of Adam and the condemnation provoked by it has had consequences that will last until the end of time, weighing heavily upon Humanity. As the forefather of the human family, Adam has transmitted his infirmity to his descendants.
No different is it when a defective man procreates children. With more or less virulence, the poisons of the disease are in his offspring and in the offspring of the offspring, and even if with the appropriate medications, the hereditary disease, from being virulent and the giver of death, is able to transform itself into a more benign form, never will those children though, and the children of the children be as healthy as those who have come from a healthy blood.
It is written, "By the work of one man, sin entered into the world." And it is the truth.
The Book of Wisdom, the Letters to the Hebrews and the Book of Psalms tell of this sorrow before Paul. It is always from God, therefore, because it is always God who speaks through the mouth of His inspired ones.
This sorrow fills the world, it passes on from generation to generation, nor will it end for as long as the world does not end. With its howl, it has filled the place where Adam, with effort, drew bread from the clods onto which his perspiration dripped. And it has spread throughout the Earth, and the horizons, gorges, forests and animals, shuddering, have felt it and have transmitted it to one another. And like a blinding light, it made Adam and Eve see the immensity of their sin, not only committed against God, but also towards their flesh and blood.
Until that moment, the verdict of God had not yet destroyed the rebellion of man, who with the natural adaptability of an animal, - because man lacking in Grace is nothing more than the most perfect of all the animals - had quickly adapted himself to his new destiny, no longer easy and blissful as it was before, but not lacking in human joys which compensated for human sorrows.
The passion of the sense satisfied itself in the companion's flesh, not holily joined as God had wanted and as the innocent man, full of knowledge, had understood in Eden, to make himself one flesh only; the joy of creating by themselves - -oh, persistent pride! - new creatures, fooling themselves in this way of being similar to God, the Creator; the dominion upon animals, the satisfaction of the harvests and of being self-sufficient without having to thank anyone. Sensual joys, but nevertheless joys.
Oh, how much obscurity of the smoke of pride and of the mists of unrestrained concupiscences obstinately persisted in the arrogant two!
Childbirth was obtained with pain, but the joy of children compensated that pain.
Food was obtained with effort, but the stomach filled itself just the same and gluttony was satisfied, as the Earth was full of good things.
Disease and death were distant, and perfectly-created bodies enjoyed health and virility that made the arrogant two think that life was long-lived, even if not eternal.
And fermenting pride provoked the deriding thought, "Where is therefore the punishment of God? We are happy even without Him."
However, the green of the fields, one day, on which the multi-coloured flowers created by God blossomed, turned red with the first human blood shed upon the Earth, and the mother howled upon the dead body of sweet Abel and the father understood that it had not been a vain threat that promised, "You shall return to the ground from where you had been taken, for you are dust and into dust you shall return," and Adam died twice, for himself and for his son, since a father dies the death of his children seeing them dead, and Eve gave birth with torture, giving to the Earth the lifeless body of her beloved, and she understood what it was to give birth in sin.
However, equally in the same hour in which - and it was mercy again - the punishment of God struck, pride died and had given birth to repentance, the new life for which the Guilty two began the ascent on the path of Justice, and they merited after a long expiation and expectation, divine forgiveness through the merits of Christ.
And of Mary. Oh, allow Me here to celebrate this truth of the Immaculate who was, who is Mine, and who for our combined love has given to the world the Word made flesh: the Emmanuel.
Out of an act of unfaithfulness of the woman, mankind became acquainted with sin, pain and death. Out of the faithfulness of the Woman, mankind has obtained the regeneration of Grace, and consequently, forgiveness, pure joy and Life.
Out of concupiscence, death, all deaths. Out of the purity of a triple virginity - of body, intellect, and spirit - Life, the true Life, and of the risen flesh of the just and living forever, and of the mind open to the Truth, and of the spirit re-born to Grace.
Out of the union with Satan, brotherly hate and deicide.
Out of the union with God, brotherly love and spiritual love which embrace Divinity and Humanity, and they effuse on both, and they work for both, the Incarnate Love and the virginal Love, both offered voluntarily, totally, and consumed so that God could be consoled and man saved.
The death of Abel shattered the pride of Adam and made Eve an expert of the most atrocious birth to Darkness. The death of Christ shattered the Sin and it demonstrated to Humanity what it costs to give birth to Grace. The howl of Eve has a correspondence to the cry of Mary at the death of Her most Holy Son.
I say to those who believe Mary to be above sorrow because She is full of Grace, I say that not even Eve suffered in her deserved desolation that which Mary innocently suffered. Because if the howl of Eve marked the birth of Repentance, the cry of Mary marked the birth of a new era. And if in that hour marked by the first human blood, scattered by criminal violence for which the Earth was cursed twice and the ascent had its beginnings towards Justice, in the ninth hour, marked by the last drop of divine Blood, Redemption descended from the Heavens flowing like a river of salvation from the two innocent and wounded Hearts of the Son and Mother.
Truly, you have Life not only through the merits of Jesus, but also through those of Mary; and She, the Mother of Life, the Virgin Mother, pure, innocent, who did not experience labour pains in giving birth to Her Jesus, - according to the law of the fallen flesh - but experienced, however, and very well indeed, labour pains of the most sorrowful birth, by giving birth to you, sinful Humanity, to the new Life of Grace.
Through only one man, man knows death. Through the one Man, man knows Life. Through Adam, Humanity has inherited the Sin and its consequences. Through Jesus, the Son of God and Mary, Humanity again inherits Grace and its consequences.
This Grace, though not cancelling all the earthly consequences of original sin - since sorrow, death and stimuli remain to give you sorrow, fear and struggle - it [Grace] strongly helps you to endure present sorrow with the hope of Heaven, it helps you to face the fear of dying with the knowledge of divine Mercy, and it helps you to react and control stimuli or foments with supernatural aids through the merits of Christ and the Sacraments instituted by Him.
I said, "Grace, though not cancelling all the consequences of the Sin...". This is a point that many rebel against by saying, "Is this just? Couldn't the Redeemer have given back all the perfection?"
It is just. Everything in God is just.
Man was not wounded in a conflict with God for which God should feel obliged to repair the damage made either voluntarily or involuntarily. Man voluntarily wounded himself and consciously wounded himself. Now when a man injures himself in such a serious way in everyday life that he remains either mutilated, or defective, or marked at least with serious scars, not even the work of a doctor can cancel all the damage, and above all, re-construct the lost parts.
Adam mutilated himself of Grace and supernatural life, of innocence, integrity, immunity, immortality and knowledge. And as forefather of the entire human family, he has passed on his sorrowful inheritance to all his descendants.
However, Humanity, more fortunate than the single man, has been cured through Jesus-Saviour-Redeemer. More still: the "re-creation" in Grace, the life of the soul. And through the Sacraments instituted by Him, the virtues that they instill, and My gifts, he has also obtained the means to rise always more in perfection, as far as reaching the summit with the "supercreation" which is sanctity.
However, not even the Sacrifice of the Man-God, capable and sufficient of restoring to you the lost gifts and of re-elevating you all to the supernatural order - that is, to the capacity to love, know, and to serve God in this life in order to possess Him joyfully, forevermore, in the other - has cancelled the scars of the great wounds that man has voluntarily inflicted upon himself, and especially those of the triple concupiscence which is always ready to rewound itself again if the spirit is not watchful in restraining evil passions.
I have also said, "The knowledge of divine Mercy". Yes. Just as the inheritance of the Sin has obtained the Redeemer for you, so it has also obtained for you the knowledge of infinite charity, wisdom, and divine powers.
Man, the regenerated child of God through Jesus, knows what Adam did not know. He knows the immensity of the love of the Father who gives His Only Begotten Son to cancel, with His Blood, the decree of the condemnation of Humanity fallen in its Forefather.
Adam, through infused knowledge, and moreover, through Grace which elevating him to the supernatural order had rendered him capable of knowing God, knew just how much God loved him, because everything around and within Adam had the voice of divine love. And Adam, through the election to the supernatural order, knew how to love much. He knew how to love within the limit that God had judged sufficient during life to prepare man for the vision and the enjoyment of God after passing from Earth to Heaven. But never, not even in the greater raptures of love was the innocent Adam able to ascend, with his desire to know and love, as far as to the centre of the Truth, never was he able to submerge himself into this ardent furnace of Love that is also the Truth, and never was he able to possess the total knowledge of that truth that has the name of Infinite Love.
A man living on Earth cannot see what God is; and neither the Man-Adam, as soon as he was created and abounding in gifts. Everything had the voice of God. Everything spoke of God. Everything drew him towards God. Man was the greatly loved one and showered with gifts in order to help him to love. However, between man and God, there is always an abyss. They are two abysses that look at each other, and the Greater One attracts the smaller one, He flashes in front of his spirit, He dresses him with His fires and He makes him rich with His blazing lights upon the spirit of man as in a continual infusion of wisdom.
The Divine Love has, for man, the inviting gesture of two arms and a bosom which open and offer themselves through the embrace which beatifies, and human love gives wings to man so that he can forget the Earth and hurl himself towards Heaven, towards God who is calling him. However, a law of justice establishes that the total encounter, the fusion, is to be had only after the test which is perfected in grace.
For this reason, the more man rises in his attempt and desire to reach God, the more God eludes, He withdraws into His endless abyss. Nor does He do this out of cruelty, but to keep the forces and the wills of man active in order to reach Him, and in this way, increase the human capacity to receive profitably and to allow him to be filled with Grace, that is, once again, with God Himself. Because truly, man is much more apt to receive and possess God and His Most Holy Grace the more actively, tirelessly and intensely he moves towards God.
I have spoken in the present because such is the condition of man towards the immense Divinity, incomprehensible to every created intelligence. Even the greatest contemplators - and I place here the names of John and Paul in order to indicate to you two who have already been redeemed by Christ, to whom Heaven opened unto the third and to the seventh degree, and even Moses, Ezechiel and Daniel, who saw respectively, "the back of God", the "light left by the Infinite Light", "the Being with the appearance of a man" but who was an "electrifying fire" and a "voice that would make itself be heard from above the firmament", "the Ancient of days whose face was veiled by the river of fire that flowed rapidly in front of His face" leaving only the hair and the garments visible - they could not know the Unknowable One until the first two were amongst the mortals and the others in Heaven after the Redemption.
But such, particularly, was the condition of Adam, elevated to the supernatural order and therefore endowed like you who are restored and faithful to Grace, with a spiritual intelligence capable of drawing very near to the Truth of God, but not that of knowing the Mystery of God.
Only because of Jesus has man been able to penetrate further - oh, much, much further! - crossing distances, lifting veils, drawing near to the ardour of the Hearth One and Trine and understanding the immensity of the Love with a depth unknown to Adam.
Unknown due to a prudent measure. For if God had proposed the future Christ to Adam and if Adam had received the request from God to adore the Word Incarnate out of love and thanks to the Love, he would not have been able to refuse to adore the true Compendium of the Triune Love, because otherwise, he would have been guilty of the same sin as Lucifer who had become Satan for having refused to adore the Love made flesh, proudly claiming of being capable of redeeming man himself by being similar to God in substance, power, wisdom and beauty, instead of being similar to Him as an entity, and thus particularly offending the Holy Spirit, Giver of the lights, wisdom and truths contained in God. And the sins against the Holy Spirit, of which Lucifer and his like in rebellion are guilty, as in many men, are not forgiven.
God wanted to forgive man. And for this reason, He proposed the test of obedience. However, He spared him the test of adoration for the Word made Man in order that Adam would not sin in an unforgivable manner by envying the power of Christ, by having the presumption of being able to save himself and being able to save without the need of Christ, by denying the known truth as impossible that the Uncreated One could become "created" by being born of a woman, and that the Purest Spirit who is God could make Himself man by assuming human flesh.
Not you. You who are redeemed by Christ, you who having come after the advent of Christ, and above all, after the sacrifice of Christ, comprehend all the love of God. Christ has revealed this infinite love to you with Himself, with His word, with His example and with His actions.
You gaze at the baby Christ crying in a grotto and you are not frightened. Rather, that human weakness draws your spiritual weakness which is not disheartened nor frightened before the Infant God, the God who has annihilated Himself, He, the Immense One, into little members, He, the Powerful One, into members in need of all kinds of help for they are incapable, in any case, of providing for the needs of the body.
You gaze at the boy Jesus and you are not frightened. His wisdom is sweet. With a few words, He indicates to you the sure path in order to reach the House of the Father, "To busy oneself with that which God wills and with that which is to be given to God." The entire law is in this brief and wise answer. He says to you, speaking to those who represent the chosen humanity and are dear to God, "Do you not know that you must do this, only this, this above every other occupation, to have this love above every other love, so as to have a place in Heaven?"
And all of Christs' teachings are in these brief words, the Christ who says to Martha, "You busy yourself with too many things, one only is necessary." The Christ who says to the disciple who is still too attached to the things of the world, "Let the dead bury their dead," and again, "Whoever, after having put his hand to the plough and [who] looks back, is not fit for the Kingdom of God."
The Christ, who by loving His Mother with perfection, does not place Her before His mission but clearly says that it "is His blood he who does the will of God" and He is the first to do so because love towards God is always, dutifully, the greatest respect above any other love, even of the one for the most holy blessed Mother.
The Christ who rebukes Peter by calling him "Satan" because he tempts Him not to do the will of His Father. The Christ of the Sermon on the Mount. The Christ who says the last beatitude, "Blessed are they who put into practice the word of God," that is, the Law still.
The Christ who teaches Nicodemus how the old man, the heir of the fallen Adam, can attain regeneration and see the Kingdom of God by being "born again of water" and this water of life, He, the Christ, gives it to you "and through the Holy Spirit", that is, through love, and love is to do the will of God in obedience to His Law for all and in obedience to His individual decrees for everyone of you.
The Christ who teaches religion that is deemed "true", worthy of a reward on the part of Divine Justice, "I do not seek my will, but the one of He who sent me."
The Christ who gives to you the God who can be loved considerably: "You have never heard the voice of God or seen His face until now. But here I am. I am He on whom God has impressed His seal. Whoever sees Me sees He who has sent me. Whoever listens to Me, listens to the Father because I have spoken not of myself, but I have said what the Father has told me to say." And He unveils the love of the Father, who from the sin of Adam, draws the means to encourage you to a greater love, to a more precise knowledge and to a closer union, "The Will of my Father is that you know me for who I am: God."
The Christ who proclaims, "I do not do anything Myself, but say and do that which my Father wills. I always do that which pleases Him."
The Christ, the good Shepherd, who confesses the truest reason of the great love of the Father for Him, "For this does my Father love me: because I lay down my life voluntarily, because this is the desire of my Father, so that you may be saved."
The Christ who at the threshold of the Passion says, "My Father has sent me and has prescribed that which I must say and do. And I know that His commandment is eternal life."
The Christ, who of Himself, absolves Pilate by saying to him, "You would not have any power over Me if it had not been given to you from above. For this reason, He who has delivered me into your hands is more guilty than you of my death." And He who delivered Him into the hands of the authority, in a divine folly out of love for man, is His Father; the Infinite God before whom the Son says His perfect prayer, "Not mine, but may your Will be done. May your Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven", it is God the Father who permits the human authorities to be [like] so for as long as He wills, after which neither armed forces nor any other force will be useful to keep them at their place of command.
Oh!, the obedient Christ from birth to death, the Christ who says, "Yes" at the first cry, and says "Yes" with the extreme word on Golgotha, the Word of the eternal "Yes" to His Father, the Christ who is never frightening, who does not cause dismay with His law because He gives you the example that this law is possible to follow on the part of man since He - the Man - lived it before even teaching it to you, this Man-God made flesh who delivers Himself to death, to His enemies, to contempts, to the hardships, to poverty, to the flesh - and I placed death first and the flesh last, not out of error, but because it was sweeter to the Saviour to die than to the Word-God confining Himself in a flesh - He gives to you, oh men, the knowledge of what God-Love is.
And that most Divine Father, who immolates His most Beloved, gives to you the measure of the love of God for you.
It is said, "There is no greater love than that of he who lays down his life for his friends." However, one should also say, "The love of a Father who sacrifices His one, true Son to save the life of His adopted children, those who, true prodigal sons, have voluntarily left the paternal house and have made themselves unhappy by giving sorrow to the Father, is an even greater love."
And God has loved you with this love. He sacrificed His Only Begotten son in order to save a guilty Humanity, that Humanity which was not grateful, obedient, and loving to Him in the beginning of days when it delighted in the many things freely received from God, and as it is not grateful, obedient, and loving towards Him now that for twenty centuries has had from God not much, but All, the Immense One, God giving Himself in His Second Person.
After having meditated on all of this, it is sweet to conclude that if the punishment was great though not unjust, greater, infinitely greater than the punishment was Mercy. That Mercy which does not pay to restore to you, at the cost of His Sorrow, of His Blood, of His Death by crucifixion, the gifts of which Adam had defrauded you, but that gives Itself [Mercy] to you in the most Holy Eucharist, it, the salient fountain of Heaven, gives to you the waters of Life, it gives to you its sweet Law of love, its example, its Humanity in order to make it easier for your humanity to love Him, its Divinity so that your prayers will be listened to. It is the very voice of the most beloved Son living within you, through His Father, it gives to you the Holy Spirit with all His gifts for which the virtues infused with Baptism are powerfully supported to strengthen and perfect themselves, those gifts that greatly help the Christian to live his life as a Christian, that is, a life of worship, as a child of God, and that give you the strength of suppressing incitements, without undoing them, by making them of the "evil" that they are, the "good", that is, heroism, a means of victory, crown and garment of glory.
As with Paul, the life of every one of you is an interior struggle between the flesh and the spirit, between aspiring to the Good and the not always perfectly good action, a struggle in which God comforts and helps you. For this reason, let no one be scandalized if his neighbour confesses with a word and action of being like Paul, "carnal and subject". And no one should lose heart if he realizes being so. But may the example of Paul guide and sustain you."»